Eighteen months after the FIA launched its Global Karting Plan, the series reaches its first continental milestone this weekend. Autodrom Słomczyn, a 1.2km technical circuit roughly 30 kilometres outside Warsaw, is hosting the inaugural FIA Karting Arrive and Drive European Championship across junior and senior categories.
The event is the first of three continental championships the FIA is running in 2026, with Asia-Pacific and South American editions also on the calendar. The top finishers from each will advance to the Arrive and Drive World Cup at Malaysia’s LYL International Circuit from 19 to 22 November.
What Arrive and Drive Actually Means
The format is straightforward by design. Every competitor receives identical equipment — a Kosmic Mercury Chassis fitted with a 2-stroke Vortex SV engine, Vega Option XH4 slick tyres, and Vega Q6 wet tyres. Chassis and engines are distributed by ballot and swapped between competitors throughout the event, removing any mechanical advantage from the equation.
The point is to strip karting back to raw talent. Financial resources and technical preparation, two factors that have long shaped outcomes at junior level, are deliberately neutralised. What remains is driving ability.
The weekend structure reflects that philosophy. Free practice runs on Friday, followed by two six-minute sprint races on Saturday — the second featuring a reversed grid. Points from those races set the grid for three qualifying heats, which in turn determine the starting order for Sunday’s finals. Junior drivers race over 20km; seniors over 25km.
A Diverse and Competitive Entry List
The 43-strong field spans 22 nationalities, and several names carry genuine pedigree. Oliver Kurg, currently fifth in the FIA Karting Academy Trophy Senior standings, arrives as an early favourite. Max Olert, whose brother Mio competes in Formula 4, returns after finishing eighth in the B final at last year’s Arrive and Drive World Cup.
Six Polish drivers race on home soil, including Colin Wazny, the 2024 and 2025 Rok Cup Poland winner and current Polish OK-N Championship leader. On the junior side, Julia Montlaur — a former Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Junior Programme driver — is among those tipped for a strong result.
The entry list also includes a couple of firsts worth noting. Vernhardur Ravnaas becomes the first Icelandic driver to compete in FIA Karting. Andie Stewart, who secured a place in the FIA’s Girls on Track Rising Stars Programme last year, joins her brother Johnston on the junior grid. Drivers from Africa were permitted to enter the European championship, as no dedicated continental championship yet exists for that region.
Why This Matters Beyond the Results
The FIA’s stated aim with the Global Karting Plan is to widen the base of the motorsport pyramid — to find talent that might otherwise never reach a competitive grid. Arrive and Drive is the practical expression of that ambition.
Karting has always been the traditional entry point into single-seater racing, but the costs involved have steadily pushed it out of reach for many families. A standardised, equipment-provided format at continental level is a meaningful structural response to that problem, not just a promotional exercise.
Whether the format produces the next generation of grand prix drivers remains to be seen. But getting 43 competitors from 22 countries to a circuit in Poland — many of them racing in their first FIA event — is a reasonable start.
