Photo: Sport-in-photo.com

Italian junior single-seater outfit Trident has announced a partnership with English karting team Ricky Flynn Motorsport that it will utilise as it expands into Formula 4 next year.

Trident is currently active in Formula 2, on course to win the FIA Formula 3 Championship’s driver and teams titles, and is running a Formula Regional European Championship title contender too.

Away from the track, it is expanding its headquarters in Ossonia near Milan and forming an F4 squad ready to enter the Italian championship in 2026. As part of its preparations for racing there, it has partnered with crack karting team RFM.

“I am delighted about this agreement with RFM. Having spent time in karting paddocks recently, I’ve become aware of the many top-level teams, but with Ricky, a special connection was immediately established,” said Trident’s founder and team principal Maurizio Salvadori.

“We share a common vision for how to develop this collaboration, and the partnership became obvious and immediate. The history and successes of their team are well known to all, and I hope that this partnership can offer new growth opportunities to young talents, helping them take the right next steps in their careers.”

RFM, founded and led by the man it is named after, has won some of the biggest trophies in karting. It has run five drivers to the CIK-FIA European championship title for junior karting and three to the World championship crown, and at the senior level of direct-drive karts it has won a European and a World title. Its most successful graduate driver is Lando Norris.

“I’m very happy and excited that Trident and RFM have come to an agreement and made a collaboration going forward,” said Ricky Flynn.

“Trident is a leading team in the world of all junior formula categories. After meeting with the Trident personnel, it became clear straight away that they have the same goals and motivation as I do and want to nurture and further the development of young drivers’ careers as they move up the racing ladder.

“When drivers have finished karting and move to formula cars, it was always a worry and concern of mine that they would not be guided properly. Now with this connection, I feel extremely comfortable and satisfied that all the hard work RFM has put into the drivers’ development will be continued to the highest level with Trident.”

The post Trident reveals Ricky Flynn Motorsport link-up for its move into F4 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Vinyi

Ukraine’s Sasha Bondarev has broken his leg in a huge double crash in the second round of the CIK-FIA European Karting Championship at Zuera.

Bondarev, who turned 13 last Wednesday, was 10th fastest in his qualifying group and had finished fourth, second, 17th and sixth in his first four Saturday heats. A strong result in the fifth would provide a better starting position for his super heat.

However his last heat started badly, as he dropped to 14th. It took two laps to return to 10th, and on lap four he rose to eighth. Two more drivers were picked off on lap five, and he was attempting a third at the final corner when the first crash happened.

Bondarev had picked the outside line around Dmitry Mateev through the corner, and Martin Molnar had picked the inside at the exit.

Mateev drifted wide slightly and Bondarev ran over the outside kerb, which led to him getting a little crossed up. As his kart turned slightly to the right, Mateev ran over his front bumper. His kart’s left-hand side went skyward, and the rear-left tyre bounced violently against Bondarev’s head. Both half-spun, and Molnar had already swerved to avoid Mateev before the clash that led to the Russian’s kart skating across the track.

Taym Saleh had to take avoiding action on Mateev’s kart, while the next drivers found Bondarev stationary and the wrong way on the racing line. Sandro Perez went left onto the grass, the next six went right, then Sankka Dahlstrom ploughed straight into him. Both karts did three quarters of a spin in the air, such was the impact velocity, and the race was red flagged. Mateev was able to walk away, but the other two required medical attention.

Bondarev had sustained a black eye and a compound fracture on one leg, and underwent further examination on his injuries once in hospital.

“I thank everyone who cared about me,” he said in an update on Sunday. “I have received several hundred messages with words of encouragement. Sorry for not being able to reply to everyone personally. Surgery was difficult but doctors say it was successful. I have a few months of treatment and rehab ahead of which I’m really hoping to get back on track even stronger.”

Bondarev qualified for the the final, despiting missing the super heat while he was in hospital. In the same room was Dahlstrom, who broke his left leg and hurt his right arm and also underwent surgery.

Mateev meanwhile came eight in the heat and super heat to line up 12th for the final. He climbed to eighth, dropped to 12th then up to sixth before a bumper penalty knocked him to 12th again.

Nathan Tye has taken over from him as points leader by winning the final. He went from third to first at the start, then pulled away while Arthur Dorison and Enzo Tarnvanichkul traded second place.

OK-Junior final results (15 laps)

The post Bondarev breaks leg in European Karting Championship crash appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Sport-in-photo.com

Ukraine is currently fighting a brutal and horrific war, and its plight has captured the world’s attention. One junior karter is showing the country’s “winning spirit” on the international stage. Meet Oleksandr Bondarev

Oleksandr ‘Sasha’ Bondarev was crowned WSK Super Master Series champion in the OK-Junior class last weekend. That’s a title previously won by the likes of Callum Ilott, Clement Novalak and Enaam Ahmed, and not only was it Bondarev’s first major karting title but it was also the first for OTK’s Lando Norris-branded kart chassis.

Ukraine’s last karting star to get the big results abroad was Andriy Pits, who won the Spanish and Portuguese titles in 2015, and Bondarev’s purple patch has arrived at a moment in time where national pride is keeping a population’s morale up.

The four-round SMS season took place over the past three months in Italy, and started strongly for Bondarev at the South Garda circuit. He took one win and three second places in his heats, came second in his pre-final and then took the win in the final with an in-the-dirt move at the last corner of the last lap on Rene Lammers, son of ex-Formula 1 racer Jan Lammers.

However his pass, which after going off track to get side-by-side with Lammers and then making contact with him as he rejoined for the final hairpin dislodged his front fairing, earned him a five-second bumper penalty and dropped him to fourth.

Round two was also at South Garda, and despite a slightly disappointing qualifying Bondarev was able to take a win and two second places in the heats. He led most of his pre-final but finished second, and it was the same in the final as from pole he led the first half but got beaten by Lucas Fluxa. On the plus side he was now points leader headed to La Conca.

He was able to pick up a heat win and a second place again, and 14th place in the wettest heat didn’t actually have too much impact on the rest of his weekend. From the front row he dominated his pre-final, then repeated that feat in the final by moving from fourth to first on the opening lap and crushing the opposition by nine seconds in 16 laps.

That put him in a comfortable position to wrap up the title at Sarno, and after topping his qualifying group and finishing no lower than second in the heats the job was almost done. Bondarev came out fourth in a super-close pre-final fight, and was up to second in the final before being spun to the back and finishing 33rd. But that result was still more than enough.

“It was a nice season. We had the pace the whole time, so it worked out well,” Bondarev tells Formula Scout.

“After the first round when I got the bumper penalty because of that last-lap move, I knew that even with that P4 in the final, I would still be able to fight for the SMS title because the other rounds I would have the same pace. In round two I just didn’t have enough pace in the final, and round three it was my type of conditions so we won, and round four we were just unlucky in the final.

“It wasn’t the wet conditions [where I thrived],” Bondarev says of his La Conca domination. “It was the wet on Saturday, and the rain washed away all the rubber that was driven up in the first two days of practice and on Friday. Then on Sunday in the no-grip conditions I had done testing on before, I was really comfortable with them so it just worked out really well.”

Bondarev came 28th in the series last year as a OK-J rookie and as a total privateer. He explains how impressing against the odds then enabled him to move to the crack Ricky Flynn Motorsport team for 2022 and be even more competitive.

• Feature: The team that taught Lando Norris to be world champion

“Last year we had a family team. It was my coach, my grandpa, my mum and dad [as admin and team manager] and me. It was a five-person team, and then we were driving with a Tony Kart chassis and TM Racing engines. And we actually achieved one podium in Sarno, a second place in the WSK Euro Series.

Photo supplied by Bondarev FB

“I haven’t really been able to talk to anyone [from Ukraine who’s an ex-racer], but a lot of people from my family, like my grandpa, they know already a lot about racing even though they weren’t a driver. So I was able to talk to them, but otherwise I was kind of on my own.

“My grandpa was doing the data and the telemetry, and also he was filming videos of me driving. And then we would watch them after the race and analyse the bad things that I did.”

Was there any support from kart manufacturer Tony Kart? “We just bought the chassis and that was it.”

Bondarev started his junior karting career with his tiny crew by finishing runner-up in the 2020 Trofeo Andrea Margutti. In 2021 they then came seventh in WSK’s Euro Series and 10th in its two-round Open Cup, 21st in the CIK-FIA European championship and made the final of the CIK-FIA World championship at Spain’s Campillos circuit. They drove all around Europe together, and “they were fun, but they were really exhausting” roadtrips due to the intensity of the karting schedule.

“We had a plan to have only two years in OK-J. So we wanted to in our privateer team teach me all the basic driving techniques, and when I come to a big team like RFM I can already start showing the results straight away.

“Of course learning how to battle in races is very important because it’s very important not to crash in any races, because if you crash and spoil the race you already ruin the whole weekend. So we started with that actually, and then it was like the smoothness of the driving because in OK-J if you miss the corner then the whole lap is ruined. Not like in Minis for example. So all those basic things we did, and I was improving every race last year.”

RFM is best known for taking Norris to the 2014 CIK-FIA KF Karting World Championship, and usually has one of the best line-ups on the international karting scene so to land a seat at the team was a vote of confidence from its eponymous boss.

