“U18”: Marking Tour Completed

Two preliminary phases for the CIK-FIA “U18” World Championship have already been successfully carried out: collecting entries – in neat progression with 83 entered Competitors compared to 70 in 2010 – as well as marking chassis and accessories, a mandatory condition prior to the use of the equipment in the three Championship events.

It is one of the specificities of the U18 World Championship: while engines and tyres are single-make and single-type – and, furthermore, supplied free of charge to every Driver by Parolin and LeCont! –, the choice of chassis, from amongst the fifteen makes entered in the Championship on a voluntary basis, is left up to the participants.

With the aim of limiting costs, promoting equal opportunities and freezing any development during the season, the CIK-FIA has introduced a system in which frames and many accessories are marked before the beginning of the competition and must remain so until its completion. In the last two weeks, each brand thus had to submit to the CIK-FIA Inspectors twenty identical chassis and, from a single-range, a number of rear axles, rims, spindles, hubs and stabilisers. Competitors will not be authorised to use equipment not bearing the CIK-FIA seal applied during these inspections. Any “made to measure” prototyping or any evolutions are thus excluded and each Driver is certain to dispose of equipment equal to that of his direct Competitors using the same chassis make.

As a reminder, according to the sporting regulations of the U18 World Championship and because of the will to limit direct and indirect costs, each Driver is allowed to participate in a race with one chassis only. However, if the latter was to undergo an accident or a serious damage, it will be allowed to replace it, on permission of the Officials, by a new one which will be taken by drawing lots from the remaining chassis stock identified during the initial inspection and available as reserve equipment from the official Representative of the make, whose presence at each event is guaranteed.

To ensure that they actually were all of the same quality, the chassis were scanned with an XRF instrument by the CIK-FIA in 2010. The control operation has been renewed this year and extended to rear axles, the quality of which has been analysed (cartography of the material used) as well as its hardness. For this purpose, the CIK-FIA has expressly equipped itself with a high-precision digital hardness tester. The Federation used it systematically during the visits conducted at the plants of the Manufacturers concerned and applied its stickers with bar codes only on axles of similar quality and hardness.

Out of the fifteen chassis makes initially entered in the U18 World Championship, fourteen were chosen by the Drivers when they entered. Every one of the fourteen makes has passed the inspection stage and therefore disposes of a large range of identical chassis and accessories ready for distribution, either at the preliminary tests on 3-4 June at Jesolo or the day before the first round of the Championship at the beginning of July at Ortona.

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