Gage Korn made his FIA Karting Academy Trophy-Junior debut in Valencia (Photo: KSP)

The 2025 FIA Karting Academy Trophy-Junior drivers in Valencia (Photo: FIA Karting – KSP)

The EKN Driver Diary is back for 2025, surrounding the FIA Karting Academy Trophy program that now is into its 16th season. The driver representing the United States of America in the Junior program is Gage Korn. The driver from Aurora, Colorado is part of the 49 driver roster from around the world competing in the ‘arrive and drive’ concept aboard the Exprit / Vortex / LeCont packages. Former champions of the FIA Karting Academy Trophy include Charles Leclerc (2011), Callum Bradshaw (2016), and USA driver Connor Zilisch (2020).

Korn is no stranger to the international scene, racing at the Rotax Grand Finals as part of Team USA from 2021-2024 in Mini Max and Junior Max competition. The 14-year-old began in karts at the age of four, advancing up the ranks at the club, regional and national level. Notable achievements include Challenge of the Americas Mini ROK title in 2022 and winning the US Trophy Final in Mini MAX that same year.

Gage is providing EKN with a look into his travel and weekend competing at the FIA Karting Academy Trophy-Junior program. The first event was held on May 15-18 at the Kartodromo Internacional Lucas Guerrero in Valencia, Spain. Below is a day-by-day look into Round One of the championship program.

Pre-Race Travel

What do you do before reaching an international karting event, go rental kart racing in Madrid

The travel to Spain was not that bad and we arrived in Madrid around 7am on Sunday. We stayed in the capitol of Spain for a few days before we headed to Valencia. I hit a quick workout before me and my dad ended up sleeping until 4 pm after being super tired. Then we decided to head to a random rental karting track we found – Karting Rivas. It ended up as by far the coolest rental track I’ve ever driven. It had everything you would want, two stories, banked corner, spiral drops, flat out chicanes, blind corners, and double apex hairpins. I ended up getting the 5th fastest time ever. With a good kart and no traffic, I could’ve got the record but still the most fun track I’ve ever been to. Then we headed back and watched the IMSA race at 12 am and watched my friend Raul win as one of the engineers of the Porsche Penske #6 GTP. Then we ended up sleeping for 12 hours! Jet lag can be weird sometimes, but Monday we headed to the Madrid soccer stadium and got my brother a present as he’s a big fan of the team. We just hung around, went to parks and such for the rest of the day. Then Tuesday morning we headed to Valenica.

We drove 3 hours to the hotel and got checked in. The hotels were like bungalows, which is kinda cool. After getting settled in at the hotel, we headed to the track. After hitting up the restaurant at the track for some pizza, we went on a track walk. Immediately we notice a lot of tiny snails on the track which was really cool and I had never seen before. I learned how the track layout was and how it was different from the sim. Then we left the track and headed to downtown Valencia. We went to the beach, which was really pretty and warm. When we were done with that we went and ate at Burger King out of all places! It was very good actually and when we finished, we went to a playground nearby. This one also had a lot of spiny little rides like the one in Madrid. We walked around a little bit more and drove back to the hotel for the night.

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Checking in safety gear with FIA

We showed up to the track and had the welcome meeting while also drawing my chassis and engine tags. We all drew out of a bag two cards, one with the Exprit kart logo and the number 41. The other one I picked was a card with the Vortex engine logo and the number 224. We purchased our fuel and tires for the weekend and grabbed the kart from OTK. Both the engine and kart were nice and fresh, and my dad started to put it together. I also got my OMP suit and gloves, which are really nice! We got everything on the kart, double and triple checked it, and mounted our tires. Technical/equipment check was next, where we brought our helmet, shoes, and rib vest to the officials for inspection. The helmet and rib vest were fine, but my shoes were not FIA homologated so we had to go buy some new shoes. At the end of the day, all the Academy drivers went out on the track for a photo shoot. I ended up right in the middle, standing up in the back row. I’m a lot taller than all of the other drivers, making me stand out in the photo. The day was over after that, so we headed back to the hotel.

Thursday, May 15, 2025

The international field for Academy Trophy allowed us to meet drivers from all over the world

After arriving to the track in the morning, we got everything prepared for the first session, which was a 20-minute session to break in the engines and learn the track. The second session, which was basically the first real session I ended up in fifth in my group, which was pretty good. I just needed to fix a few things. Third session, I ended up leading the pack of all the fast guys at the end and didn’t really mean to. I was just too late to slow down and didn’t have draft on my flyer, but I still ended up in 6th in group.

The final session of the day, I went out a little too early and ended up with some drivers who were not fast. I came in to do a drive through to end up right with the fast guys and someone stopped right in front of me in the fast lane. Since these are direct drive OK Junior engines, you can’t stop without it shutting the engine off. My dad had to push me back out. That ruined the timing of getting with the fast group, and my tires for the rest of the session. I was by myself so I ended up in 10th. Overall, it was not a bad day. We just needed to find a little bit more to be among the fast drivers.

Some of the changes we made on the day was adjusting the track width at the front and the rear of the karting along with adding seat struts. Gearing was another area we worked with, trying to find what gear worked best. Heading into tomorrow, we dropped the rear ride height, added caster and adjusted the tire pressure.