Photo: Performance Motor Media

“My mum called Ricky to see if we can join RFM,” Bondarev recalls of how his 2022 move was instigated. “The thing is that we were watching each other throughout the whole season. Ricky was watching my results, we were watching the team results, and then we got together.

“It feels really nice [being on a LN kart] because Lando is already a F1 driver, so you can take some things from [watching] him. You watch his races, he came to a race last year, although I wasn’t with RFM yet. It feels awesome.

“Of course Lando is one of my motorsport heroes, because he was one of the youngest drivers to F1 in recent years. He already went to McLaren, and I really like McLaren. From past and present, I also really like Sebastian Vettel.”

It wasn’t just privateer efforts that put Bondarev on the map in 2021, as he also competed in the nation-based FIA Karting Academy Trophy which uses spec Exprit chassis and Vortex engines. The Wackersdorf season opener in Germany didn’t go to plan until the final, where he climbed 17 places to finish eighth, then at Adria in Italy he won two heats and rose to third in the points with third place in the final. In Sweden’s Kristianstad finale he moved up a spot in the standings by coming second in all his heats, and led the final’s first half. He spent the second half of the decider defending third from Romania’s Darius Babaioana, and not long after eventually being passed he spun out, consigning him to third in the championship.

“It felt really nice representing my country there. Especially this year with the war and everything, it’s been very important to me to still show the results in these races and show that Ukraine has a winning spirit,” Bondarev says.

“It’s very good for the Ukrainian driving scene that are there are drivers in the WSK and the FIA already [such as Yaremiy Oleksiy and Mark Brovko]. So they do celebrate. A lot of people write comments to me.”

“It feels really important right now [to be free to race and to get strong results] because all the people in Ukraine are in a very hard situation right now. So I’m trying to show everyone, even in the karting world, that I can still show great results in racing, which is not the strongest sport in Ukraine.”

Photo: KSP Reportages

Combining the results of the past two years, the experience gained driving as a privateer and with one of karting’s biggest teams, the ability to speak five languages fluently (Ukrainian, Russian, Spanish, Italian and English) and the fact that aged just 12 he is handling both the usual pressure of international sport and the additional stress brought about by representing his nation while also seeing it come under devastating attack in real time, it’s remarkable that right now no Formula 1 junior teams or major driver management companies are in contact with Bondarev, but “we hope that if I continue showing great results, then I am going to receive some contact from the big teams”.

His multilingual skills come primarily from living in Spain and Italy as his karting career became more busy abroad. While he raced a kart for the first time in 2014, he didn’t do so frequently until 2015 in micro karting.

“In Ukraine there are three circuits, and it wasn’t many drivers in each category, probably like 10 or 15,” recalls Bondarev. “So I drove there for two years, and then we immediately decided to move to Europe because I have to improve.”

There were two years living in Spain, the second spent racing in Italy before he moved there during the COVID-19 pandemic to make travel easier, and Bondarev’s studies are now online. The infrastructure to do that is a byproduct of the pandemic, and has helped him juggle karting and school commitments without the two clashing mentally or logistically.

There’s a brief break before Bondarev returns to track for CIK-FIA competition, and he will do the WSK Euro Series again too.

Next year he will step up to OK karts, and “most likely I are going to stay with a big team”. He will “at the same time do some KZ and Formula 4 testing” and once he turns 15 the plan is to do “a whole season driving in F4″ in 2024. After that, “if we’re really fast” the aim will be FIA Formula 3, then of course to become the first Ukrainian to race in Formula 2 and F1.

Ukrainian single-seater stars

Sergey Chukanov – 13th in 2008 & ’09 German F3 (’09 Trophy class champion), 16th in 2006 FR2.0 NEC, 3rd in 2007 F1600 Russia
Alexey Chuklin (naturalised Ukranian) – 11th in 2013 Euroformula, 3rd in 2016 VdeV Single-Seater Challenge, 13th in 2011 FR2.0 NEC
Ivan Peklin – 9th in 2020 French F4
Alex Partyshev – 10th in 2021 F4 UAE, 25th in 2021 Spanish F4

The post Ukraine’s new racing champion flying his flag on karting’s world stage appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: CIK-FIA / KSP Reportages

Karting is the training ground of most drivers before single-seaters, and it’s always useful to check what’s happening in the major championships to see what future talents may eventually burst onto the scene

The CIK-FIA World and European championships are the main focus of the karting world, with their champions invited to the same prize giving gala as the winners of Formula 1, Formula 2 and Formula E. That’s not to say that’s the only location of talent in the karting world though, with the WSK-organised events focused in Italy always providing a hotbed for top drivers, while several national championships are rivalling the continental series for talent, if not drama.

Delays caused by the global coronavirus pandemic this year meant some drivers were old enough to move up to more powerful karts and contest full seasons in those rather than switching machinery halfway through 2020, while others turned 15 in time to even go into Formula 4 before the bustle of end-of-year karting fixtures.

Some of the biggest events on the scene were called off, including the WSK Final Cup, Trofeo delle Industrie and the USA’s SuperNationals. Travel restrictions and academic calendars that were dotted all over the place denied many drivers the chance to compete internationally, and once schools did open again many became less lenient on taking time off for sport given the urgency to make sure students’ pulled in the learning deficit that had occurred during lockdown.

Then there was of course the disgraceful actions of Luca Corberi and his circuit-owning father at Lonato, where a clash with a rival launched the younger Corberi into the barriers during the race. He then took his bumper and tried throwing it at that same driver while racing action continued, and instigated a paddock brawl afterwards. Corberi elected to step away from kart racing for life, Italy’s national federation ACI suspended the licences of the family and their circuit, and the FIA launched an investigation under the eye of its karting president Felipe Massa, but so far there has been no public outcome.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli ITALY 14y/o
OK CIK-FIA European champion, WSK Euro Series champion   KA100 J & X30 Junior USA Winter Series champion

The Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 protege looked immediately at home in senior karting, after often looking unstoppable as a rookie in OK Junior karts in 2019, and massively impressed by winning four titles. It wasn’t an easy year on the kart though.

His OK debut came in January’s WSK Champions Cup, and he was straight on it. He took pole, and won his first heat with the fastest lap of the event. However, he missed the rest of the weekend, leaving him classified 43rd, after going down with a flu.

On his return a week later in WSK’s Super Master Series he took pole, added another heat win and finished 18th overall. Once back at peak physical condition he was at the top again, claiming pole and four preliminary race wins on the way to third in round two against experienced drivers, then in the back-to-back final two rounds during lockdown claiming another pole, four heat wins and victory in both pre-finals. He came second overall in round three, and needed fifth in round four to be champion. But an incident at the start of the title-deciding race dropped him to the back and cost him the title.

Antonelli’s year also ended on a low, as he broke his left leg and foot after crashing into Maya Weug’s kart in the wet final of the CIK-FIA World Championship, the biggest contest of them all. That had been one of the only competitions all year where Antonelli hadn’t looked like one of the overall favourites, although he did set the fastest lap of the Algarve event.

He was one of the four pacesetters in qualifying, split into groups for a 74-kart entry, and was second-best rookie in the heats. While he finished one heat down in 15th, he also won one against defending two-time champion Lorenzo Travisanutto, but was eventually classified 35th after his painful final crash.

The Italian also earned a first FIA title in the European championship. He was overall winner of two rounds, second place in the other, and a week after the finale also won the WSK Euro Series crown. In addition to third in the South Garda Winter Cup back in February, he also went on to come ninth in the Iberia-based Champions of the Future (CotF) series.

At the start of 2020 he made his final junior karting starts, winning two of the USA’s winter series with an unbeaten run in all eight of the event finals he contested.

Taylor Barnard BRITAIN 15y/o
OK WSK Champions & Open Cup winner, 2nd in CIK-FIA European Championship, 5th in CIK-FIA World Championship

While much of the media wrote that Nico Rosberg was making a first foray into team management when he announced in October he was entering Extreme E, his pre-existing karting team had been busy winning races with British protege Taylor Barnard. In 2019 he announced himself immediately in senior karting by winning the WSK Champions Cup, and won it again at the start of 2020 before heading to the USA for two rounds of its winter series, coming 22nd in the X30 Senior class.

He came second in the opening Super Master Series (WSK SMS) round, had a bumper penalty demote him to 10th in the South Garda Winter Cup, then came fifth in the WSK SMS points once karting resumed after lockdown. He joined the WSK Euro Series opener at Sarno too, and a heat win and sixth in the final left him 15th overall as he skipped the other rounds.

While these results weren’t spectacular, Barnard was delivering in the more hotly-contested CIK-FIA events. In the first European championship round at Zuera, he took pole and won all of his heats – one of very few to do so in top-class karting in 2020 – which put him on pole for the final. Antonelli got by on lap one, and he could only hound him thereon.

Barnard claimed the points lead at Sarno with another perfect run to the final, and this time converted it into a lights-to-flag win. In the Wackersdorf finale he was fourth fastest in his qualifying group, but that didn’t cost him the title against Antonelli. Following a strong first two heats, a bumper penalty in heat three dropped him to 16th and he lined up eighth for the final. He was fifth by lap two, and was third before another bumper penalty left him sixth. As a result, Antonelli just outscored him.

