LITHUANIA, SINGAPORE, JAMAICA
It’s a fool’s errand to guess which karting prospects will march up the single-seater ladder and which won’t, but chances look good that the CIK-FIA Academy Trophy – won by Charles Leclerc in 2011 – will contribute to F1 having some new nationalities represented.
Kajus Siksnelis (above), who won the 2019 edition, looks like a potentially exciting Lithuanian prospect, while Christian Ho – the Singaporean who finished runner-up to Siksnelis – is already on the books of Sauber’s karting team, and had a strong 2020.
Singaporean professional Formula 4 driver Christian Ho, 16, made that choice four years ago when he left Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) right before his Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) to pursue a career in karting in Italy.
Another Singapore driver who is also racing in F4 is Christian Ho, who has enjoyed his fair share of success in karting, coming in second in the FIA Karting Academy Trophy and the German Junior championship in OK-Junior karts in 2019.
Campos driver Christian Ho delivered two podiums from three races during the opening round of F4 Spain at Spa-Francorchamps. Despite the success, Ho expressed his dissatisfaction with the weekend’s results, citing challenging qualifying conditions and a less-than-optimal performance in the final race.
“Overall, the race wasn’t the best that I could have done. To be honest, qualifying was quite a mess, and I think the last race was quite a mess from my side as well.”
The 16-year-old Singaporean-Korean is the team’s sixth signing for 2023, alongside Andres Cardenas, Jesse Carrasquedo Jr, Enzo Deligny, Matteo de Palo, Noah Stromsted and Enzo Deligny.
The series will require teams to split up their line-ups in a different way to last year where each entrant was limited to four cars and so Campos divided its roster of cars into ‘Campos’ and ‘Campos Racing’.
Campos Racing’s Christian Ho led from lights-to-flag for his first Spanish Formula 4 win in the second race at Aragon.
Ho went unchallenged at the start as fellow front-row starter Enzo Deligny got off the line slowly and came under attack from Theophile Nael. However the long back straight of the Aragon track brought them back onto Ho’s tail and he tried to break the tow by weaving.