Photo: FIA Karting / KSP Reportages

The FIA is investigating Artem Severiukhin after he made an alleged Nazi salute on the podium after winning in the European Karting Championship, and his team has terminated his contract.

The Russian was racing using an Italian licence and made the gesture while Italy’s national anthem played following his victory in the senior OK category of round one at Algarve on Sunday.

The FIA later disqualified Severiukhin and launched an immediate investigation into his “unacceptable conduct” and it will “communicate shortly on the further steps that will be taken”. A post-race bumper penalty for Tomass Stolcermanis meant Joe Turney inherited victory.

Severiukhin’s team Ward Racing said it was “deeply in shame of the pilot’s behaviour which it condemns in the strongest possible terms” and that “action will promptly be taken accordingly”.

It described his actions as “exclusively individual and do not represent the views and values of Ward Racing in any manner”.

“On the contrary, Ward Racing stands with the international community condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and expresses its solidarity with the people suffering because of this unprovoked and horrific attack,” it went on to say.

“Since the start of the ongoing war, our firm stance has been demonstrated with ‘No War’ helmets and stickers.

“In addition, we currently have three Ukrainian families traveling with us because they have no home to return to. As Swedish citizens, we are furthermore proud of our country which made the historical decision to send weapons to Ukraine for the fight against the Russian army.”

It concluded: “Ward Racing sees no possibility for continued co-operation with Artem Severiukhin and will proceed with terminating his racing contract.”

The Russian Automobile Federation is working to clarify the circumstances around what it referred to as a “Roman salute” and said “we consider unacceptable any, even an accidental, manifestation of fascism and Nazism in Russian motorsport and among Russian athletes”.

“I want to apologise to everyone for what happened yesterday at the European Karting Championship,” Severiukhin said in a video shared on social media and by RAF.

“Standing on the podium, I made a gesture that many perceived as a Nazi salute. This is not true. I have never supported Nazism and consider it one of the worst crimes against humanity.

“But I raced under the Italian license and won under the Italian flag, and the guys in front of the podium showed me that in Italy in such cases it’s customary to hit yourself on the chest, in the heart area, showing gratitude. I just wanted to make that gesture and how everything else happened, I cannot explain.

“I know that I’m guilty, I know that I’m a fool and I’m ready to be punished. But please believe that there was no intention in my actions, there was no support for Nazism or fascism, there was no desire to offend spectators, fans, or the team, and all those who were watching the broadcast. Excuse me.”

Severiukhin was one of several Russians competing under Italy’s flag, while others raced as neutrals under the requirements set out by the FIA since Russia’s invasion.

OK final results (20 laps)

The post FIA investigating karter Artem Severiukhin after alleged Nazi salute 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.

Photo: Lola Lovinfosse

Since 2012, Formula Scout has annually identified the top talents in karting to look out for in junior single-seaters in the years beyond. In this special female-only edition, we’re naming the best from karts and cars

In the last five years, karting has been the biggest area of growth in motorsport when it comes to female license holders in many nations, and it is this all-important statistic that will ultimately pave the way for the long-awaited return of a woman racing on the Formula 1 grid.

Some of the young karters who started their participation off the back of Venturi Formula E boss Susie Wolff’s Dare 2 Be Different organisation and other prominent initiatives being launched in 2016, are now racing in the top global tournaments and making waves in the motorsport world.

Here are six internationally competing karters, and four on-the-rise car racers, who could make it to F1 in the future.

Key Rotax Max (MAX), Trent Valley Kart Club (TVKC), Russian Circuit Racing Series (RCRS)

Mathilda Olsson SWEDEN 18y/o
5th in 2020 MAX Euro Winter Cup – Senior, 2019 MAX Euro Trophy champion – Senior, 3rd in 2018 MAX Euro Trophy – Senior

Swedish star Mathilda Olsson made it into Formula Scout’s list of the top karting talents last year with an incredibly assured title in the Senior category of the Rotax Max Euro Trophy, a series which she had finished third in the year before.

Rotax Max is a spec-engined rival category to the more prominently known OK, and the level of competition is high in all of the main series. While the Euro Trophy wasn’t the highest calibre of events, it was won by Olsson in a classy style that built on lessons she had learned earlier in 2019, and costs less than the CIK-FIA competitions.

