Maurizio Voltini
With this beginning of the new 2019 racing season, the karting world (like pretty much everyone else) has now been in this third millennium for almost 20 years. In our sector – and certainly not the only one - we are still wondering, however, what direction the “future” has taken. Without churning up issues that we deal with every month, at the moment the “hope” has a specific name: Felipe Massa. The president of the Karting Commission in Fia is a top driver, but above all he is someone who can observe and analyze certain situations without the blinders of habit. Unfortunately, the “it’s always been like that and so it’s good” is one of the most deeply rooted vices of karting since time immemorial, preventing to understand / anticipate certain changes or, better still, to discern appropriately what was good from what needs to be changed. There are no lack of past examples, alas.
Massa, instead, is a character without too many preconceptions, who has had no qualms about moving from Formula 1 to Formula E, for example. And even the recent decision to prohibit kart engines running in the paddock, regardless of whether this is one of the most urgent problems to be solved, shows how the Brazilian manages to not accept certain situations that are wrong in themselves, even if they are habitual. Of course, the risk is that one may be incapable of understanding when certain acts have a true raison d’etre, that is, to discern when people in kart do as they do for a concrete reason and when due, instead, to simple custom. Massa could maybe be advised by another great Brazilian driver, Rubens Barrichello. Rubens has remained in contact with the world of karting, and not only to follow his children, but even as far as participating in the KZ World Championship at the age of 44.