Strawberry Racing’s Luke Varley underlined his huge talent by dominating the Rotax Grand Finals at the Ghibli Raceway, near Sharm El-Sheikh (Saturday 12 December). Having secured pole for the pre-final, Luke went on to dominate it – winning by over five seconds.

He was made to work hard for victory in the Grand Final after dropping a couple of places during the opening lap. However, as the lead pair began to tussle, Luke seized his chance and, with an incisive move, regained the upper hand. From there he was able to open a gap and maintain it to the chequered flag. Strawberry team principal Warwick Ringham was understandably delighted, “Luke drove fantastically well. Because everyone’s on the same equipment, it all comes down to driver ability and who’s got the best set-up and ultimately, who wants it the most.”

He added, “This year he’s won Kart Masters, finished second in the British Super 1 championship, won the European and now the World title – Luke’s just really good, isn’t he?!” Indeed, such has been the impression that Luke made in Egypt and with his performances throughout the season that he has been invited to compete in the Florida Winter Tour - and there is a possibility that he could land a drive with Paul Spencer’s Tony Kart Junior Racing Team in 2010. The team’s other drivers experienced varying fortunes. Formula Renault graduate, Joseph Reilly returned to complete his karting career, but after a series of misfortunes found himself in the repercharge and was unlucky not to qualify for the main final after a questionable black-flag.

The team’s sole Junior representative Henry Hunter was making his World finals debut, and acquitted himself admirably. Facing a steep learning curve, he came through the heats and pre-final to qualify well for arguably, the biggest race of his career to date. An intelligent drive saw him thread his way to an eventual 8th place at the finish. Warwick said, “Henry did really well. This was a new experience for him but the more laps he did, the better he got. In fact, what he achieved was fantastic.”

After winning the British Open and Super 1 titles and finishing a close second in the European championship, Ed Brand added third place in last Saturday’s World final (12 December) to his impressive haul of trophies in 2009 at the Ghibli Raceway, at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt. All season long, the HRS Motorsport driver has been a front-runner and at the desert circuit located near the shores of the Red Sea, it was no different.

Having started the event with the third fastest lap in timed qualifying (out of 72 drivers), Ed then won each of his three heats to earn pole position for the pre-final. A canny second place finish in that race gave him the preferred outside line for the Grand Final itself. “Unusually, the outside row of the grid gave you a better entry line into the first corner, provided that you got a decent start, which I managed to do.” Ed led the thirty-four strong field across the start/finish line at the end of the first lap, and from there held the advantage for the next eighteen. However, the impressive Ukyo Sasahara from Japan had kept a close watching brief on the Englishman, waiting for a mistake.

Just two laps from the chequered flag, Brand pushed too hard into a corner and the Japanese dived down his inside, edged him onto the marbles, also allowing fellow Brit Matt Parry through. “I’m disappointed not to have won,” Ed reflected back home in Hertfordshire. “But if I’d started at the back and driven through the pack to finish third, I’d be delighted. So on reflection, third place is a good result.”

Ed’s father Mark was equally philosophical, “The Japanese lad drove remarkably well. Ed made a slight mistake and Ukyo went for it. That’s racing, that’s life,” he shrugged. HRS boss Tristram Oman agreed, saying “We got a top three and that’s no disgrace at all.” With the paddock thronged with journalists and TV crews, Ed’s performances throughout the week-long event turned him into something of a celebrity – “Everywhere I went there was a camera shoved in my face” – and led to offers from race organisers to demonstrate his talents in selected international events.

Ed has to rely on sponsorship to keep him racing and he acknowledges the support he receives from his family’s firm of plumbers merchants and their suppliers, he says “I would like to thank Brands of Watford, radiator company, Vogel and Noot and Contact Electrical (Watford). Without their help, I would not be able to achieve anywhere near the sort of success I have enjoyed this year.” He added, “I would also to say a big, big ‘thankyou’ to Tristram and Nigel (Horner) of HRS for their incredible hard work, help and support throughout the season. They’re a great team, have designed a monster kart in the CRG Dark Knight, and played a massive part in my most successful season yet.”

Three Iranian drivers will take part in the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals, which will be held in Egypt in mid-December. Iranian trio namely, Farhad Musavi, Mahyar Mir-Moradi and Mehdi Taghizadeh will participate in Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals which takes place from December 7 to 12 at Ghibli Raceway in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

A total of 216 drivers from 55 nations will compete at the event. In 10 years, the ‘RMC’ has become the world’s biggest and most prestigious kart racing series with representatives of all five continents gathered to crown the best among them.

The Rotax MAX Challenge is organized by BRP-Rotax, the world leading manufacturer of kart engines with over 15,000 drivers worldwide. “We are proud to host so many different nations and cultures, all striving to win the prestigious title, Rotax MAX Challenge World Champion”, said Hany Soufrakis, Chairman of Ghibli Raceway. He added, “We’re sending out a global invitation to everyone to join us, live the thrilling experience and most importantly support their country”.

By TT

The 2009 International ROK Final concluded with a series of fireworks worthy of the title of the greatest annual event for ROK Racing. The Eastern European countries confirmed their enormous and growing potential with Yan Midrla taking the Senior ROK title back to the Czech Republic with the podium completed by Polish drivers Hubert Cebulski and Daniel Fuchs.

In the Super ROK class the Italian Alessandro Vantini was simply uncatchable in taking the title after winning this race last year. Right behind him was countryman Lorenzo Caponi with the Argentinian driver Martin Acosta taking a surprising but very positive third place.

The Junior ROK final was a nailbiter decided on the line with a photofinish in which the young South African driver Roman De Beer bravely held out the Italian Damiano Fioravanti with third place going to the Swiss driver Levin Amweg.

The Mini ROK title went to the Italian Luca Corberi followed Sweden’s Robin Hansson and Italian Tommaso Mosca. There were consolation finals for drivers who did not among the final 34 drivers for the four ROK categories in which the racing was as spectacular as ever. Mika Laiho took home the Dell’Orto Trophy to Finland, the South African Lourens Dunn won the Super ROK Sparco Cup, Italian Gabrielle Volpato won the Junior Bridgestone Cup and Thailand’s Sasakorn Chaimongkol won the TKart Magazine Mini ROK Title.

The ROK International Final was held in grand style with driver numbers that broke all records (more than 300 in total), from more than nations than ever (35 countries in total) and spectacular racing that will be remembered for years to come.

By ROK

The 9th ROTAX MAX CHALLENGE GRAND FINALS will take place on the awesome track of La conca – Muro Leccese, Italy from 25th November to 30th November, 2008.

After Portugal 2006 the grand finals touch European ground again. This time Italy – at no doubt the home of the kartsport- will host the grand finals of the biggest race series of the world.

The track of La conca in Muro Leccese is 80 km south of Brindisi and close to the city of Otranto in the beautiful region of Apulia.

La Conca

This region is well known for it´s beauties, hospitality, history as well motor sport , the track of La conca is for sure amongst the very best karting facilities on earth. It´s simply the best place to host the ROTAX MAX CHALLENGE GRAND FINALS 2008:

Beside this it is as well one of the warmest and driest area of Europe, which let us hope that we will see perfect conditions even late in the year.

La Conca will see 216 drivers that qualified via national as well as international race series – means it will be a “battle” amongst the best of the world – coming from more than 55 nations of all 5 continents.

For 1 week La Conca will become the center of interest for anybody involved in the ROTAX MAX CHALLENGE worldwide program - the place where everybody wants to be. ROTAX, it’s distributors and partners who support this fantastic championship look forward to making a very exiting event.

By Rotax