Olsson started her year in the Rotax Euro Open at Genk, where she was on the pace but a dud heat 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 Euro Trophy season began proper at Adria, where she was fastest in pre-event testing, free practice and qualifying. The split-session format kept her off pole, but she won her heats anyway then dominated the two points-paying final races.

Kristianstad was much of the same, but against additional adversity. An awful qualifying session on home soil left her way down the order, but she charged to sixth in both of her heats. She then flew past the field to win the first main race. Race two was a defensive job, which worked well until the very final corner of the race and led to a 0.173 second loss.

The Wackersdorf season finale also began with qualifying trouble that went beyond laptimes, but was of little consequence as she was already champion. Again, she almost won in the heats, then took victory and a second place in the two main races.

Olsson has stuck with the Strawberry Racing team she has already shared a significant amount of success with for 2020, and got the year off to a winning start in the winter Rotax competitions before the coronavirus pandemic stopped racing.

Ella Stevens ENGLAND 13y/o
2020 TVKC Winter champion – X30 Mini, 13th in 2019 British IAME Cadet Championship, 2017 BirelART UK champion – Cadet

W Series racer and two-time Formula Renault champion Alice Powell coaches many drivers in karting, and the protege with the most expectation on their shoulders is fellow Briton Ella Stevens.

In 2017 she won Birel ART’s British Cadet championship, doing so with a race to spare despite losing points early in the year as she was caught out in some areas of her racecraft due to her inexperience. That grid had strong female participation within the greater picture of British karting, but also marked a rare occasion where a female driver had won a British title.

Attacking the British Super One Championship and Little Green Man Series in IAME Cadet karts the next year as a privateer was not going to lend itself to top results, but in the latter series still put a title to her name in the privateer class. She was 16th overall in both series, despite missing races, and was the top privateer finisher several times in the more financially competitive Super One series. Unfortunately some strong overall results went amiss due to contact on-track.

Stevens joined Fusion Motorsport for her second attempt at the two series, but her 2019 got off to a bad start in the winter competitions with collisions and engine issues for which she was not to blame. A first win was also lost to a photo finish decided on who had fastest race lap.

Her main campaigns had messy beginnings that were difficult to shake off, but the pace was clearly there to fight near the front and she claimed a British championship pole but no podiums. Given her stellar 2017, the pressure was now on for Stevens heading into winter and her step up to X30 Mini machinery.

From the off, the larger karts suited Stevens better and she won Trent Valley Kart Club’s winter title. With that kind of confidence boost, she very well could have added another national crown to her resume this year (and may still do).

Cecilia Hedqvist SWEDEN 16y/o
7th in 2019 Swedish Championship, 4th in ’19 Swedish Kart League – OK, 19th in ’18 Swedish Junior Championship

Photo: Cecilia Hedqvist

One set of Swedish relations is coaching another in the case of Cecilia Hedqvist and her cousin Oliver, who have benefited from the support of touring car stars Andreas and Jessica Backman.

Hedqvist was set for a big year prior to coronavirus’s pausing of proceedings, and has come a long way since taking her first podium in a kart in 2016. She had the Backmans helping her by then, and results quickly improved after as she came third in the Junior 60 category of the North Sweden Cup the year after after several seasons of limited progress in the series.

For 2018 she moved up to OK and X30 junior karts, and entered major international competitions as well as building her reputation at home. Podiums were hard to come by, but the experience was priceless and she actually made her first race appearance abroad in the very different world of the top level OK karts in Trofeo Andrea Margutti at the start of the year.

Her first OKJ races in the Swedish championship came after, and her pace was immediately evident. The combination of illness, injury and bad luck sapped any momentum though due to missing races, but a return to regional competition did bring Hedqvist’s first ever win and a confidence boost in the rainy conditions she usually struggled in.

That year’s CIK-FIA World Championship was in Sweden, so Hedqvist joined local team Ward Racing for the senior tournament and came 96th overall. The confidence curve continued, and her year ended with a scholarship win that enabled a full-time move to OK karts with Ward for 2019.