New opposition was then found in shifter karting and F4. Barnard struggled with starts in the KZ2 karts on his debut in the Euro Series, and came 46th, but drove KZs in a UK championship cameo at Fulbeck and was sixth in the final. In Italian F4 he impressed even more, almost scoring on his debut and starting his last race on the front row.

His year in OK karts ended pretty finely too. The CIK-FIA World Championship began by Barnard beating the victory favourites in their first heat together, and wins in the next two put him on pole for the final. But in the rain he could only come fifth. He came sixth in CotF, then successfully defended his WSK Open Cup crown with victory in nearly every race.

Morgan Porter BRITAIN 19y/o
Rotax Senior Max Int. Trophy winner, British Champion, British Kartmasters GP winner  OK 4th in CIK-FIA World Championship

Photo: Rotax Int. Trophy

Morgan Porter is used to domestic success, having won the British Kartmasters Grand Prix and been a title frontrunner in many British series during his time in junior karts, and this year he not only found form in senior karts but also did it abroad.

Most of his success came on Rotax-engined equipment, and at home that included becoming British champion for the first time and winning the grand prix at PFI for British F4 and karting outfit Argenti Motorsport.

Using the equivalent IAME-built X30 engines he was ninth in the Winter Cup, seventh in the British championship – falling out of title contention after a crash – and then fifth in the International Games for Kart Republic.

Before the International Games he entered the CIK-FIA World Championship for OK karts, looking to improve on the seventh place he claimed on his debut in 2019. In qualifying he was second fastest in his group, and was in the top five in all of his heats against a grid of that year’s OK class stars and many of its established frontrunners from previous years.

The rain definitely mixed things up in the final, but Porter was mistake-free on the way to fourth place behind a dominant Tony Kart podium lockout. His only OK experience in the 12 months prior had been CotF’s circuit visit, and he was 33rd in that.

Porter also went to the Rotax Max International Trophy at Algarve in mid-December, where the grid was formed of many of his British rivals and some of the stars of other Rotax-powered series across the globe.

The student bricklayer was second fastest in his qualifying group, then was narrowly denied three heat wins out of three. After winning the pre-final, few were betting against him for overall victory. He did just that, but the route there wasn’t easy as he fell to third on lap one, then made it back into the lead before dropping back to fourth and then fifth. On the final lap he climbed from third to first to claim his biggest karting win yet.

Nikita Bedrin RUSSIA 14y/o
OK WSK Super Master Series champion, Champions of the Future champion, 4th in WSK Champions Cup & Euro SeriesWard Racing’s Russian would have been the star rookie of senior karting in 2020 were it not for Antonelli, but he did a similarly as exciting job and was fighting for wins in everything he raced in.

Like Antonelli, Bedrin’s debut came in the Champions Cup and they were just a tenth of a second apart in qualifying. He was then just 0.273s from winning his first ever heat race, losing out to reigning World Junior champion and Spanish F4-bound Thomas ten Brinke, and crossed the line first in his second heat but was denied victory by a bumper penalty. The same occurred in the pre-final, and Bedrin then had a crazy run to fourth in the final after falling as low as 11th place.

That first win didn’t come in the WSK SMS opener either, despite taking pole, as he often slipped down the order from top grid spots. In among his up-and-down start he came fifth in the South Garda Winter Cup, taking his first heat win in the process.

On the return from lockdown Bedrin looked a much improved karter, and he went totally unbeaten in the next two WSK SMS rounds to win the title. That put him on a high going into the CIK-FIA European Championship.

He was a heat winner at Zuera, then led the early laps of the final before finishing third, and at Sarno he also took a heat win. A bad result in one of the other heats left him needing to charge up the order in the final, and he made it up to fourth. At Wackersdorf a 10s penalty for undertaking under yellow flags in one heat and a 10s penalty for a move the stewards looked unfavourably upon in another left him on the final’s 10th row, and his climb to 12th place earned him fourth in the points.

It was all part of the learning curve for Bedrin, whose WSK Euro Series campaign also included several heat wins and final podiums that again resulted in a top-four place in the standings despite missing the first round. His scoring rate was second only to the title-winning Antonelli, and his race pace usually exceeded his results.

Finishing lower than he started also hurt him in the world championship, ending up 29th, and he showed his pace at Algarve not only that weekend but the one before too, when he claimed the CotF title by finishing 15th from pole in the final.

Callum Bradshaw BRITAIN 19y/o
OK CIK-FIA World champion, 22nd in Champions of the Future, 34th in WSK Euro Series   X30 Senior 22nd in IAME Euro Series

Since winning the Andrea Margutti Trophy as a OK rookie in 2017, there hasn’t been a huge number of big event results for Bradshaw as he has focused on the cheaper championships using X30 engines.

His first crack at karting’s official world championship resulted in 11th place, and he improved to sixth on his second attempt. In 2019 he didn’t compete, but was second in the IAME Euro Series and was a finalist for the Volant Winfield.

He returned to the biggest stage in karting as a factory Tony Kart driver this year, warming up for it with part-time campaigns in multiple OK and X30 competitions.

Bradshaw’s OK efforts included 34th in the WSK Euro Series, making the final in both of the rounds he contested, and reaching the final in the CIK-FIA European Championship finale too. Lastly came the CotF warm-up at Algarve, where Bradshaw laid down his world champion credentials by charging up to fifth in the final.

In X30s he was even more impressive, finishing first and second in the opening two rounds of the British championship (but dropping to 37th in the points after skipping the rest of the season), and winning the sole IAME Euro Series round he entered. The equivalent of a black-and-orange flag got him disqualified from the final of the IAME Winter Cup, where he had been a frontrunner throughout and had led the final before picking up damage that led to him being classified 36th.

It was the world championship where he was against his toughest opposition, who he beat in his qualifying group to take pole. Two seconds places, a win and a fourth in the heats put him on the front row for the final alongside Barnard, and once the rain arrived the status of world champion was all basically secured within the first two minutes.

It took just over a lap to take the lead, but in the remaining 19 he stretched out a lead of over nine seconds before throttling back and having it reduced to 8.780s at the finish. Fastest lap unsurprisingly went to Bradshaw too.

Mathilda Olsson SWEDEN 19y/o
Rotax Senior Euro Trophy champion, 3rd in Swedish championship, 5th in Winter Cup   X30 Senior 16th in IAME Winter Cup

Photo: Prins Carl Philips Racing Pokal

Olsson now has two Rotax Max Euro Trophy titles to her name, but once again her lack of involvement in OK competition leaves question marks over how the Strawberry Racing driver checks up against the fastest in the open-engine formula.

Her year began in Rotax’s Euro Winter Cup at Campillos in Spain, going second in qualifying and making the podium in all of her heats to line up on the front row for the first final. She came third in that, 0.448s from victory, and 11th in final two.

The main season got going at Genk in Belgium, and Olsson kicked off proceedings with pole position, followed by victory and fastest lap in her opening heat. It was the same story in her second heat, and she was 0.669s off victory in the heat after that. From pole in the wet first final she finished a distant sixth though, and was third in final two to leave fourth in the points.

Qualifying didn’t go to plan in round two at Wackersdorft, but that didn’t stop her from winning all her heats and bagging pole for final one. She looked set for victory in that until an error on some dirt brought onto the track put her off and down to 10th. Olsson charged back up to fourth, a result she repeated in the second points-scoring final to take the series lead.

Adria hosted the season finale, as the second Genk trip was cancelled, and Olsson had a tricky time. She qualified and finish seventh for her first heat, albeit with fastest lap, and was pipped to victory by Zsombor Kovacs next time before winning her final heat. In a photo finish, Olsson edged Juho Valtanen to win the first final, then did it again in the final race of the season to become a two-time champion by some margin.

The European title, combined with wins in the Swedish championship, meant Olsson headed to the International Trophy at the end of the year. It wasn’t a great weekend, and she ended up a lap down in 33rd place in the final.

The equivalent contest for X30 Senior – the IAME International Games – ended even more sourly in 35th as she was out on lap two, after being fourth in the pre-final. In the IAME Winter Cup, her final was ruined by a bumper penalty. There were other reasons to smile in 2020, including a GT4 test with Prince Carl Philip after winning the karting race bestowed with his name.

Freddie Slater BRITAIN 13y/o
OKJ CIK-FIA World champion, WSK Open Cup champion, 2nd in South Garda Winter Cup, 3rd in Champions of the FutureA busy first full year in junior karting was also a very productive one for Slater as he became world champion.

Last year he gained mileage in X30 Junior, and stayed in the class for 2020’s IAME Winter Cup. After being denied group pole by 0.092s, he won his first heat by 0.084s. He was second in the pre-final and final before penalties, eventually coming fourth.

Slater’s OKJ debut in the Champions Cup was mostly for learning, but he was in the top five in all of his heats and was second in the pre-final. He was a penalised 14th in the final – his early form littered with racecraft errors and a qualifying deficit.

The South Garda Winter Cup was next, and he was runner-up from 10th on the grid. In WSK SMS he didn’t make it to the first two finals, but post-lockdown seemed a much improved racer; fifth and seventh in the next two rounds lifted him to eighth in the points. That was matched in WSK’s Euro Series with lowly qualifying results but strong pre-final performances.

