Teenage karting star, 19, crowned world champion
WET CONDITIONS IN PORTUGAL
TEENAGER Callum Bradshaw is celebrating after becoming the FIA senior Karting World Champion.
Bradshaw, 19, from Cosby, won the sport’s biggest prize after overcoming wet conditions at Portugal’s Kartódromo Internacional do Algarve.
Driving in the colours of the Tony Kart Racing Team, which he only joined in the summer, Bradshaw had just two races to prepare for the world championips.
After qualifying third overall on Friday in wet conditions, things looked good for Bradshaw, but there was still a long way to go with four heats ahead.
The dry conditions on Saturday would see him finish no lower than fourth.
Then in his fourth and final heat on Sunday morning, in treacherous conditions, he would storm to victory, setting a pace that no one could match.
The result put Bradshaw on the front row of the grid alongside his countryman Taylor Barnard for the final on a wet track.
As the lights went green Bradshaw made a lightning start and immediately took the lead, but the red flags came out shortly afterwards, putting him back to square one.
After a 29-minute interval, the 36 drivers resumed the battle to
BRADSHAW WINS THE TITLE IN become FIA Karting World Champion.
After slotting into second through turn one, Bradshaw went straight on the attack and on his second attempt he passed Barnard to take the lead.
Bradshaw extended his lead at the rate of almost one second per lap to be 6.2 seconds clear from the field at the halfway stage.
The teenager gave a masterclass to the thousands of viewers on how to drive a kart in the wet. He was lapping a second quicker than some of those in the top 10 and was the fastest driver on the circuit on almost every single lap.
Bradshaw came home to win the FIA Karting World Championship by 8.6 seconds.
The Tony Kart Racing Team saw something in Bradshaw when they brought him in as a factory driver just 10 weeks ago.
They hoped he could put them back on the top of the world in the OK class for the first time in eight years and Bradshaw repaid that confidence in the most impressive fashion in only his third race for the team.
Bradshaw’s journey began in 2011 when he first sat in a kart at Whilton Mill with the hope of one day going on to conquer the world.
Less than three years later and Bradshaw had almost done it finishing as Vice Champion in the IAME International Final in 2015 before becoming the first, and only, British Champion of the FIA Karting Academy Trophy in 2016.
This was all achieved with the help of Rob Dodds and the BKC Racing team.
It was a year that also saw him win the British Kart Grand Prix, before winning another big title in the South Garda Winter Cup in 2017, now as a CRG Factory driver.
There were further podiums in Las Vegas and Le Mans but during his two-year spell with CRG, Bradshaw never quite got his hands on the big one and he would return to X30 racing in 2019 with Fusion Motorsport.