She came an impressive seventh in the Swedish national championship – won by Ferrari junior Dino Beganovic – and fourth in the slightly lower profile Swedish Kart League but had a tough time on her world championship return. A second year spent in the category promised much more in 2020.

Maya Weug SPAIN 15/o
Currently 25th in 2020 WSK Super Master Series – OK, 16th in 2018 CIK-FIA World Championship – OKJ

Photo: Birel ART

Back in 2016, Maya Weug beat SMP Racing junior Kirill Smal and Mercedes-Benz F1 junior Andrea Kimi Antonelli to win the WSK Final Cup for 60 Mini karts. She beat both again in WSK’s Night Edition, and was one of the top drivers in the traditional pre- and post-season tournaments in Italy. In the national championship she was only 15th, but she’d certainly made an impact.

A move up to OKJ beckoned for 2017, and the only Italian highlight was 12th in WSK Final Cup. It was in Britain where she starred the most, qualifying behind only Sauber junior Harry Thompson in the X30 Junior element of the British Kartmasters Grand Prix and was very unlucky to only finish 28th in the final race. Weug’s efforts were recognised with the ‘Spirit of…’ award.

She returned to the PFI International circuit for the world championship, this time in an OKJ kart, and came 36th in a grid packed with current single-seater stars. There was cautious expectation that Weug could be at the very front in her second season at that level, but it didn’t prove to be the case.

The year started with 22nd in the WSK Super Master Series, with the only event where her pace really merited better was the world championship in Sweden. She finished 16th this time, once again in a grid filled to the brim with talent.

Birel ART brought Weug on board as a factory driver and part of the Richard Mille Young Talent Academy for her graduation to senior karts last year, and it was another tricky but promising season against the highest calibre opposition. Qualifying struggles left her 23rd in the Super Master Series, and she was 51st and 61st in the European and World championships respectively. Despite those poor results, she was quick to be resigned by Birel ART for 2020.

Weug could have been in French Formula 4 this year had she won last December’s Richard Mille Shootout, and, along with FR1.6 test experience, she is already preparing to be ready to race single-seaters in 2021.

Lola Lovinfosse FRANCE 14/o
15th in 2020 WSK Champions Cup – OK, 39th in ’20 South Garda Winter Cup – OK, 10th in 2019 Trofeo delle Industrie – OK

Photo: Sportinphoto / Manetti Motorsport

FFSA Academy student Lola Lovinfosse has aspired to the levels of success that AlphaTauri F1 driver Pierre Gasly has achieved since she started karting in 2015, and is another driver who’s now making her name with Swedish team Ward Racing.

Lovinfosse was a midfielder in the French Mini and Cadet scene prior to her teens, when she made the move into X30 Junior and Nationale karts. Results immediately improved at home, and she raised eyebrows in appearances abroad. After a single season in those, she moved up to OKJ and then OK karts in 2019. It was a remarkable rise in more ways than one.

Her first ever OKJ appearance was the WSK Champions Cup, where she came 21st as a privateer. Lovinfosse then teamed up with Manetti Motorsport, coming 58th in a part-campaign in the Super Master Series, and then building up momentum with 47th in the Euro Series, eighth in Trofeo Andrea Margutti and cameoing in the CIK-FIA European Championship.

Along with some races in the Swedish Junior Championship, Lovinfosse ended her time in OKJ by joining Ward for the CIK-FIA World Championship in Finland. She was pleased with her own performance, which resulted in 67th in a field of well over 100.

A month later she joined Ward’s OK line-up in the WSK Open Cup, and charged to 20th in the final on her debut. A five-second bumper penalty demoted her to 27th, but her pace was no fluke; she returned to Lonato a week later and came 10th in Trofeo delle Industrie. The next Open Cup round at the 7Laghi circuit was the week after, and 17th place earned her 27th in the points.

As an OK rookie they were seriously impressive results, and 2020 had already got off to a good start. In the wet Champions Cup she finished 15th from 10th on the grid after struggling in qualifying, came 39th in the talent-crammed South Garda Winter Cup and is 43rd out of over 100 in the Super Master Series despite missing one of the two rounds that’s been held.

French F4 is Lovinfosse’s target for 2021, with W Series next on the agenda before emulating Gasly in making it to F1.