Qualifying was his bugbear at the start of the CIK-FIA European Championship too, but by round two it looked improved as he was fifth in his group. Making his usual race gains from a higher grid spot, he took a heat win and two seconds. Retiring from his last one meant he started ninth for the final, but rose up the order and passed three drivers on the final lap to steal second. He couldn’t keep counting on overtaking for good results, and qualifying 10th for the Wackersdorf finale put him on the back foot. While he made the final, he was mired in the pack and was out after two laps, dropping him to seventh in the points.

The warm-up CotF events went better as Slater took group pole at Zuera. This time he was dropping places in heats instead, and came second in the final. At Algarve he started further back, finished fifth and actually came quite close to the title.

His Algarve return for the world championship started dramatically, as track limits abuse cost him his three best qualifying laps. He still came fifth in his group. Then by finishing no lower than fourth in the heats he ended up third on the grid for the final. Overtake two cars early on and he had victory sorted, right?

That’s kind of what happened, as Slater led every lap, but had to fight hard on the last one. Later that month he played the same trick in the WSK Open Cup, consistently rising up the order in the heats at Adria to set up a round and title win.

Connor Zilisch USA 14y/o
OKJ FIA Karting Academy Trophy winner, 25th in WSK Euro Series   Junior ROK & 100cc Junior Florida Winter Tour champion

Run in parallel to the world championship for junior drivers is the nation-focused, single-make FIA Karting Academy Trophy. This year Connor Zilisch of the USA won it, and he also starred on home soil.

His 2020 began in the Florida Winter Tour, and the destination of the 100cc Junior title looked decided after the first round as Zilisch absolutely dominated. He was beaten in two heats in round two, but still took the overall win again. It was a similar story in the final round, as he built a huge points margin over the likes of rising stars Westni Workman and Chloe Chambers.

He did the Junior ROK tour alongside, winning every race of round one, dominating the final of round two and beating Mercedes F1 junior Alex Powell to land the title in round three. The racing in Europe after would be the big test for Zilisch, but he knew what to expect as it was his second full year in juniors.

The first round of the Academy Trophy at Adria didn’t take place until August due to the pandemic, and Zilisch won two heats to put himself on pole for the final. From the front he took a crushing 4.810s win to begin another title run.

Like Slater there wasn’t many great qualifying results, but the race results kept landing and Zilich was on the podium in all of his heats in round two at Genk. He then won the final again, opening up another ominous championship lead.

Turning around his qualifying form for the Lonato finale propelled Zilisch to two more heat wins, but a collision with a rival led to him retiring early in the final. Such was his dominance, it had no impact on the 28-point advantage he won the title with.

Zilisch was always fighting for results from lower down the grid in his other races, entering two WSK Euro Series rounds, two European championship rounds (not making the final in either on the way to 49th), coming 44th from a WSK SMS cameo and looking quick in the world championship, despite a stall in one heat – before another opening lap final clash left him 27th.

Tuukka Taponen FINLAND 14y/o
OK 4th in WSK Open Cup   OKJ 2nd in CIK-FIA World championship, 3rd in CIK-FIA European Championship

Taponen’s third year in junior karting was by far his best, and he even made a splash when he made his OK debut in 2020.

The reigning Finnish Junior champion’s two main focuses arriving into the year were the CIK-FIA World and European championships, and were the two competitions he saved his best performances for.

He was the points leader after the first European round, taking pole, a heat win and then the final win from ninth on the grid. The Tony Kart driver took another heat win in round two, and was passed for third on the final lap of the final. Despite scoring no points in round three, he was still third best in Europe.

In the world championship he as ninth after the heats, although did well to recover from an opening lap plunge down the order in one to pull back a good result. His rise up to third in the final was also impressive in the wet, and that became second when Arvid Lindblad was given a bumper penalty.

Taponen also did the WSK Euro Series alongside the European championship, and that got off to a sublime start with three heat wins, the pre-final win and third in the final at Sarno. The Lonato rounds didn’t have the same peaks, but it was good enough for fifth in the points – a marked improvement on his 13th in WSK SMS.

Before his graduation to senior karts he also did CotF, which showed off the strong pace he carried into the CIK-FIA meeting despite coming 22nd in the two-round series.

Taponen was fourth fastest in qualifying for his OK debut in the WSK Open Cup, but found the racing far more difficult as he crashed in his first two heats and final. Knowing what to expect when he returned to track for round two, he was much better in races and an overall podium bagged him fourth in the cup.

Arvid Lindblad BRITAIN/SWEDEN 13y/o
OKJ WSK Super Master Series champion, Champions of the Future champion, 2nd in CIK-FIA European Championship

Photo: WSK / Mario Perrucca

Oliver Rowland’s Anglo-Swedish protege picked up a lot of silverware in his second season of junior karting, which he spent primarily with the factory Kart Republic team of Dino Chiesa.

His worst result was 14th in the IAME Winter Cup in X30 Senior, but he was actually fifth on track before a bumper penalty.

The results rolled in on OK karts, with fifth in the WSK Champions Cup being followed by third in the South Garda Winter Cup. In WSK SMS he won the title by a massive 138 points, always qualifying in the top two in his group, taking 12 heat wins, three pre-final wins and two of the four finals in the series.

Set-up issues held him back in qualifying and the heats for the WSK Euro Series opener, but he ended up sixth in the final. Before the rest of the Euro Series season was Zuera’s CotF warm-up, which he won, and its CIK-FIA European Championship round, in which he swept to four heat wins but was only fifth in the final.

He set the fastest lap at Sarno, but was third in the final, and was a stronger driver at Wackersdorf to win the final but he wasn’t to be European champion. In the Euro Series finale, he won the heats, pre-final and final to jump to fourth in the points.

The second CotF round preceded the CIK-FIA World Championship, and an easy run to pole and four heat wins suggested Lindblad may well be unbeatable in the final. He wasn’t, falling to ninth in the closing laps, but he did become champion.

He “didn’t make things easy” with 33rd in world championship qualifying, yet won his first heat and made it to sixth on the final grid. In the race he fought his way onto Slater’s tail in soaking conditions, and passed him on the final lap. A bumper tap copped a penalty, and Slater banged wheels to reclaim first – sending Christian Ho into the mud as he made it three-wide. With two corners to go Lindblad made an aggressive pass, but a corner later Slater did the same to finish 0.075s ahead.

The penalty dropped Lindblad to fifth, and to compound things he then finished second again to Slater in WSK Open Cup.

10 more to watch…

Photo: Matthew Higgins

Joe Turney returned to karting as a factory Tony Kart driver after last year’s half-season in British F4, and utilised his experience well to win the South Garda Winter Cup, finish second in the CIK-FIA World Championship and Champions of the Future, third in the European Championship and WSK Euro Series and fourth in WSK SMS.

Although her year made headlines for her crash with Antonelli, Maya Weug still impressed and made the final four of the FIA’s new Ferrari Driver Academy-affiliated Girls on Track Rising Stars programme.

Sauber juniors Christian Ho and Ugo Ugochukwu starred in OKJ, with Ho finishing fourth in the world championship after his off and third in the WSK Champions Cup at the start of the year. Team-mate Ugochukwu was European champion, second in CotF and fifth in WSK SMS.

Potentially the next Carlos Sainz Jr is Matthew Higgins, who is son of 10-time US rally champion David Higgins. The Manx-Welsh teenager raced primarily in Rotax Junior karts this year, and won the British championship and the Rotax Festival. He also came fifth in the Kartmasters GP, and was 11th in Britain’s X30 Junior championship too.

His occasional rival in Britain was Daniel Guinchard, who came in at the end of the Rotax Junior season and finished 35th. He had a lot of success abroad in those karts, coming third in Benelux’s first Kick Off competition, second in the Euro Winter Cup and then winning the end-of-year International Trophy.

Guinchard’s form in X30 Junior wasn’t bad either, and he came fourth in the final of the IAME Euro Series round he entered. He then raced OKJ in Germany too, finsihing fifth in the national championship and winning the parallel ADAC Kart Masters title.

Photo: South Garda Karting

Lauritz Sachse was a breakout from Denmark this year, coming eighth in Sweden’s highly competitive OKJ championship and winning the equivalent title in the Swedish Kart League, while Emirati Rashid Al Dhaheri ended his Mini karting career with victory in the South Garda Winter Cup and third in the Champions Cup before stepping up to OKJ and improving massively over the year. He ended 2020 with 13th in the CIK-FIA World Championship and 14th in the Open Cup.

The stars he left behind in Mini karting included Rene Lammers, who won the WSK Euro Series title, and Open Cup champion Maciej Gladysz.

More from karting
James Wharton becomes a Ferrari junior, and is signed by Nicolas Todt
10 female racing stars of the future
Harry Thompson and Miguel Costa join the Sauber Junior Team
Profiling the team that taught Lando Norris to be world champion

The post The top karting stars of 2020 appeared first on Formula Scout.

The CIK-FIA World and European championships are the main focus of the karting world, and champions are invited to the same prize giving gala as the winners of Formula 1, Formula 2 and Formula E. That’s not to say that’s the only location of talent in the karting world though, with the WSK-organised events focused in Italy always providing a hotbed for top drivers, and several national championships are rivalling the continental series for talent, if not drama.

