The Modern Era: 2016 to Today

Modern karting began with an admission of defeat. In 2016 the CIK-FIA scrapped the unloved KF formula and introduced OK — Original Kart: 125cc, water-cooled, direct drive, with the electronics stripped out and push starts restored. The name was the message. After a decade of over-engineering, the governing body rebuilt its flagship class around the sport's oldest idea — the simplest possible kart, settled by the driver — and trust slowly returned to the international paddock. Today's OK rankings are once again the definitive measure of the world's best teenage racers.

The promoter duopoly

Where drivers prove themselves changed too. Elite karting now runs on a two-promoter axis. Italy's WSK Promotion, whose Super Master Series has run since 2010, remains the winter-and-spring proving ground where every serious OK, OKJ, KZ2 and Mini campaign begins. Since 2020 it has been joined by RGMMC's Champions of the Future, an FIA-sanctioned series deliberately staged at the same circuits in the weeks before European and World Championship rounds — making it the closest thing karting has to a compulsory rehearsal. Between them, the two promoters host effectively every driver who matters; its early winners' lists (Arvid Lindblad took the inaugural 2020 OK-Junior title) already read like an F1 feeder-series entry sheet, and COTF is now spawning national offshoots from the UK to the United States.

Mini 60 goes global

The era's biggest structural change happened at the bottom of the ladder. The 60cc Mini class — an Italian institution dating back to 1984 — was homologated by the FIA in 2020 as the only under-12 direct-drive international class, and Mini 60 promptly globalised. Eight-to-twelve-year-olds now contest WSK and COTF rounds with factory teams, professional coaches and international entry lists, and Mini results are scouted as seriously as the senior classes. The karts are no toys — tests have clocked them at over 106km/h, enough that the FIA moved to regulate Mini lap times from 2026.

Data, coaches and the compressed career

Culture changed with the calendar. Modern top-level karting is a data sport: onboard acquisition, sector analysis, dedicated driver coaches and simulator time are standard for front-running twelve-year-olds. The result is the most efficient talent pipeline motorsport has ever had. Max Verstappen set the template — 2013 KZ world champion, F1 debutant at 17 in 2015 — and the machine has only accelerated since: Kimi Antonelli and Arvid Lindblad each went from Mini karting to a Formula 1 seat in under seven years. Lando Norris, the 2014 world karting champion, completed the same journey. When an F1 driver debuts at 17 or 18, their entire racing education happened here.

The scoreboard today

• OK and KZ carry the FIA world titles; OK's revival is complete.
• WSK and Champions of the Future control the grids that decide careers.
• Mini 60 is where scouting now starts — at age eight.

Seventy years after Art Ingels' garage build, karting has never mattered more to motorsport — nor decided futures faster.