More than one world premieres at one time: first tim ever the Rotax Max Grand Finals took place in South America, first time ever with electric driven karts and the first time ever Philipp Walsdorf is driving outside Europe. At the Circuito Internacional Paladino in Conde/Paraiba, Brazil 360 drivers from 55 nations and additionally 12 participants of DEKM (German electric kart cahmpionship) plus 4 drivers from South America who had qualified for the races of the electric karts during the Rotax Max Grand Finals met to compete. The South American drivers did their first competition with 16 participants on Circuito Internacional Paladino during the first weekend of the Rotax Max Grand Finals in the E-Karting Cup of FIA Americas. This made the races in Brazil more exciting showing up some drivers having a totally different background. Really a intercontinental challenge.
Time schedule was tight, there was not much time to learn about the land and people living there. Especially since near the equator near the sun sets early. From 5:30 pm it is dark there. Nevertheless Philipp met some nice Brazilians and had some good and interesting conversation. The weather was a special challenge, at 33 degrees Celsius and high humidity the athletic performance were all the more highly valued. Because of the races during the first weekend the south american drivers had some advance in track knowledge. However, the German drivers caught up quickly and were able to close the gaps successfully. Philipp Walsdorf started as the best German driver into the free practice sessions, but could not increase his performance the same way some other drivers did. In the end he finished eigth in the final race. Winner of the first Rotax Thunder World Championship became the brazilian driver Sergio Crispin, the son of the owner of the track who could take benefit of his home advantage. The best German driver, Philipp Britz, who also won the German Championship before, set the Pole Position in qualifying and the fastest race lap showing that the home advantage was still beatable. Especially since he had to start the final run from position four by a spoiler penalty from the heats. After all it was a success story for all German drivers. The other South American drivers finished evenly distributed between the others. It could be seen that in both areas, South America and Europe karting is done successfully.
A special experience as well was to watch the races of the different classes of Rotax Max. All races took place on an extremely high level of sport, despite so many participants on the track few drivers failed. Especially in the first and very fast corner one could see that all of the drivers knew well how to drive. The track offers many overtaking opportunities and so the races kept being exciting and entertaining showing lots of overtaking moves.
Both the journey into another world and the races, watching or driving have been a very special experience Philipp Walsdorf and his family will not forget too soon, topped by a successful Drivers Party at the end with tire change competition. In this competition four tires had to be mounted on rims and disassembled. The winner solved the task in fabulous 26 seconds!
For Philipp Walsdorf, this event ends the time in karting, for the next season plans are in the direction of automobile. which championship it will be is still open, in every case the vehicle will be bigger than a kart.