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After much speculation over recent weeks, it has been confirmed that Australia will be taking four representatives to the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals in Italy through an August event in Queensland, with the Charles Leclerc-branded kart confirmed as one of the control chassis for October’s Worlds.
The qualifying event will be at the Ipswich Kart Club August 16-18 and the 25th Grand Finals at the Sarno circuit October 19-26. The Ipswich event – known as the Rotax National Cup – is open to competitors from around Australia in five categories, with four of those categories receiving tickets to Italy.
An Australian Junior, Senior, DD2 and DD2 Master will wear the green and gold – as confirmed by new Rotax kart engine distributor, IKD.
It has been hasty work from IKD who only re-took the keys to the Rotax kingdom in Australia on May 1 (eight days ago) from Racemax.
At the time the contract with the Austrian manufacturer had been signed, Speedcafe.com can confirm it wasn’t clear as to the position of whether Australia would get any seats to the Grand Final table given where the brand has been in the Australian market over recent times.
The announcement of the Australian seats comes hot off the heels of the manufacturer announcing the control chassis’ for the October event, led by the kart carrying the name of Ferrari Formula 1 star, Charles Leclerc. Manufactured by BirelART, the Charles Leclerc chassis will supply the DD2 Masters category for drivers over the age of 32.
BirelART will have a greater presence through its iconic red and white colours through the Mini and DD2 categories, while SodiKart will provide the hotly contested Senior Max, Praga the Junior Max and Formula K chassis Micro Max.
The World Grand Final has seen Australia claim five wins, the majority in the DD2 Masters category – dating back to 2001 with Darrell Smith (who has gone on to have a long career for Rotax in Europe), Mark Wicks (2003), Lee Mitchener (2016) and Troy Woolston (2017). Australia has also won DD2 in 2006 with Ben George and Cody Gillis in 2017. In total, Australia has claimed three Nations Cups for the best placed nation at the Grand Finals.
New Zealand has claimed three titles in the event’s 24 year history – Ryan Urban in DD2 Masters in 2015 and in 2019, Clay Osborne in Junior Max and Jay Urwin in Micro Max.