Lorenzo Travisanutto ITALY 20y/o
CIK-FIA World & European champion – OK, WSK Euro Series champion – OK, South Garda Winter Cup winner – OK

Photo: KSP Reportages

It may have been the fourth season in the OK class for Travisanutto, but he followed his Nico Rosberg-backed domination of 2018 with an even more convincing monopoly of trophies this year with the support of crack sportscar team HTP Motorsport.

Leaving Rosberg also meant departing the factory Kart Republic setup, although Travisanutto teamed up with CV Performance Group to continue racing its karts for 2019.

Travisanutto packed in practically every race in the category he could, starting with WSK’s Super Master Series. He won the first final at Adria from seventh on the grid, and was pipped to a second success by Dexter Patterson at Lonato, who was taking revenge after Travisanutto beat him in the South Garda Winter Cup. Sixth place finishes in the remaining two Super Master Series finals, after less than spectacular heat results, dropped him to third in the standings.

He matched that result in the lengthier German championship, losing the title there by prioritising the clashing CIK-FIA European season finale, where added a second continental crown to the WSK Euro Series one he secured the month before.

His biggest success was the CIK-FIA World Championship, won for the second time in a row. It was the ninth time karting’s biggest trophy has had a multiple-time winner, but it didn’t come easy. Juho Valtanen started from pole, and sprinted away in the first half of the final. Travisanutto tracked him down and muscled his way past, but was under pressure until the final few laps.

The end of the year brought another change of team for Travisanutto as he linked up with the famous Tony Kart brand, rounding out a podium lock-out with Pedro Hiltbrand and Joe Turney at the WSK Final Cup.

Marijn Kremers NETHERLANDS 21y/o
CIK-FIA World champion – KZ, 2nd in USA SuperNationals – KZ, 3rd in WSK Euro Series – KZ2

Photo: KSP Reportages

A successful but under the radar career in shifter karts blew up for Kremers in 2019, and ended with a graduation to British Formula 4 with Carlin in the Feed shootout organised by 1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve.

The bedrock of his success was continuing a long relationship with Birel ART, which had a management restructuring pre-season and ran Kremer in junior categories as well as his three seasons in the top-level KZ karts. He warmed up for the big competitions by returning to KZ2s in the South Garda Winter Cup and WSK Super Master Series, both which he finished fourth in, and the WSK Euro Series, where he was third.

While he only managed eighth in the CIK-FIA European championship, he was in a grid packed with drivers who were either far older or even more experienced than he was, as shifter karts often attract ‘career’ karters. Birel team-mate Alex Irlando, who finished sixth, was the only other driver of similar experience fighting in the top 10 as frequently as Kremers was.

The single-event world championship was where Kremers moved into the spotlight. He was rapid in qualifying at Lonato, then took a second place and two wins in his heats. This put him on pole for the final, and he fended off an early challenge from Adrien Renaudin to comfortably lead the first quarter of 25-lap race.

Renaudin then got through, and opted for a defensive approach to keeping the lead. Kremers reclaimed the place with a late dive at the chicane, then used a gear change to cut across Renaudin to prevent him from coming back at him. Thereon he was untroubled, taking Birel’s first shifter world title since 2000 and a rare global triumph for a driver early in his career.

Thomas ten Brinke NETHERLANDS 14y/o
CIK-FIA World champion – OKJ, 2nd in WSK Euro Series – OKJ, 3rd in CIK-FIA European championship – OKJ

Photo: Gregory Lenormand / DPPI

In a feature on top karting team Ricky Flynn Motorsport earlier this year, Formula Scout pointed out ten Brinke as the star of the team’s potent six-strong line-up in the OK Junior class. The Dutch teenager, whose father Bernhard is one of Fernando Alonso’s Dakar Rally team-mates, won last year’s German Junior title and followed it with heat wins and third overall in the WSK Champions Cup.

Otherwise, his 2019 didn’t start in style. He was fifth fastest qualifier for the South Garda Winter Cup, and took three heat podiums to earn semi-final pole. Victory put him on the final front row, but an on-track dispute led to a spin and his kart being mounted.

Runner-up spot in the WSK Super Master Series standings was lost to an incident that prevented him making the final of the final round, but he was a convincing second place in the WSK Euro Series – nobody was going to beat Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

On the biggest stage of all, the CIK-FIA World Championship at Alaharma, it was ten Brinke who was the class of the field. He was put in the same qualifying group as Antonelli and beat him, then won five of his six heats. Second place in his fifth heat behind Nikita Bedrin was the lowest he ever placed, as he dominated the final from pole.

The events at Alahrama followed a dismal end to his CIK-FIA European campaign. Despite retiring from one of his heats, he was in second after round one of four, and moved into the lead in round two with some podium finishes. Qualifying wasn’t kind to ten Brinke, and charging performances in the penultimate round wasn’t enough to keep the lead. He pulled the short straw again in the Le Mans title decider, going ninth fastest and 63rd overall in qualifying. The top driver from his session was 39th.

From 21st on the grid, he breached the top 10 once with a podium, but was eighth in his final heat before overtaking under yellow flags got him penalised. It was his second offence, meaning he missed the final and ensured he wouldn’t win the title.

Emilien Denner FRANCE 17y/o
FIA Int. Super Cup winner – KZ2, Trofeo Andrea Margutti winner – KZ2, 2nd in CIK-FIA European Championship – KZ2

Photo: KSP Reportages

There is feverish expectation over what 17-year-old Denner could do on his car racing debut in the Toyota Racing Series next January, after just three seasons of competitive karting.

His 2017 ended with 13th in the WSK Final Cup’s KZ2 classification. One year later he was runner-up, after taking third in the CIK-FIA European Championship, where he was disqualified from the first round final but dominated the second.

It was clear something big was on the horizon going into 2019 as he remained in the category, although the winter events didn’t suggest too much, as the CPB Sport driver finished 11th in the South Garda Winter Cup and 12th in WSK Super Master Series.

Eight place in the WSK Euro Series against very experienced opposition was encouraging, and started a strong run of form. Denner was the benchmark man in April’s Trofeo Andrea Margutti, and took four podiums and an impressive fourth in the standings in the 10-race German shifter championship on a Sodi kart rarely used by top teams.

The quality of opposition was a little lower for the FIA International Super Cup, but that just gave Denner the excuse to wipe the floor. He topped the 120-strong qualifying classification, swept all six of his heats and dominated the final.

A CIK-FIA European title would’ve also been his were it not for one incident. In the final at Wackersdorf, a forceful move on Senna van Walstijn led to Denner receiving a 10-second penalty and meant his front fairing was out of place. Another penalty was due, and while he did win the final at Sarno, the points lost at Wackersdorf was the exact amount needed for the title.

Denner joined the KZ runners for the USA’s end-of-year SuperNationals, and finished fourth in the final with fastest lap.

Kajus Siksnelis LITHUANIA 14y/o
FIA Karting Academy Trophy winner, 3rd in CIK-FIA World Championship – OKJ, 10th in CIK-FIA European Championship – OKJ

Photo: KSP Reportages

FIA Formula Two race-winner Kazim Vasiliauskas stands out as Lithuania’s greatest F1 prospect so far, but the young Siksnelis may be changing that statement in the future as he makes quick progress up the karting ladder.

The reigning Lithuanian national champion was supported through 2019 by Simas Juodvirsis, the winner of the 2012 CIK-FIA European Championship in KZ2 karts. Siksnelis was racing primarily in the OK Junior category for Swedish team Ward Racing, and it took a while for his confidence to build on the international stage.

Siksnelis made it to 10th in the final of the first European round at Angerville, proof of his learning curve as his best heat result was sixth. At Genk he had a lowkey final from a low starting spot; a heat one retirement neutralising a win and last-lap defeat in two other heats. Third in the Kristianstad final came before a disastrous Le Mans finale, where he was 14th in his best heat.

The total failure in France proved a blessing for Siksnelis, who had the CIK-FIA World Championship and FIA Karting Academy Trophy finale up next. Big results were up for grabs in both, and there was Lithuanian interest because of it.

He was sixth fastest in his world championship qualifying session, which was where he finished his heats when the track was dry. Wet weather at Alaharma threw a curveball in that Siksnelis struggled with, and he started 16th for the final. Within a lap he’d made it to 10th, and picked off drivers lap-by-lap to reach fourth. Keeping a cool head earned him third on the final tour.

That confidence boost helped Siksnelis win the Academy Trophy. Penalties and changing weather at Wackersdorf put him on the back foot, but he upped his game at Sarno, and second place in the Lonato finale took him from fifth to first in the standings. He ended the year with 14th in the FIA Motorsport Games Karting Slalom, and will move up to OK karts in 2020.

Christian Ho SINGAPORE 13y/o
2nd in FIA Karting Academy Trophy, 2nd in German Junior championship, 11th in CIK-FIA World Championship – OKJ

Ho was one of the youngest in OK Junior karts this year, and he got a great 13th birthday present in October by becoming a Sauber junior. He’d already set some age-related records in the year, as well as setting landmark results for Asian karters.

