A brief history of Jollykart told by Nicola Gianniberti

Nicola Gianniberti's karting career reached its pinnacle in 1993 at the World Championship in Laval, competing in the premier Formula Super A category. That championship remains the symbol of an unforgettable era: four Italian drivers battling for the World Title, all racing on Italian chassis (with Haase effectively being an Italian chassis), during a time when manufacturers personally selected the best talents to represent their factory teams. And in those years, Italian karting certainly had no shortage of champions.

In 1993, Nicola Gianniberti put together a season that still stands as one of the most dominant campaigns ever seen in world karting, becoming the youngest driver in history to win a Top Class World Championship at "just" 17 years of age. Today, that achievement almost seems unbelievable when we consider that there is now a category called Senior, which most drivers leave behind at around 15 years old (with 99% never winning an FIA World Championship). For the Gianniberti family - dad and lad - that year also marked a decision that was far from uncommon during that historic decade of international karting.

Gianniberti 1993, the season he became the youngest driver in karting history (aged 17) to win a World Championship in the sport's Top Class, Formula Super A

"Everything started with an idea from my father shortly after my victory in the 1993 FSA World Championship. At the time, I was a driver supported by Vega, as we were in the middle of the tyre-war era (when multiple tyre manufacturers competed in FIA karting events, editor's note). Mantese, the owner of Vega, encouraged and became involved in our family project, which made its racing debut in 1994," recalls the Italian driver "Building go-kart chassis was not our primary business - we were printers by trade - but we dedicated a specific facility to Jolly Kart, equipped ourselves with all the necessary machinery and a suitable race transporter to compete in the major European and World Championship events, as well as prestigious races that were simply unmissable, such as the Margutti Trophy. From both a sporting and technical standpoint, it was a fantastic adventure. There were times when I would go down to the workshop and bend chassis tubes alongside my father. Looking back, it was truly rewarding to experience karting from a manufacturer's perspective, even though, viewed through today's lens, it was an extremely demanding undertaking. Our chassis factory effectively remained active until 2000, when I ended my karting career, and naturally I raced my final event in a Jolly. As for the name, it was chosen completely by chance. One day my mother came into the living room holding a deck of cards, with the Joker card in her hand, and from that moment we decided it would be called Jolly Kart."

With a chassis that was practically built in-house, Gianniberti proved his worth on the international karting stage during a landmark era for the sport, earning a place in the hearts of enthusiasts that remains unchanged to this day.

These stories seem as though they belong to another century when one considers the technical evolution and, above all, the transformation of the karting environment, particularly over the last decade. Nicola himself acknowledges this, while still holding those years close to his heart: "Thinking about it now, as fascinating as the manufacturer's adventure was, I don't believe it would be possible in modern karting because there are simply too many other variables involved in achieving a competitive result. We enjoyed strong sales, especially overseas, so we retain wonderful memories of that period."