Five young karters, aged from 14 to 16, were given their first laps in an open wheel race car on the facility’s South Circuit after a vigorous introduction through simulations, fitness and reactive training.

The Formula Pathway, presented by the ARDC, AGI Sport and Focus Driver Performance is aimed to assist rising stars of karting to move into the world of circuit racing through Formula 4 and hopefully beyond.

With the re-introduction of the Australian Formula 4, the aim is to push aspiring talent to stay in Australia for a season or two. Here they can compete in an international category at championship level rather than have to go overseas immediately as many have had to do.

The Academy not only nurtures driving skills but will also look to embrace all facets of motorsport careers which include mechanical and engineering, team support, data specialists and officials.

It is much more than a ‘come and try’ day as the launch showed. There are already four more scheduled before the end of the year.

AGI Sport which is headed by Adam Gotch, provides the F4 race cars, tutors and engineers. In this case the team had several of the Gen 1 Duratec turbo-powered Mygales for the first timers to sample.

“It was exciting to host our first ARDC Race Academy – Formula Pathways event here at Sydney Motorsport Park,” said Gotch.

“The drivers got to experience 100 plus laps of driving a Formula 4 race car at speed for the first time. All the drivers and their parents had a fantastic time here at Sydney Motorsport Park.”

Prior to that they went through an intensive program with Focus Driver Performance, headed by Oliver Myers. The facility which is situated within the pit complex at SMP (with another at Queensland Raceway) prepares aspirants for global success by integrating all aspects of human performance into motorsport.

A big part of that is driving on the simulator of which there are three, open wheeler, GT and kart. In this case the open wheeler sim was used, setup for the South Circuit and exacting enough that the times were almost a match to times set on the track.

The sim which uses the actual tub of an A1 GP car that raced at SMP, was set to mirror the actual conditions on the day which started on a drying track before it rained and then became sunny again.

After several session beforehand, the youngsters were split into two groups. One group were on sim for the morning, and the other on the track in the race cars with individual specific seat fitting done, before they swapped over.

“We’ve already taking bookings for our next event in August and have another three events between now and end of year with a lot of interest now being generated from our program,” Gotch added.