Ayrton Senna and the true value of the words ‘World’ & ‘Champion.’

Like a lot of once rather ‘formal’ things, the concept of being a genuine, bona fide ‘World Champion’ is fast being devalued by those with a vested interest in…what, I’m really not sure.

I raise the subject now because some of my fellow karters are at it again, proclaiming loudly that so-and-so is ‘the new ROK Cup Superfinal’ or Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals ‘World Champion.’

To which my usual response, and one I’m sad to say has lost me more than one casual ‘karting acquaintance’ over the years is……’Bullshit they are! New Zealand has only one ‘Karting World Champion’ and that is Wade Cunningham (who won the title at the official CIK-FIA Karting World Championship event at the Sarno track near Naples in 2003).

As Wikipedia so succinctly puts it (and I quote); “The Karting World Championship is a competition organised by the CIK-FIA for kart racing. It (has been) held annually since 1964 and is karting’s flagship event.”

For those of you who don’t know, the governing body of world motorsport, the FIA (International Automobile Federation) created the CIK (International Karting Commission) in 1962.

The first two World Championships in 1964 and 1965 were held over one final round. From that point on, however, the world’s best kart drivers competed for the title over an extended weekend, from Thursday to Saturday, including free and qualifying practice sessions, qualification heats, a pre-final and a final were common.

Over the years the CIK-FIA have tried different – mainly multi-round – formats but have returned time and again to the sort of single-event style Wade Cunningham topped the word in back in 2003.

When Wade was at his peak the World Karting Championship title was still contested using the highly strung, peaky 100cc 2-stroke but in 2007 the engine spec changed to the KF1 125cc spec.

A driver who many Kiwi motorsport fans will have fond memories of from his whirlwind season in our local Toyota Racing Series, Lando Norris, won the World Karting Championship title in 2014 using a KF1-spec 125cc engine.

If you watch the movie Senna, which tracks the life and career of the late, and very much great F1 champion Ayrton Senna you will get to grasp very quickly the role karting – and the desire to get to Europe and try and win the World Karting Championship title – had on the man many of us still think of as the greatest driver of the modern era.

I consider myself very privileged, for instance, to have discussed Senna’s relationship with 1973 World Karting champion Terry Fullerton, with a bloke who was there when the two were teammates, former Aussie motorsport magazine publisher (and now the brains behind the S5000 V8 single-seater category across the Tasman) Chris Lambden.

A Brit by birth but brought up a Kiwi after his parents emigrated to Christchurch, Lambden got his start in karts here before returning to the UK and Europe for what he hoped would be a kart-based ‘OE.’

Links forged here soon paid dividends when he got to the UK and in 1978, he ‘ran’ Terry Fullerton for Brit Martin Hines’ works Zip/DAP squad.

That was the first year Senna flew over from Brazil to contest the World Karting Championship and – again – if you read the definitive Senna biography (by Chris Hilton) you will find out what each thought of the other.

The key ‘take’ from all this is that despite of all the poles, race wins and championship titles he won in Formula 1 Senna was still ‘pissed’ he hadn’t won the Karting World Championship title.

That he was destined for bigger – if not, in his own mind, better – things was obvious, says Chris (Lambden). But despite his success in cars, his best finish at a Karting World Championship meeting, was – Chris believes – a fifth, and that haunted him literally to the day he died.

There’s an amazing ‘to-camera’ piece in Senna – The Movie when  a hapless journo asks, and this is at the height of ‘The Troubles’ with his McLaren-Honda teammate Alain Prost, who Senna reckoned to be the best driver he had ever raced against.

Yep, in the context of the time it was a ‘loaded-to-all-hell’ grenade of a question which was always going to backfire on the Brazilian whether he said….Alain Prost…..or Nigel Mansell…or even the only drivers not intimidated by him in Formula Ford and Formula 3 when Senna first moved to Great Britain to race cars, Calvin Fish and Martin Brundle.

Despite English being his second language, Senna was no fool though, utterly flummoxing the journo who had posed the question as well as the rest of the F1 media pack by simply saying…Terry Fullerton…then launching into a wonderfully subversive almost stream-of-consciousness explanation as to why.

Along the way he skewered F1 for being soulless and those who ran he sport and teams as more interested in the money they could make (no surprises there) than in the purity of the sport.

