Winning a Karting World Championship, especially the KZ World Championship, is always the result of hard work to achieve the ideal balance between chassis, engine and tyre performance: the driver, as in every race, must “feel” the equipment and have complete confidence in it. In his post-race interviews, Viktor Gustafsson spoke about a particular CRG chassis he chose for this event, which proved to be a key factor over the weekend. To find out more, we contacted Giancarlo Tinini for more detailed information on the matter.
Giancarlo, first of all, congratulations on the well-deserved victory in this World Championship. In light of Viktor Gustafsson’s statements regarding the exceptional performance of a particular CRG chassis with which he felt particularly comfortable, we are curious to know more about it…
Thank you for the congratulations, first of all. As for the “mystery” surrounding the chassis, let’s say that Gustafsson raced with a Road Rebel 32 that we further refined in detail to keep up with the development of the Lecont tyres. You, as a former driver, know very well that finding the right balance between chassis and tyres is essential to achieving maximum performance. For this reason, we worked at the company on some new details, because today a kart is all about small innovations rather than major revolutions, which we tested the week before the Le Mans race. Viktor took to the track with the first chassis we made available to him and his verdict was unequivocal: “I feel comfortable with this chassis, it is perfect and, in my opinion, we can fight for the win.” He certainly got that right… I must say that I am very proud that the chassis development was carried out by my son Eddy, who is giving me great satisfaction as a technician, and this is proof of that.
What did Gustafsson feel in particular?
He told me that he had found the perfect balance between free-running and lateral grip.
Will these detailed updates also become available to CRG customer drivers?
Our policy, as you know very well, is to sell. And in order to sell, you always have to offer your customers the very best. We have never kept anything extra for ourselves, and we never will. With these modifications, the chassis proved to be a winning combination with the Lecont tyres. We will now test it, within the next couple of weeks, also with Vega tyres and, if we find the same advantages, the modifications will also be introduced on the production chassis.
The Tinini Group’s triumph was also achieved through the podium finishes obtained by Maranello, another one of your brands…
Maranello have been doing an excellent job for quite some time now. They are performing very strongly and I am extremely satisfied with their work. Vasile’s third place in KZ and Lombardo’s in the Master class are the result of this excellent work.
How important is the 2026 World Championship victory still? In the past, winning the top championship was what led drivers to choose the kart they would race the following year… Not much has changed in this respect: racing with the World Champion chassis is still a strong reference point for a driver and, even today, winning this competition means being even stronger in the marketplace.
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