Barbora Bauerova SLOVAKIA 14/o
11th in 2019 Motorsport Games Karting, 50th in ’19 FIA Academy Trophy, 7th in 2018 Slovakian Indoor Championship – Junior

Photo: FIA Motorsport Games

A graduate of Slovakia’s indoor karting scene, Barbora Bauerova was thrust into international competition last year by making her way to the final of the FIA’s Girls on Track Karting Challenge in France.

She missed out on joining the six-strong Girls on Track European Team, but the 14-year-old remained abroad to race in several high-profile FIA competitions.

The first of those was the three-round FIA Karting Academy Trophy, in which she finished 50th overall in. The single-make OKJ-level series where drivers represent their home nation was a step up in competition for the teenager, but provided valuable learning material for her 2020 programmes.

Bauerova then teamed up with countryman Michal Vilim to represent Slovakia again in the inaugural FIA Motorsport Games at Vallelunga. The karting slalom event used identical electrically power karts, which can handle very differently to more traditional outdoor machinery, and required each team to run a line-up that included a male and a female.

Slovakia’s duo finished 11th out of the 28 competing countries. They made their way into the knockout stages by going 15th fastest in qualifying, but were firmly beaten by Germany in their first face-off. While the Motorsport Games is off for 2020, Bauerova could be going for gold medal in 2021.

The stars already in cars…

Photo: LAT Images

Jamie Chadwick ENGLAND 22/o
Cars: 2020 W Series, 2019 W Series champion, 2018-19 MRF Challenge champion, 2015 British GT4 champion

The first ever champion of the all-female W Series is now a household racing name, and is aiming for a historic third single-seater title in 2020 by defending her W Series crown. It’s her results outside of the series that are more interesting though.

She’s become an expert at the winter racing series, winning the MRF Challenge title and a race in Asian Formula 3 on merit, and has also made starring appearances in Formula Ford’s end-of-year Walter Hayes Trophy. What Jamie Chadwick is capable of in higher-spec machinery, such as Euroformula’s Dallara 320, will hold the key to whether she makes it to F1, as she’s more than proven she has the pace across a variety of different cars to have a career in racing.

Marta Garcia SPAIN 19/o
Cars: 2020 W Series, 4th in 2019 W Series, 9th in 2017 Spanish F4   Karts: 4th in 2016 CIK-FIA European Championship – OK

Having already gone through the processes of being picked up and dropped by an F1 team, Marta Garcia has done a great job of getting her career going again with the help of W Series. Victory at the Norisring last year was her first in cars, and she’s likely to be one of Chadwick’s main title threats when the season eventually gets underway.

With a strong management team behind her, and some seriously encouraging test showings in other F3 cars already, Garcia should also be able to transfer her W Series form into other series as successfully as Chadwick has.

Irina Sidorkova RUSSIA 16/o
Cars: 2020 W Series, 6th in 2019 F4 SMP, 2018 RCRS National Junior champion, 2nd in 2017 RCRS National Junior

SMP junior Irina Sidorkova had an unconventional route into single-seaters, as have many Russian drivers, having won her first car racing title aged 13 and competed in ice racing and touring cars at a junior level in her home country.

After winning the national title in the latter, SMP was keen to get her into open-wheel cars and put her in its own F4 series for 2019. She claimed several podiums, and scored points in a Spanish F4 campaign, and then made it through the 2020 W Series driver selection process. With a year of single-seater experience under her belt, the Russian could really impress this season.

Juju Noda JAPAN 14/o
Cars: 2020 Danish F4, 14th in 2019 Lucas Oil Winter Race Series, 2017-’19 Formula U17

The daughter of former Formula 1 driver Hideki Noda wants to win in F1 and Formula E, and has already been racing single-seaters for several year. She turned 14 at the start of this year and relocated to Denmark to race in the country’s F4 series.

We know that Noda’s set ominously quick test times in F3 cars in Japan, but the Okayama-based Formula U17 series she’s won races in is a weak indicator of where she’d stand against wider opposition. But to be as comfortable as Noda is in a race car at her age is hugely impressive, and her tests across Europe and US racing debut suggest she could be champion in Denmark.

Photo: Noda Racing

The post 10 female racing stars of the future appeared first on Formula Scout.