It was 30 years ago at the age of 11 that Cristiano Morgado first ventured to a local track after his father bought him a 60cc kart. His introduction to racing was not more than two months later at the Mini Monaco street race in a beautiful seaside town, «It was quite an experience for my first race,» Morgado recalls. «It was nice, finished midfield for that race and by my second race I was on the podium». Apart from his father, who raced saloon cars when he was younger, Cristiano was inspired in karting by a couple of well-known heroes: five times World Karting Champion Danilo Rossi and another World number 1 Alessandro Manetti. «It was awesome that I got to meet them both; Rossi helped me with advice at my first ever Rotax Grand Finals and Manetti was my teammate at the Rotax Euro Challenge».
«My Rotax journey began when South African Rotax importer Ed Murray invited me to do a race in the Rotax MAX Challenge in 2001. At the time I had heard about Gavin Cronje’s victory, Leeroy Poulter’s second place and Claudio Piazza Musso’s win at the Rotax World Finals in Malaysia. We had always had very skilled, tough drivers growing up in South Africa; it was the ideal school for us to hone our driving and racecraft. That year I also watched trackside as Mark Cronje won the title at home at Zwartkops Raceway. What an atmosphere it was that day! The motivation going into my next season was extremely high. As the 2003 season came around my dream was to make it on the South African team to compete at the World Finals that year at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt».