Giovanni Corona, former technical manager of Vortex, does not feel that he’s in retirement and he’s not in the mood to tell anecdotes about his long and successful career. With him we mostly talked about technical matters, the evolution and involution of this sport, seen with a critical and never superficial eye.

Text: P. Mancini

Giovanni Corona

Karting is a kind of drug. As much as I try, I can’t remember anyone who’s managed to abandon it definitively, without ever looking back. In driving, the relationship with the kart is physical: you drive it by shifting the weight of your body, fine tune it by touching everything without moving much … it’s a very special - and difficult to end - relationship, much more than it is with other motorsports. All of us who have dealt with steering wheels, small wheels and tires, screaming little engines, we all struggle so hard to get away from karts, but end up always looking for an excuse to rush back to the track to run two laps, saying we’re taking the kids along, to breathe some oil, get our hands dirty and give vent this damn passion that devours us. Giovanni Corona, from Pavia, born in 1946, is no exception to this rule. As technical director and founding member of Vortex, he has made the history of karting over the last 30 years. I began our talk with a classic opener, “So, I heard you’ve retired … maybe you’d like to tell us something about these years in karting …” Big mistake!

Direct and sharp as ever, Corona stopped me in my tracks. “Hold on, that’s not exactly how it is. I’m 71 years old, no longer a kid, and my commitment with a company like Vortex as a technical manager and partner had, by now, become too much. I’ve ceded my shares, and now I’m calmer and more serene, but this doesn’t mean going into retirement, spending days playing cards at the bar or reading the paper! For the moment I’m dedicating myself to sorting out my papers, my documents, organizing my things. After, who knows … I could still have fun playing with karts, but in a decidedly more relaxed manner and without too much stress.” In sum, the usual Corona: says what he has to say, ready too for constructive self-criticism in an interview that’s not simply a walk down memory lane, but a careful analysis on the technical aspects of the current karting world and on the evolution of this sport, not always clear to people outside the loop.

I started in the early 60s to devote myself to karting working at Komet of Consiglio, where there was also Bruno Grana and engineer Cesare Bossaglia. I was very young and it was a period when I learned a lot from really capable people. Then in 1968 I left for (compulsory) military service and when I returned, Komet had been absorbed by IAME, and I went to work for Aspes where I followed the development and tuning of motocross bikes for competitions. I learned to know that 125 cc aspirated engine well, which allowed me, 10 years later, to return to karts to transfer my experiences on aspirated 125 Junior, where the Aspes and the MAC Minarelli (both companies from Pavia) were extremely competitive.