At the end of 2018, Ho made his OKJ debut and found it physically tough, but his pace was clear to see and he was snapped up by RFM for the end of the season – immediately being thrown into the deep end in cold and wet conditions (which Ho admits to always struggling in) and having to borrow some of Zane Maloney’s old kit.

The results were promising, but it did look like the physicality of the more powerful karts was counting against Ho as 2019 began. When he returned to the wet for WSK Super Masters Series he looked far more comfortable, performing well in his heat but repeated mistakes or lack of pace in qualifying meant he was never able to feature at the front if he made it to the finals.

When qualifying did improve, Ho was nervous from starting at the front, and there were many mistakes early on. More track experience – and warmer temperatures – helped Ho, and he came into his own in the German Junior championship. He was on the podium in every final race, three of which he won, and was second in the points despite missing a fifth of the season.

The pressure was low there, but when high it seemed to get to Ho in the CIK-FIA European Championship. In the FIA Academy Trophy it didn’t, and after a topsy-turvy first weekend he went on a winning run to become runner-up. His world championship weekend also had errors, but Ho was one of the fastest in changing conditions and 11th place was a good result.

Ho joined Sauber days before the WSK Open Cup but instantly gelled with his new team, setting pole and racing to fifth in the final. Tyre struggles meant he didn’t match that result in round two, but gathered more valuable experience ahead of 2020.

Mathilda Olsson SWEDEN 18y/o
Rotax Max Euro Trophy champion – Senior, 9th in Rotax Max International Trophy – Senior, 13th in IAME Euro Series – X30 Senior

Few international karting events are won as convincingly as Mathilda Olsson’s Rotax Euro Trophy crown this year, in the spec-engined rival category to OK, and while it wasn’t a result she repeated in higher calibre events, it was undeniably impressive.

Olsson finished third in the 2018 Euro Trophy for Strawberry Racing, and knew where she needed to improve to be champion. She began her season in the Rotax Euro Open at Genk, where she was consistently on the pace but heat results of third and 12th left her ninth on the grid for the first final. She charged through to second in that, then repeated the result in race two.

The season began proper at Adria, where she was fastest in pre-event testing, free practice and qualifying. The split-session format meant she didn’t start from pole, but she won her heats anyway then dominated the two points-paying final races.

Kristianstad was much of the same, but against some additional adversity. A shocker of a qualifying session on home soil left her 21st fastest, but she charged through to sixth in both of her heats. That made her job in the finals a little easier, and she flew past the field to win the first race. The second was a challenge from the front, as she had Axel Saarniala literally rubbing her wheels throughout. At the very final corner he found a way through, denying Olsson a perfect score by 0.173 seconds.

The Wackersdorf season finale also began with qualifying trouble; she set half the number of laps as her rivals and qualified 14th. Admittedly she was only one second off pole and had already won the title, but it was a frustration all the same. Olsson was up to second two-thirds into heat one and missed out on victory by 0.117s, ending up sixth on the grid for the final.

Rhys Hunter pushed the limits of defending to try to deny Olsson victory but failed. It was the reverse in race two, with Olsson’s defensive work falling just short. Title success brought her a Rotax Grand Finals ticket, in which she classified 22nd.

Dexter Patterson BRITAIN 16y/o
WSK Super Master Series winner – OK, 3rd in CIK-FIA European Championship – OK, 6th in CIK-FIA World Championship – OK

Photo: KSP Reportages

The last Scot to race for Sauber was a descendant of Robert the Bruce, and Patterson has been using the same fighting spirit to star on karting’s world stage in his second year at the OK level, even if his results haven’t told the full story.

On paper, Patterson’s season peaked at its beginning with the WSK Super Masters Series title. He was comfortably best in the wet at Adria, outwitted Travisanutto to win at Lonato, shook off an awful first lap to finish second at La Conca, and won everything at Sarno.

His rivalry with Travisanutto went in the latter’s favour in the South Garda Winter Cup and the WSK Euro Series, which was generally a messy time on-track for Patterson (especially in heat races) but still resulted in third in the standings.

It was the CIK-FIA competitions that Sauber wanted Patterson to focus on, and when the time came he did just that. He was unlucky not be on pole for the first European round at Angerville, but still led every single lap of four of his five heats and was unchallenged in the final. The heat where he fumbled just happened to be the one where he was up against Travisanutto. Sauber – and the Kart Republic team it emblazons – praised Patterson’s performance on the demanding French circuit.

Travisanutto thrashed everyone at Genk, and a new-tyre run by Patterson netted him a distant second place. Two brilliant heat wins were compounded by the type of clashes that yardstick driver Travisanutto was avoiding, and while he left Kristianstad in the lead thanks to fourth in the final, it was a case of ‘what if’ having fallen from pole to seventh on lap after bumping his rival.

By the time of the Le Mans finale he had conceded his lead, and then the title after a failed move on Kobe Pauwels put him out on the spot. The world championship six weeks later didn’t serve justice, as Patterson struggled in qualifying then opted for caution as he rose through to finish sixth. There were few trophies, but Patterson raced hard against the very best.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli ITALY 13y/o
WSK Super Master Series, Euro Series, Italian, Final Cup & Open Cup winner – OKJ, 2nd in USA SuperNationals – KA100 Jr

Photo: KSP Reportages

Mercedes F1 and Rosberg protege Antonelli sometimes looked unstoppable in the OK Junior arena this year, and kicked off 2019 with three major trophies in a row: the South Garda Winter Cup, and WSK’s Super Master Series and Euro Series.

To warm up for those events he entered the WSK Champions Cup, where he was favourite to win but got shuffled to fourth.

The WSK Super Master Series title came despite failing to make the final in the Sarno title decider when he clashed dramatically with rival Thomas ten Brinke, and an underwhelming start to the Euro Series somehow ended up in him also winning the Italian title.

This was all, for reminder, completed as a rookie to the class as 13-year-old Antonelli was a star of Mini karts last year.

Most drivers concentrate on the big CIK-FIA titles, and this was where Antonelli’s more experienced rivals made their mark over the diminutive Italian. Marcus Amand was the surprise driver who beat Antonelli to the European title, with the latter’s early no-scores counting against him despite a late podium run.

The world championship was arguably a stronger performance from Antonelli, despite finishing several places lower in fifth, as he put together a more complete weekend under higher pressure. He won three of his heats after qualifying fifth out of 100 cars, just 0.165s off what would have been a headline-grabbing pole position, and raced confidently throughout.

He ended his year with more WSK competitions, winning the Final and Open Cup, and was pipped at the finish line to success in America in the USA SuperNationals’ KA100 Junior category.

Gabriele Mini ITALY 14y/o
2nd in CIK-FIA European Championship – OK, 2nd in WSK Champions Cup – OK, 4th in WSK Euro Series – OK

Photo: KSP Reportages

Nicolas Todt’s latest protege didn’t have the headline results he enjoyed in 2018, but it was still a stellar rookie season.

Mini stepped up to OK karts with the Parolin Racing Kart team, and immediately made an impact by finishing second in the WSK Champions Cup. At first it wasn’t clear what that impact was, as Mini was slowest of all in qualifying.

He turned that into eighth place in his first ever race, and followed that up with a fourth. The inexperience was still clear to see, with Mini ending the first lap of the next race 19 places down and having to recover his way up to 15th. His progress in the pre-final took him to fifth, and he beat some big names to take second in the Cup itself.

The first wins came in the heats of the South Garda Winter Cup, and Mini’s name was already being considered for title contention in the competitions he entered afterwards. He was behind four highly-rated returning drivers in WSK Super Master Series, roughly the maximum he would have been expected to achieve. In WSK’s Euro Series he went one better, but yielded a slow start before dominating the Adria season finale, something rookies rarely manage.

Momentum was starting to build as Mini got more comfortable with OK karts, consistently being among the small group of names winning races. He wasn’t quite a title threat in the CIK-FIA European Championship, mostly because he didn’t collect points from the heats, but was still second in the standings thanks to coming strong in the finals.

He was bang on the pace in the important part of the competition in the world championship too, and he really could have been a victory contender if he managed to bed himself into weekends quicker and ensure better starting spots.

With his 15th birthday looming next March, Mini has already topped a Formula 4 test with Prema and has been assessed by the Ferrari Driver Academy.

10 more to watch…

Harry Thompson was being groomed by Red Bull for a junior single-seater future until last month, when the Briton unexpectedly left the F1 team’s ranks to join up with Kart Republic for a season in KZ karts next year. The 15-year-old was third in this year’s OK world championship with RFM, and won the German title for the second year in a row.

Another with significant patronage is Kirill Smal, who is SMP Racing’s latest wonderkid. He finished just behind Thompson in the world championship this year as an OK rookie, a highlight of an otherwise under-the-radar season with Ward.

The driver who sat between them and the dominant Travisanutto on the biggest stage was Nico Rosberg’s protege Taylor Barnard. His results were more consistently impressive, winning the WSK Champions and Open Cups, finishing second in the Super Master Series and fourth in the CIK-FIA European Championship. He also starred on X30 Senior karts in his free time.

Swede Dino Beganovic was another making swift progress in OK karts. He won his national title and was sixth in CIK-FIA European in his rookie season, as well as finishing runner-up in the equivalent WSK-organised series. His Travisanutto-rivalling pace in the latter won him the Italian title and, like Mini, he’s been testing F4 cars with Prema and the Ferrari Driver Academy.

