It has been a long off-season for Formula Kart Stars since the Formula One Management backed Championship last gathered at Ellough Park in September but there will be plenty on display at Kimbolton to show that the ‘off-season’ was anything but for the Championship organisers. New drivers, new prizes and new classes will be the main differences at Kimbolton for the opening two rounds of the Championship for MSA Cadet, Mini Max and Junior Rotax and the first two Challenges in Cadet Honda and Senior Rotax.

Even the circuit and paddock itself will be different for FKS’ first visit to the home of the Hunts Kart Club since Easter Weekend in 2009 and there has been a very positive response to the changes the host club have made to the paddock to accommodate Formula Kart Stars’ parc ferme layout.

Kimbolton is also the home circuit for several members of our scrutineering and parc ferme team and there will be no doubt that the club will pull out all the stops to make the first Stars weekend of the year one to remember for all the right reasons.

The opening rounds of the season always throw up a surprise result or two and if you look at last year’s opening two rounds at Rowrah, only one of the three eventual champions found their way to the top step of the podium all weekend.

While there may not be any championship form to look at, you can certainly determine who is heading into the new campaign strongly by taking a peek at the results from the opening couple of rounds of the Hunts Kart Club championship, where plenty of FKS drivers have been taking the opportunity to get in some practice.

The Comer Cadets have been out in force during the winter months and it isn’t surprising to see FKS drivers dominating the results with Enaam Ahmed taking a pair of wins and Dean Macdonald also emerging triumphant in the three HKC events held thus far.

Ahmed claimed a lights to flag win in January’s final but only scraped home two hundredths of a second clear of FKS newcomer Alex Quinn, who proved that he is prepared for the no prisoners world of the MSA British Championship by out-duelling returning FKS drivers Hugo Bentley-Ellis, Sean Rudge and Oliver York on the final lap.

Ahmed, like everyone else, had to play second fiddle to Macdonald in a February meeting marred by snowy, freezing and in the final, damp conditions. Macdonald won commandingly from York and Ahmed although it was Josh Smith’s charging drive to fifth place from the rear of the capacity grid marked him out as a real threat.

Smith was on course to win the March meeting but contact in the final pushed him from the lead back to ninth, paving the way for Ahmed to take another extremely close win over York, Lewis Taylor and Cameron Roberts, who were separated by half a second at the flag. You can expect a similarly tight result in April when the full FKS field compete together for the first time……………