Beauly’s Oliver Stewart has earned the opportunity to put himself in a worldwide spotlight at the Karting Winter Cup in Italy this weekend.
Stewart finished second at the World Karting finals last month in a dramatic race in Adria, which saw him finish just 0.045 seconds behind winner Gabriel Stilp.
He had qualified for the event as a result of winning the LGM championship in August.
That prompted an invitation to compete in Sunday’s Winter Cup event at Lake Garda, which will result in 14-year-old Stewart and his father Jeff making a prompt return to Italy.
The contact was instigated by Mike Mills from Birel ART, who are among the biggest kart manufacturers in the world, with a view towards potential opportunities for next season.
‘Massive opportunity’
Stewart will spend most of this week in practice, with qualifying on Friday and heats on Saturday, prior to Sunday’s final.
The teenager is excited by the possibilities which could arise should he impress this weekend, but he insists he is not putting any undue pressure on himself.
He said: “I will be racing in OK-Junior class. That is equal to the top drivers in the world from junior X30, but it’s quite a bit faster.
“It is a massive opportunity to be in a class like this. Red Bull drivers usually get brought into the senior class from OK-Junior.
“Most of the drivers in F1 have gone through either X30 or OK-Junior. They are the main classes in the world, so it’s a stepping stone and the sort of thing everyone watches.
“It’s good to get my name out there and do well.
“Going around corners will throw me about the kart a bit more, but my fitness should be all right.
“The opportunities are endless. A lot of people watch OK-Junior, I think the World Championship in 2017 had 200,000 people watching it.
“A good 100 of those would have been talent spotters, so anything could happen.
“It’s just a case of going and trying to do well, if I don’t do well then nothing will come out of it.
“I don’t really feel the pressure from it, though, I just want to get as much as I can from it and see what happens.”
Competing against the best
Stewart has described his second-place finish at the World Karting finals as a “dream come true”, having made the trip with moderate expectations in a field of 96 of the world’s best drivers in his class.
He added: “I was there three weeks – and out of that there was only one day I wasn’t racing.
“It was great. I went out there thinking the competition was going to be extremely tough. I just wanted to go out and give everything I’ve got and see what happened.
“It went really well and I nearly won the thing – I was only 0.045 seconds off winning it – but that’s the way it goes.
“I didn’t even know if I had won it or not. I came around the last corner, then coming towards the finish line I was side-by-side and I wasn’t sure whether I had won or if I was second.
“Then realised I was second, so I shook hands and it was fair enough.
“It was amazing, because I came into the weekend thinking about the opportunities that could come if I got a good result.
“To get such a good result is just a dream come true.”
Raced through the pain
Stewart’s success was all the more impressive given he suffered a rib injury during one of his heats, however, he insists he took the incident in his stride.
He added: “I qualified in sixth-place, but if I hadn’t had the crash in heat five I would have been in pole position.
“I go through things like that most of the time in practice sessions. I got out of the seat and took my rib protector off, I was lucky to have that otherwise I would probably have broken my ribs.
“My ribs were really sore, but it didn’t really affect me. In racing, it’s going to happen.
“I’ve flipped twice before, so that was pretty underwhelming.”