British teenager Guy Cunnington stepped up to Rotax Max Senior karts this year, the cheaper equivalent of OK, and starred at home and abroad. He won his home title, and came from ninth on the grid to briefly win the prestigious Grand Final at Sarno by 0.003s in one of the most dramatic finishes to a karting event in history.

Cunnington had overtaken Saarniala for the lead on the final lap, but the Finn came back at him at the last corner, deliberately going wide to carry more speed. The pair crossed the finish line side-by-side, with the timing beam declaring Cunnington winner. There was no photographic evidence to tally up with the timing though, and so the result was decided on the drivers’ fastest laps instead. The win was handed to Saarniala.

Emil Skaras applied his KZ2 experience better than ever this year, winning the CIK-FIA European title, coming home as runner-up in the Swedish championship, and finishing behind Denner and Campos Racing recruit David Vidales in the International Super Cup. He also cameoed in F4 South East Asia, where he took a pole and a win.

French-Finnish driver Marcus Amand – another with an esteemed F1 manager in Didier Coton – beat Antonelli to the CIK-FIA European title in OKJ kart. He was inconsistent elsewhere and sixth place in WSK Super Masters Series was his next best result.

A heavy schedule led to success for Emirati Jamie Day, who won the French Cup title against a full international field and was a frontrunner in every continental competition in Europe. He was sixth in both of the key CIK-FIA contests, and his partnership with Lennox Racing Team has led to a tie-up with Charles Leclerc’s new karting brand for 2020.

Day’s countryman Rashid Al Dhaheri, 11, was the star of Mini karts this year against the likes of Mercedes-backed Jamaican Alex Powell, convincingly winning the WSK Super Master Series and Euro Series titles for Parolin, and the Macau International Kart Grand Prix.

Similarly consistent in fighting with the best in OKJ contests was another SMP junior, Nikita Bedrin. The Tony Kart driver’s second season included second place in the WSK Final Cup, third in the WSK Euro Series and fifth in the CIK-FIA European Championship.

The post The top karting stars of 2019 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: CIK-FIA/KSP

Two-time German Kart champion Harry Thompson has split with the Red Bull Junior Team and Ricky Flynn Motorsports, which ran Lando Norris to World championship success.

The 15-year-old Briton has been a member of RFM and Red Bull’s junior line-up since 2017, the year in which he won multiple international and British titles in the OK Junior class of kart machinery.

Last year he moved up to the senior class, winning the German title and finishing second in the European championship. He added a second German title to his resume in 2019, as well as third place in the World championship behind Lorenzo Travisanutto and Nico Rosberg protege Taylor Barnard.

“Ricky Flynn Motorsports and Red Bull – it?s been a blast,” Thompson said in his departure announcement.

“Hugely thankful for the support Red Bull Racing and RFM have given me over the years, sadly this journey has come to an end. Wishing both every success in the future!”

For 2020, Thompson will switch to the 125cc two-stroke KZ class of karts with Kart Republic, which supports 2016 Formula 1 world champion Rosberg’s team, as well as the official Sauber Junior Team.

Kart Republic was created by Dino Chiesa in late 2017. The karting veteran ran the ?Mercedes-Benz McLaren? MBM team in the early 2000s, which fielded Lewis Hamilton and Rosberg.

Thompson made his Kart Republic debut last weekend at Adria in the WSK Final Cup, finishing third in the KZ2 competition.

Sauber’s newly created karting arm started the year with Scottish teenager Dexter Patterson and Swiss driver Joshua Dufek in the OK category. Patterson won the WSK Super Master Series, while Dufek was ninth in the WSK Euro Series.

William MacIntyre was signed in the summer after he won the Italian title in the 60 Mini category and was second in the WSK Euro Series, and has since stepped up to X30 Junior karts.

Last month, Singapore national Christian Ho was signed in a full-time capacity, unlike MacIntyre’s deal. Ho was runner-up in this year’s CIK-FIA Karting Academy Trophy, as well as finishing ninth in the South Garda Winter Cup and 11th in the World championship in OKJ karts.

The post Harry Thompson leaves Red Bull Junior Team appeared first on Formula Scout.

Mercedes has just added single-seater rookie Paul Aron to its junior roster. He’s the younger brother of European Formula 3 race-winner Ralf, who has ensured Estonia has another driver in Formula 1’s sights

Siblings in sport normally fit into two categories. For many, a competitive rivalry formed at birth means they push each other to – and beyond – the limit, and can reach new levels of performance at the expense of their relationship.

Michael and Ralf Schumahcer sometimes fitted into this category, and there was no forgiveness when on track together.

On the other side are siblings that work together to collectively improve and act altruistically. Given he’s ‘brother of Ralf’, Paul Aron actually fits into the latter description.

The 15-year-old was announced as the latest member of Mercedes-Benz’s Formula 1 junior team last week, joining Esteban Ocon, George Russell and two karters. Striking the deal with F1’s leading force required a substantial effort from the Aron camp.

“It?s a lot of work from a lot of people, but I would say a very, very big margin of that was my brother, so I?m very thankful to him,” the younger Aron tells Formula Scout.

“Sadly he’s not racing this year, but I?m happy to have him on my side, he gives a lot of support and he?s the one who set this up.?I?m sure Ralf?s really proud of it, because it?s mostly his work getting the contacts and everything.

The elder Aron was the cause of Paul’s motorsport interest, as watching his brother race convinced him to take up karting too. It took a few years before the pair’s father conceded to Paul’s wishes, but it was worth it as Aron proved he had the talent.

Two years after his national success in 60 Mini karts, Aron won the 2018 CIK-FIA European title in the OK Junior category aged 14. He did so with Ricky Flynn Motorsport, the same team that launched Lando Norris’s career.

“It?s still the closest team to my heart. I don?t know what it is, but I had such a connection with my mechanic and Moose (Micky Higham, team principal). He’s such a good guy. The vibe in the team was so good.”

Aron set a strong impression on the team, some members of which have been following Aron’s rookie ADAC and Italian Formula 4 campaigns trackside.

Having won the Junior title, Aron was set to step up to the OK kart category this year, but like his older brother several years before it soon became clear that cars were the way to go.

“At the beginning the plan was to finish karting with OK. I didn?t want to come to F4 without doing OK, because I learned a lot from the few [WSK Final Cup] races in OKs.?

“I think Kart Republic was starting to play a big role there, and it was all starting to get a bit messy. I came to do the F4 test, and the speed was very good. We got some good offers and it all played out. I really wanted to drive F4 as well, because it?s a formula, a whole new experience.”

The transition to cars has been assisted by another successful Estonian single-seater racer, ex-Formula Renault 3.5 star Kevin Korjus, who has gone into coaching and management together with former GP3 driver Matt Parry.

“At the beginning, I was really thinking how I would get up to speed,” says Aron. “I wasn?t too far off, but it was pretty hard to find it. But, as a good driver should, you adapt to the car, and when you gain confidence with the car the speed just comes by itself.

“For me now, it?s been going very uphill. At the beginning, it?s not so fun. You have to do data, and try to find some speed, but when you?re already starting quick you really enjoy it.

“The first time I really saw good speed was at Misano [in Italian F4] in the rain, when I got pole, a second and third. It could?ve been a triple pole if I?d done a better job.

“I had the pace, but I made mistakes, and then made even more stupid mistakes: missing the grid box and getting a penalty. Another mistake in race one with my team-mate, getting overexcited and trying to overtake him in the wrong place.

“If I?d made smart decisions, I would?ve had a lot better results. But now the pace really is starting to come in.”

Aron’s first win came at the Red Bull Ring in ADAC F4, which he attributed to “driving smart” rather than outright pace. Prior to that, he was still heavily focused on school, but he’s now free to focus on winning the F4 rookie titles.

“It’s summer holidays right now, so I can finally concentrate on racing. Some tests [earlier in the year] I feel like school was affecting it. I wanted to get good grades, and in Estonian [as a subject] I was between a three and four. The best grade is five, three is quite bad.?

“I didn?t work, and I was supposed to revise, and so at one test I was just thinking about that and it kind of ruined my enjoyment of racing. But I got a four in the end, so it was OK.”

Ralf’s university commitments have taken priority over racing this year, but he’s actually busier due to the involvement in his brother’s career and as team manager of Prema’s Formula Regional European Championship squad.

“Paul did a couple of F4 tests and it went really well,” Ralf says to Formula Scout. “The other thing is that he did a really, really good job last year in karting, and to top that this year would?ve been nearly impossible – especially moving to OK karts. I felt he was ready for F4, so I made the call.

“There was no rush to get Paul into a [F1] programme, we agreed if a good opportunity comes we?ll take it. Mercedes presented one, so we went for it.”