After the day was done, we went into downtown Valencia and had dinner with some new friends from Israel. It was fun to talk with people from the other side of the world. After that, we headed back and went to bed.

Friday, May 16, 2025

We proved to have the speed to compete for the win in qualifying

Qualifying was the focus on the day but we still had three more practice sessions to dial in the kart. The first session was good, placing second in the group and just barely off of first place. During the second session, some drivers put their new tires on, but I still ended up ninth quickest time in the session. For the third and final practice, we put new tires on and I put a good lap together. It was good enough to go to the top of the charts!

After setting fast time in final practice for my group, I felt really confident going into qualifying. I surrounded myself with the fast drivers and set a really fast lap half way through the session. I didn’t think it would be good enough but it ended up as the quickest of the two groups to put me as the top qualifier! I was super pumped in scale line until I roll over the scale. We had not been close to under all week, but I roll onto the scales and it was 0.7 kilo (1.5lbs.) underweight. We didn’t change anything from the mock qualifying session and we somehow lost 1.5 kilo (3.3lbs).

We don’t know what happened. Coming across the scales underweight, I was disqualified. It was really frustrating but in the end, there was nothing we could do. We even made sure the camera we had to take off wasn’t the weight we lost, as it weighed 0.4 kilo so that wasn’t it. With the FIA Academy Trophy program, they perform engine trades to help level out the playing field. I had to trade engines with someone who qualified mid pack. I still hoped it was good and would find out the next day. Despite the upset, I accepted it and went to bed after dinner.

Saturday, May 17, 2025

Restarting a direct drive kart is not as easy as it looks

Saturday was a new day, and I hoped for better luck. In warm-up, I just tried to practice around as many karts as I could. The speed seemed to be there as I recorded the seventh quickest lap in my group. The first heat was very chaotic. During the first start, the whole track was blocked coming out of the opening corners and I couldn’t go anywhere. I nailed a kid in the back, and he had to be taken off in the ambulance. I felt bad but nothing I could’ve done. We restarted and noticed my steering was a little bent from the contact. I fought my way to 12th from 24th in nine laps, even with my engine struggling.

After the penalties to the drivers ahead of us, I was placed 9th, which would’ve been very good but was informed at the end of the day by the stewards I received a five-second penalty for “cutting the track and gaining an advantage”. Going into the last chicane in one of the earlier laps, I was second in line in my group and I got hit very hard and that sent me straight into the driver in front, which caused him to almost spin. I wasn’t making the corner so I cut across the pavement and fell back right into second in line again. I thought the driver had spun from my point of view and I cut to also avoid an incident, as the chicane is very tight. The driver I hit had saved it and stacked all of them up and ended up behind me. Thus, they gave me a penalty even though I didn’t gain anything and he lost, which wasn’t my fault.

The second heat didn’t have big crashes on the first lap, but I did get swerved passing someone. I jumped over them, which bent my steering. The engine I got for this heat was much slower, especially on the top end, which is a lot of this track. I struggled to move forward fast but still ended 14th on track. After the heat, we had to trade with the same driver so I got the engine I had earlier Saturday, which wasn’t good at all as well. After that, we left the kart unchanged, packed up and headed home for the night.

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Despite the tough results in the heat races, we made the main event

The final day of action was here, but I wasn’t in the position I hoped for. There was nothing I could do, other than focus on the sessions ahead of me. We arrived at the track and still had one more heat race before the Final. The third heat lasted two corners sadly because there was a crash that blocked the whole chicane on the first lap. I had to stop and that stalled my engine. With no clutch, I failed to restart the engine. I was really disappointed, thinking that I wouldn’t make the Final. After hours of anticipation, they posted the grid for the Final. I made it! I was lining up 35th. Not something I wanted to be happy about, but I at least made the main event.

My goal was to go out there and just try my best with the engine I had. I made up a bunch of positions in the first five laps. I got up to 26th or somewhere around there, but my engine really showed that it was not on par. I would be caught five kart lengths down every straight. It was nearly impossible to hold a position and block because they would clear me by the corner. If I had an average engine, I feel I could’ve got up in the top 15 or top 10, but the engine really hindered my ability to go forward, which was annoying and frustrating. In the end, I slipped back to finish 29th.

The end result was not at all where I wanted to be or where I was supposed to be. After my dad tore down the kart and turned it back in to OTK, and we headed back to Madrid. The three hour drive wasn’t that bad, but we saw two rollovers, which was really bizarre. Before we headed to the hotel, we wanted to have some fun again and we went back to Karting Rivas and did three sessions. I set the 3rd best time there!

Monday was an early wake up call for 3am and headed to the airport. The cool part was our connection in Munich, the plane was a double decker. It was less than half full, so most people got to lay down which was nice as it was an 11 hour flight.

It was certainly an eye-opening experience, much different from karting in the USA and not the same allowance of changes we can do at the Rotax Grand Finals. Our goal now is to just go out to the next two events and compete for the victories!

Round Two of the FIA Karting Academy Trophy-Junior is scheduled for July 17-20 at the Motorsportarena Mulsen GmbH facility in Mulsen, Germany, roughly 300km south of Berlin.

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