Exclusive interview with Luca De Donno – WSK Promotion – April 2020

Kartcom offers you an exclusive interview with Luca De Donno, the boss of WSK Promotion, while the international competition has been at a standstill since the end of February due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The offices of WSK Promotion are located in the far south of Italy, not far from the La Conca circuit.

Luca, how do you live the current situation?
Personally, I’m fine and my staff as well. It’s two months by now from the last WSK event in Lonato and I can’t believe all this happened, it seems like a movie of the series The Day After. I’m spending my time at home between computer and open air activities together with my two German shepherds. I luckily live in the countryside which helps me to stay active and work on the restart of the activities. The situation in Southern Italy is relatively calm since there are few Covid cases but we must always stay alert and respect the prevention procedures.

How do you envisage today the resumption of competition ?
The resumption of sporting events is undoubtedly complicated because everything is still uncertain and the collective Sport will be surely one of the last activity to be resumed. We are aware that the health situation is very critical and yet, at the same time, there’s a serious economic situation with the factories closed without turnover, and investments and costs to bear. Of course, the situation of a private Promoter is quite different from that of the Federations that can count on a much more solid financial status. As WSK, we feel duty bound with teams, drivers, circuits, race officials and those people getting involved in our events, to find solutions to be able to restart as soon as possible by ensuring health protection measures for the safety of all the people taking part to the events. From a sporting organization side, our solution would consist in the opportunity to recover the postponed races with double events in the same weekend.

To restart however, it’s fundamental to understand how to manage the travelling, seeing that it’s required a quarantine period to enter or go back to some countries which is pretty impossible to do in our sport each time we move. Therefore, all the calendars which are being updated every week must deal with this issue and consider the impossibility of Teams and Drivers to move quickly across the countries.

At the WSK, since all our events take place in Italy, Teams and Drivers could spend a 15-day quarantine in Italy and stay as long as possible for a continuous period of activity. We are all aware that 2020 will be a recovery year to keep the business alive and that’s the reason why we must find solutions to get through this bad time.

What consequences do you imagine all this will have for karting in the years to come?
Compared to the national karting, the international karting will resume first because most drivers have the financial resources to overcome the emergency. The national karting on the contrary, will need more time to get back to normal because it must regain the confidence of people to practice a sport with related costs in a period where there are other priorities.

Anyway, there will be negative consequences for all Motorsport in general, from karting to F1, but our priority now is to find the serenity of normal life without the virus.

Info Kartcom / Photo © KSP