In an extraordinary open letter, Chiesa Corse has announced they will not be competing in year years CIK World Karting Championship. This year’s championship witnesses the introduction of new engine allocation regulations. Each driver will nominate an engine manufacturer. The manufacturer will then have to supply those drivers via an engine lottery. For example, if 10 drivers nominate Parilla engines, IAME has to distribute engines via a lottery system. The CIK hopes that this will stop drivers getting ’special’ engines while driving up the competition between each manufacturer to make a good base engine package.

However Dino Chiesa, whose team has won the last two World Championships with Nyck de Vries, feels this unnecessarily penalises the professionality of  drivers as well as engineers. “While we appreciate the desire to foster equal opportunities for everyone, this decision completely erases the professional ability of the single driver. The way an engine is used, how much it is put under stress, and taken to the limit by driver A, in fact, will differ compared to driver B; with the risk that driver A, perhaps more careful and more experienced in evaluating how an engine should be handled in different moments of a race weekend, might end up with an engine close to the point of breaking in decisive moments of the race. In addition, in as much as official drivers may accept the decision in keeping with their team’s choices, this is unlikely to be the case with private drivers who, paying out of pocket to race, will hardly agree that the high-performing engine they are using all of”

He continued “I can understand the reason for wanting to “shuffle up the cards” over the course of a race weekend: engines being allotted by drawing, the Federation changing engines between drivers… However, I believe these kinds of rules are more suited for amateur races on rental karts, in which it is perfectly fine if participants, in the name of having fun, exchange karts (and maybe even grid positions) at the end of race 1, in view of race 2. Yet, I believe it is an entirely different story when it comes to a top-level world championship. In this case, the professional ability of teams, drivers, and mechanics should have precedence over everything else. The recent decisions taken by CIK-FIA regarding engines do not allow single participants to show their professional competence, since the race of any given participant could be compromised by the useof an engine received from another contestant with a different degree of professional expertise.”

Chiesa Corse will continue to run in KF1 with Gary Catt in the WSK Series.

You an read the full release here – Chiesa Corse Open Letter

Related posts:

1. KF1 v6.0 – Lottery Engine Allocation for World Champs in 2012
2. Callum Ilott: I have won a few races, but I still want to improve!
3. PFi and other Euro Rounds Ditched in CIK World Champs Rescue Bid!
4. CIK – New Single Make Engine Junior World Championship
5. Ardi-no-go! Top drivers look set to miss out at CIK World Karting Championship!

Tags: cik, Dino Chiesa, fia, gary carr, kart, karting, nyck de vries