Karting Academy |08 July 2022

The Academy drivers pose for souvenir photos

Preparing the next generation of karters

The Seychelles Karting Association’s academy is breeding a new generation of karters in their 2022 cohort with the youngsters making good progress as they get past the first half of their training to become fully fledged kart drivers of the future.

Three different class categories are presently following the driver training, these being the Bambino class for drivers aged 8 to 10 years old, the Academy Cadets for 11 to 15 years old and the Academy Juniors for 16 years upwards. The different catogeries train one or twice every month on Saturday afternoons, where they learn how to safely handle and control the karts, learning the flags signals and getting familiar with the racing rules and regulations.

For their second half of the season, which started last Saturday, they will slowly be put into light competition, mostly time trials, in order to get them to learn the art of driving faster to set faster lap times, they will then move on to racing in groups which will eventually set them up to gain the proper racing experience and art of overtaking, defending and handling a proper race. In-house theory training will also be conducted in this second half of the season and hopefully all the drivers will be ready to sit for the course exam in order to gain their racing license when the training programme ends towards the end of the year.

In the different categories so far, there has been quite a few who have already shown great potential of becoming top drivers but commitment, determination, a lot of personal sacrifices, good training and sponsorship will be the ticket for them to go on to be top line kart drivers on the international stage, which is the stepping stone for those with aspirations of moving upwards to single seaters, sports cars, touring cars, endurance racing and of course the pinnacle Formula 1. It must be mentioned that most of the present F1 drivers such as Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Charles Leclerc, etc. started in karting at a tender age.

The 2022 Academy groups are as follows, in the 8–10-year olds, the BAMBINOS, they are Noah and Maya Moulinie, Joshua Cosgrow, Loïc Raoul, Rocco Larue, Hugo Patel, and Hayden Leong Pon, whilst in the 11-15 years ACADEMY CADETS they are Adam Ally, Lecxus Lui Chit-Chon, Keeno Leong Pon, the 16+ ACADEMY JUNIORS they are Julius Sinon, Lance Maillet, Rudolph Camille, Lanah Leon Pon.

The Seychelles Karting Association is happy so far with the progress being made, especially as they had to shelve the past two years of the Academy due to the Covid-19 pandemic, though the lack of equipment is always a major concern especially when they have to turn down new applications weekly from newcomers wanting to join the sport.

Contributed