Rob Smidley: “We have 96 % kartage costs”

You should feel strange to watch your arc roller who was leading him for the team you called once to the home. For Smidley, former race engineer to Felipe Massa and Formula 1 legend in all round, which came only one week ago when Luis Hamilton, the chapter that extracted the World Drivers Championship away from his leg in the last corner of the last lap in the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix, who He appeared from the former Enzo Ferrari’s home, decorated in red and smell to go to his first picnic in the Ferrari F1.

If you follow the 2008 season religiously as it did, then know all the procedures on the path, gossip before the race (these were the days before the podcast and leadership to survive, remember), then you will know how the modest things between McLaren and Ferrari have become. Not completely on Mercedes’s virginity in exchange for Red Bull’s struggle in 2021, but on the tracking track in Turkey and Germany, as well as tangled in the Japanese Grand Prix, she sent tensions. The drama was recently ignited for this season, as Masa filed a lawsuit against the F1 government, FIA, during the GP reform in Singapore, which eventually led to the loss of that year.

However, SMEDLEY is well aware of how quickly the Formula 1 world moves, even if the idea of ​​seeing an old opponent in his previous team looks a little strange at first. “Louis stood outside the house in Firano, a house where I spent many wet afternoon periods waiting for the path to dry, [he’s] It is now clear that a Ferrari man. This looks a little strange, it looks a little different. But the truth is that by the time we got this week, Louis is a Ferrari man, and he may always be a Ferrari man in the minds of most people. “I think it’s great to go to Ferrari. I think he shakes things. I think he needs it. As you know, given from the outside and a little inside, I think it certainly needs it. “

Moreover, smidley has larger things worry about these days, not the least of them because he left the F1 circus two years ago. After Massa was followed from Ferrari to Williams in 2014, the Gruv -based team left his headquarters after four years and worked as a adviser to the Formula 1 group. “I wanted some time for myself when, when I finished at the end of 18, I reached 19, with Williams,” As he says. “I did a little with Formula 1 at that time, and this is mainly due to the fact that they asked me that. But I made it clear that during that period, I wanted a time for myself, and B) [something] higher.”

However, what was not sure of it is what he wanted to start building. “I started thinking: ‘I was a child from a fairly modest background [who] It ends in Formula 1, ends up in Ferrari, and ends up winning all these medals and world championships and all these things. How do you reduce the likelihood of children to enter format 1? Soon it becomes aware that the system is already democratic. If you are smart enough, and if you apply yourself enough, as an engineer, a technician, as a weapon, or whatever, you will reach Formula 1, right? “Luck also.” Unless it is completely democratic and not democratic is the way to the driver’s seats in Formula 1. This is something that caused my attention. “

Now, motorsport has always been – and still is expensive. Heck, if it is not for the bored aristocrats who wander around their cars on Sunday afternoon, then there is never a sport of cars. But that was a century ago, and it can be said that the cost of entry now is the highest ever, especially for young people looking to get a foot on the F1 ladder. “If you want to go out to Europe [and] You want to participate in the FIA ​​EUROPEANS Championship, then there will be an average spending there is 250,000 pounds, ”he says. Of the tires per day (!), Changes in the Temple and “A large amount of engines”, and it is clear that we see how the costs can a snowball quickly, especially if you want to stay at the sharp end.

It is true that there are many families that can do this, but they are exorbitant for the majority of the world’s population, which means that this sport is missing on countless talented drivers who simply have the required means. Which prompted SMEDLY to create Carting Carting AssociationIn cooperation with the new FAT New Lifestyle Batsele brand (remember the name from the old LE MANS contestants?), With the aim of reducing the cost of entering the beginners race significantly and bringing motorsport to parts of the world where there is little -there is no -infrastructure To find young talents.

How cheaper are we talking? Well, SMEDLEY originally estimated that the costs could decrease by 50 to 60 percent, but he says: “We have finished reaching 96 percent and did not stop.” Impressive achievement, although it requires the full rethinking of the karting system. Of course, one of the main obstacles was the cost of the card itself. There are currently many manufacturers and tire suppliers competing in the Karting World Championship, most likely with their advantages and disadvantages. Meanwhile, everyone who competes in the Carting League league is thus in the same mechanism as their competitors, which SMEDLEY and his team designed, while manufacturing is dealt with by Kart Bire a long time ago.

Each card is operated with an electric motor, which varies in energy depending on the level in which you are in the league. “It was clear to me that EV technology has probably offered the best opportunity to obtain close parity across the entire fleet.” “When we were searching for this for the first time and we started looking at the internal combustion engines and EV engines and all of that, we were unable to get parity via ice engines. [We] Understand how to do this, but it will be a major investment [to make it work]. For this reason we ended up with EV KARTS. “Equity is particularly important, not only because it coordinates its arrival, which means that you may end up in Kart from the competitor in your next race, but it also takes the variables from the talent hunting process.

It can be said that this is the USP in the league on the traditional karting, as the data plays a major role in how to evaluate the F1 heroes in the future. “You look at the classic way to choose a driver. It is a kind of looking at their results, going and watching it on the track side, and knowing whether this child is good or not. Just take a look at it,” he says. “I am everything about finding talent, but I want to find it in a way that relies on data and really objective.” To this end, SMEDLEY and his team have developed programs that can analyze data points on Kart and around the path, and record them to a database with other drivers around the world.

Those who display speed signs during the arrival and driving test for regional and professional championships will be chosen, with the best scorer to get a Formula 4 seat fully tasted. This year represents the expansion in the United States of America and the first final in the world, as the best drivers from both markets compete for the same extension of the airport runway for the title of the title, glory be to Him. Ultimately, the goal is to have a real global structure, where children around the world have the opportunity to light timing and attract Talent-O-Tron in Legue.

At the present time, the SMEDLEY message to boys and girls with dreams of being a simple F1 driver: “We are open, the Almighty have tried.” Everything starts with the day of the test, which allows you to reconcile with learning the card and building speed without pressing the climb against the competitors in a full race. While the traditional scene of the caring can be frightening for the new arrivals, especially the little girls who enter a field full of children and approaches, SMEDLEY sought to make the Karting FAT league an open and attractive place welcoming everyone. “I always think everyone has the same reactions, it is the spirit of society here, a sense of belonging, and a sense of fairness, is really really strong, and this is great,” he says. “This is exactly how a movement should be like this.”

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