CV

Age 15
D/O/B February 4, 2004
Country?Estonia

Car Racing
2019:?currently 5th in ADAC F4 (1 win), currently 6th in ADAC F4 (1 pole)

Karting
2018: CIK-FIA European champion – OKJ, WSK Champions Cup winner – OKJ, South Garda Winter Cup winner – OKJ, 3rd in WSK Super Master Series – OKJ, 8th in CIK-FIA World championship – OKJ, 8th in German Kart Championship – OKJ, 17th in WSK Final Cup – OK
2017: 17th in WSK Final Cup – OKJ, 22nd in WSK Super Master Series – OKJ, 32nd in CIK-FIA European championship – OKJ
2016: Estonian Kart champion – 60 Mini, 9th in WSK Champions Cup – 60 Mini, 13th in WSK Super Master Series – 60 Mini
2015: 14th in WSK Final Cup – 60 Mini, 24th in WSK Gold Cup – 60 Mini, 37th in WSK Super Master Series – 60 Mini
2013-14: Karting in Estonia
2012: 6th in Estonian Kart championship – Cadet

The post Scout Report: Paul Aron appeared first on Formula Scout.

Ahead of making his Formula 1 race debut this year, Lando Norris tested some of the machinery that he raced the last time he entered – and won – a world championship.

Like F1, it required a lot of driver skill, and was physically and mentally tiring after more than a handful of laps. After his first day of testing, he was found fast asleep in a hotel reception: absolutely shattered by the effort he had put in.

What Norris was driving was not a high-powered single-seater, but a 125cc KZ go-kart.

One of the most successful teams in modern karting is Ricky Flynn Motorsport, and the British squad is best known for winning the 2014 CIK-FIA KF Karting World Championship with future F1 star Norris.

It’s won two further senior international titles, as well as 16 in the junior ranks. On a national level, the titles continue to add up. And if you’re aged 11 or above, you could add to those titles in the future.

“We’re basically the first step on the ladder for the youngsters in their racing career,” says team principal Ricky Flynn.

“We’re trying to hone them, teach them, educate them on all the aspects of racing. Data acquisition, racing lines, racing etiquette, and obviously trying to win races with them – in preparation for them moving onwards and upwards to their ultimate goal: F1.”

Flynn himself traded that path, beginning in 1983 as a karter, then progressing to Formula Renault UK, at which points the costs became too much and he fully committed himself to running karters, a profession he had already begun.

Photo: Mobil 1 The Grid

Photo: Mobil 1 The Grid

Ricky Flynn Motorsport (RFM) began in 1994, and was already running a international operation by the early 2000s.

“Once you’ve been racing and you’ve got that in your blood, it’s difficult to get rid of it. I stopped racing and didn’t really want to give up being around racing, so continued in a different vein but still with that competition in mind. The will to want to win, to be the best at what you’re doing, and try to achieve the world titles and all the other titles that go with it.

“It started out quite small in 1994 [in the British championship], and has progressed to this stage; which is that we take on every team which we can, wherever we are around Europe or around the world.

“As you can see from the results on track, we’ve got some outstanding drivers that are coming through. Some are in their first year with us, some in their second year, some are in their third year in Seniors. We’ve got some extreme bright talents in here that I’m sure will be making a good career in motorsport later on after they leave us.”

While RFM doesn’t provide media and fitness training – it directs all of its drivers towards individuals who can – there is still a huge focus on preparing drivers for their next career step as much as optimising what they currently race in. The one driver who “springs to mind” to Flynn in reaping the rewards of that approach is McLaren F1 driver Norris.

The 19-year-old tested with the team at Italy’s South Garda circuit this February to prepare for the Australian Grand Prix, driving one of the kart’s built by McLaren stablemate Fernando Alonso’s business, and had quite the experience.

Photo: ADD Management

Photo: ADD Management

“It was quite nice to have him back under our roof for a couple of days testing, with no pressure, no racing,” says Flynn. “Just sharpening him up in readiness for his 2019 season.

“I think if you speak to the drivers, and you listen to old F1 drivers too, they never experience the grit and everything else that karting gives you, until they get to F1.

“It’s such a physical lap, such a busy lap, that it really sharpens the mind, sharpens the reflexes, sharpens everything. The lap is obviously quite a short in comparison to F1 too. It’s really great preparation, because there’s no rest out there for them. If they’re doing a 20-lap stint, it’s basically 18 minutes of extreme hard work for them.”

“It’s going alright, I’m a bit tired already,” Norris said on his YouTube vlog after his first few laps back in the kart, and the first time he’d worked with the team since his 2014 world championship success.

Karts still use shifter gearboxes, which can take time to adapt back to from the semi-automatic paddle shift and hand-operated clutch systems of top-line single-seaters. To engage gear, karters have to lift off the throttle, but without losing momentum or position in races that usually include more than 30 entries.

With such short laps, and the high frequency of gear changes within each lap, it’s no surprise that it’s the physical side that caught out Norris first.

Photo: ADD Management

“The easy part is the gear changing. All you have to do is lift, and then you can change. I’ve never said it before in my life, but I’ve got too much grip. It’s too good.

“As soon as I start turning, I start bouncing. My ribs hurt, and my back hurts, and my neck hurts, my legs and basically everything. I have many bruises on my body right now. But it’s all part of it, so lets go again.”

Flynn picks up on the story at the end of Norris’s first day back in a kart.

“When we got back to the hotel, he was actually asleep in the reception, within 20 minutes of getting back there. That tells you that he worked hard that day.

“They all looked – we didn’t just have Lando there, we had other [ADD Management] drivers as well that are in lower formulas – to prepare them, and they all looked like they’d been a few rounds in a boxing ring, shall we say, when they left here on the first evening.”

RFM now only races in the OK and OK-Junior kart classes, at a world and national level, and its 2019 line-up is highly rated.

Red Bull junior Harry Thompson and Kai Askey drive its OK karts, while Thomas Ten Brinke heads a six-kart entry in OKJ. The Dutchman currently leads the CIK-FIA European Championship, and was third in the WSK Champions Cup. Another of RFM’s younger stars to look out for is 12-year-old American Ugo Ugochukwu, another European title contender.

Photo: Mobil 1 The Grid

Photo: Mobil 1 The Grid

Behind the drivers is a large workforce that means RFM (and its karting opponents) rival many car racing teams on personnel numbers, technical complexity, and costs.

“Everybody’s key [in the team]. We’ve got engine guys, who are a Danish company based with us in Italy. We’ve got all the mechanics on all the karts; without them nothing ticks. Then we’ve got race engineers going through the data with the drivers after every session.

“Every driver has two karts. Generally the kart they’re racing, then the other kart can be turned into a wet chassis if it’s raining, or just as a spare chassis in case they crash and destroy one. We’re changing them regularly as the year goes on, and if you look inside our truck we have every spare part you can think of.

“I don’t know how many tens of thousands of parts we have in there, but it’s so we can be on the road [without issue]. We’re on the road for sort of three months at a time, without having to go back to base. And we have stuff shipped in.

“Back at base we have people organising to get this sort of circus to all the events – with the flights, the hotels and all the logistics. Which is again a massive, massive part of it. There’s probably, for this [WSK Champions Cup] event, in region of 27 to 30 people to make this event work as it does, as smoothly as we try and make it work.”

Photo: Mobil 1 The Grid

Photo: Mobil 1 The Grid

Karting doesn’t have the mainstream appeal it had in the 1980s, when the likes of Martin Hines became TV stars racing in superkart grand prixs, and the prices are continuously going up despite the limited technical potential karts have compared to even the most basic of cars.

Most of this investment takes place on engine-building, an area that is hugely political, and the wealthiest karters will push money into having more spare engines and tyres. Moving an increased amount of equipment around, with a ever-busier testing calendar, means costs go up even further.

“It’s very difficult, and the costs are escalating year on year,” confirms Flynn.

“[Budget disparity], that’s another part. Where there’s the driver without a budget – we’re always looking to help and achieve that with them’ make sure they can fulfil the potential they deserve and that the money isn’t holding them back in any way.”

Some of karting’s largest events – including the CIK-FIA world championships – are actually one-off events, and most karters will tackle national or continental campaigns on top of that. The WSK Champions Cup is usually the curtain-raiser of the karting calendar.

“Going back many years, it was always the first race of the year. It’s changed a little bit in the last couple of years, there’s a race just before this one now. But it was always the first race of the year,” Flynn explains.

Photo: FIA

“It’s a one-off race, so lots of people can come, put a toe in the water and see where they’re at, from wherever in the world. Just put themselves against the best in the world to see whether they’re good enough to continue in the European and world level for the year, or ‘hold up, we need to have another year back in our home country doing a domestic championship to improve before we come and try to tackle these big boys on the big stage’.

“Be ready for that, rather than just wasting their time, money, effort and everything else. It’s always been a very, very big race, and as you can see the amount of entries now, it’s not changed.”

Taylor Barnard beat Gabriele Mini – proteges of Nico Rosberg and Nicolas Todt respectively – to win the OK classification of the Champions Cup, and there are several other karting names being touted as the future faces of F1.

According to Flynn, at least one of the names racing in Italy that weekend would “hopefully in two to five years going to be the next Lando Norris”.

This article was adapted from a Mobil 1 The Grid video feature. You can watch the original video below.

Further reading
The top karting stars of 2018
Sauber expands junior team into karting with Kart Republic
Powell joins Antonelli as Mercedes F1-supported karter
10 karting stars to watch [2012]
10 more karting stars to watch [2014]

The post The team that taught Lando Norris to be world champion appeared first on Formula Scout.