Veloce Karting young guns all set for European Championship finale

Multiple racing champion Chris Van Der Drift says he’s super impressed with the performance of his Veloce Karting Academy racers as they hit the half way point in their European tour.

Hamilton racers Carson Daly (12) and Braxton Kraayvanger (10), Auckland’s Ayrton Williams (16) and Christchurch’s Vin Schelp (14) (main picture) are all in Europe with Van Der Drift overseeing their progress as they enjoy two weeks of intense racing, competition and development as part of the Veloce Karting Academy team.

***Auckland’s Ayrton Williams (16) was competitive in the first race weekend***

The four young Kiwi karters – racing with the historic PDB Racing team – have already shown an impressive turn of speed in their first weekend of action.

The quartet competed in the GK4 Kart Series as part of the Belgian/Dutch Kart Championship at the Genk track before a mammoth 1,000km road trip to compete in the IAME Euro Series in this weekend’s European Kart Championship climax this coming weekend at the Castelletto Circuit in Italy.

” It’s really been an awesome effort by the boys and we’ve been able to do hundreds of laps of karting in testing as well as in competition,” said Chris.

“Ayrton has a fifth place to his credit in a big competitive field and Vin is very close to the top ten as well. Braxton and Carson have a both been showing strong pace and matching the leaders lap times. We have seen them get better and better throughout the trip and it will be great to see how they continue to develop and perform in what is going to be a fiercely competitive weekend.”

***Braxton Kraayvanger (10) prepares for the big on-track battle ahead***

It hasn’t all been plain sailing for the Academy team off the track, however, as wild weather in Italy has also brought its challenges.

“Almost as soon as we arrived here in Italy, we experienced an absolutely massive thunder storm last night, ” added Van Der Drift. “

Our villa had water coming though the windows and through the ceiling, then we when arrived at the circuit this morning we found a massive majority of the paddock lost their tents/gazebos due to the tornado wind. Luckily we had just one that was destroyed so we got off lightly. And yes we’re hoping for better weather this weekend, probably just like everyone back in New Zealand.”