Alright so the WSK series has kicked off in La Conca, Italy.

Results should be available on the WSK website starting today around about now or very soon.

Mitchell Gilbert from Malaysia will be driving for the factory Kosmic team in KF3.

Thai driver Tanart Sathienthirakul is racing with the PDB Racing Team on a Gillard Parilla in the KF2 category.

A third Asian driver is Stefano Marcelo from the Philippines who is racing with Maranello Kart using a TM engine in KF2.

Anyone know why Indonesian driver Kevin Susilo isn't on the verified entry list? He was on the original entry list but is dropped in the verified list. I guess we'll soon see on the qual results if he's there or not.

In KF1 it'll be interesting to see how the power-struggle evolves. Will TonyKart be back on top? How will Fore do with the Maxter engine?

visa problem....

dude are you for real or what?????you are serious hes got a visa problem so he cant race in the wsk???

I don't think she would lie to us . msn is in the know on the Indonesian karting scene .

It's fairly common for karting and race drivers to run in to visa / passport problems preventing them for entering a race - it's happened even for F1 drivers. Sometimes it's down to poor preparation and sometimes down to just bad luck with officials being slow or annoying.


So far the going is tough for the Asian trio.

In KF3 Mitchell qualified just within 1 second of pole, putting him in 72nd position out if 87 drivers.

Surprisingly with the top 73 separated by less than 1 second, at the front the gap from pole man Nyck de Vries to second place man Ignazio D'Agosta was over 2 tenths!

In the heats yesteday Mitch had one horrible race in what looks like a bit of a coming together maybe - he started in 29th and finished in 33rd, ahead of only two drivers that retired. His laptime was also off the pace suggesting he was probably driving with a damaged kart or saving his tyres.

He was much better in the next heat, starting in 30th he finished the race in 18th with only ~3 retirements.

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In KF2 Stefano Marcelo qualified 48th (+0.488 from pole) with Tanart in 67th (+0.773), out of 83 drivers.

Starting on the 10th row Stefano finished his heats in 17th and 23rd.

Tanart was starting his heats on the 14th row, and finished in 27th and an impressive 17th in a retirement-rich heat.

A few more heats today and then the pre and finals.

In KF1 there's a superpole system - in which the top ten from qual go into an additional shoot-off with I think just one lap counting. CRG driver Jonathan Thonon came out on top followed by 3 TonyKart drivers.

In the heats it was TonyKart at the front with Ardigo and Stevens taking a heat win each.

thank u , Mikko for the explanation...

and killerbees.....as Mikko explain , right now , he's just having some bad luck.

msn is a she?

hey msn im sorrry.....i did not know you were a girl.....well its teaches every driver now to prepare their visa properly so they do not hav to face any problems.....

its ok....

yes..msn is a she....

prep's it is what we need....it took us weeks (months) to prep everything in order to go to...let say, malaysia for a race...i know how that feels...

Since 9/11 it has become much more difficult for those of us living in countries perceived to be "Muslim" to get visas for Europe, America and Australia.

The checks are more stringent, the process takes much longer and sometimes, especially if your name is something like "Muhammed" or "Hussein", you do not get a visa at all...

The results are all in... none of the Asian contingent made it to the Final stages unfortunately. Closest was Tanart Sathienthirakul finishing 16th in the 2nd chance heat. Stefano dnf'd in the same heat.

In KF1 it was back to TonyKart at the front, at least the British drivers with Will Stevens and Gary Catt making it 1-2.

Yes, visas can be a little tricky. For instance, if you are deemed an 'employed' sportsperson entering the European Union or US and you are not considered a resident, and you plan to "work" for a business in their country, you MAY be required to apply for a 'working' visa (it seems to be a bit discretionary for sportspeople) which of course is simply not possible if you are under the legal age for working (15 years in most countries). Usually, sporting bodies are able to assist in facilitating the required approvals, but it does take time (figure on 3 months).

Great experience for the Juniors over there though. No doubt they will close the one second a lap gap down now that they've been exposed to the world's best in action.