Life was different, he mused, when he first came to Europe to do the Karting World Championship, the implication that he, Fullerton et al were the opposite, and only interested in the (more honourable) pursuit of the Karting World title, not the money you could make along the way.

By some total and utter coincidence Chris Lambden was in the press room that day and Senna caught his eye when he said the name Terry Fullerton.

Of course, what got me thinking about Wade Cunningham, Lando Norris and the late, great Ayrton Senna was all the puffery on social media and some of the less-informed specialist motorsport websites in the wake of the breakthrough wins by young Kiwi karters Clay Osborne and Jay Urwin at this year’s (and please note very carefully what the event organiser calls it) Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals event held at Sarno in Italy last week and into the weekend.

Like the other major kart engine manufacturer, Vortex (which has just organised its own ROK Cup Superfinal event in Italy) Rotax is very careful NEVER to use the word ‘World’ in ANY of its external promo material.

The reason is simple…..use the words ‘World’ and  ‘Championship’ in any document describing your privately organised event for affiliate around the globe and the official owners and rights-holders of the annual Karting World Championships, the CIK-FIA, will come at you, your sanctioning body and the track you intend to use with the full force of the law…

In an editorial coincidentally published just last week, British karting journalist Alan Dove laments the proliferation of ‘world’ karting champions…while at the same time pointing out the pitfalls of lazily telling someone or writing somewhere that #1 son or daughter is now a ‘world champion.’

In his editorial (which you can read here http://www.karting1.co.uk/so-so-so-many-world-karting-champions/?fbclid=IwAR0-Dp-EijMy8ZtfM7yNDiNqMfEbBq–EB_GPWi8L_tiV0C9jKC36XqAQL4 ) he quotes from engine manufacturer IAME’s own International Series regs which makes it crystal clear why you use the words ‘World’ and ‘Championship’ at your peril.

“Any competitor, manufacturer or affiliated third party advertising the results of a competition or record attempt shall state the exact conditions of the performance referred to, the nature of the competition or record, the category, class, etc… of the vehicle and the position or the result obtained.

“A winner of an international series may only and exclusively refer to himself / herself as “winner of” followed by the full and official title of the international series at issue.

“The titles “European Champion” and “World Champion” have been exclusively reserved for the winners of European Championships and World Championships respectively, which have been organised and sanctioned by the CIK-FIA and/or the FIA, and may in no event be used for winners of international series.”

The following par is the really scary bit though,

“The FIA is monitoring statements with regards to the results obtained in any of its international series closely. We remind that any misrepresentation, omission or alteration of a title may be penalised in accordance with article 131 of the International Sporting Code.

Again, if you want to delve further into the subject IAME’s take on the subject can be found at https://iif.iamekarting.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/RS_IAME-International-Final-2019_FRA_ENG.pdf

As a journo (probably the ONLY journo) who regularly writes about karts and karting in this country I have absolutely no problem keeping to the letter of the CIK-FIA’s law.

Part of the reason is that karters here are by and large a purist kind of bunch who still see the ultimate achievement to head to Europe and compete at an FIA Karting European Championship and/or an FIA Karting International Super Cup – KZ2 final.

It’s a path that has been marked out by Daniel Bray (who has twice finished second at an FIA Karting International Super Cup – KZ2 Final) and is now being followed by his protégé Matthew Payne.

Marcus Armstrong also used the FIA Karting path via the European Championships to help springboard himself into cars, and this year fellow Christchurch teenager Jacob Douglas was the first ever Kiwi Karter to be selected to run in the FIA Karting organisation’s own Junior Academy Trophy Series.

The last thing, of course, I want to do is in any way belittle the achievements of those who have excelled this year more than any other at either the ROK Cup Superfinal, or the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals meetings.

Just to qualify for a spot on either NZ squad is something to be very proud of. Then to win against a 34-strong grid of the best drivers from around the world almost beggars’ belief.

For your sake as much as the sport’s though please think before you tell someone you or your son/nephew/mate’s boy is the new ‘world champ.’

Because unless his name is – let’s see – Lorenzo Travisanutto (OK class), Marijn Kremers (KZ) or Thomas ten Brinke (OK Junior) then you are – quite simply – not telling the truth…………….