Marco Sammut on the Viterbo circuit in Italy

The EKN Driver Diary returns with a focus surrounding the FIA Karting Academy Trophy program. The international championship is into its 17th season, which began with a Junior category and expanded in 2025 to offer a Senior championship. Since the launch of the program in 2010, the United States of America has had a representative in all but three years. The best result to date is the series championship by now NASCAR driver Connor Zilisch in 2020. The driver representing the Red, White and Blue in 2026 is New York driver Marco Sammut. He joins 49 other drivers from across the globe compete in the ‘arrive and drive’ program aboard the Exprit / Vortex / Vega packages.

Sammut is providing EKN with a look into his travel and experience competing at the FIA Karting Academy Trophy Junior program. The first event was held on May 21-24 at the Karting Genk facility in Belgium – article HERE. The second trip was to the Circuito Internazionale Napoli in Sarno, Italy over July 2-5 – article HERE. The final trip was to the Leopard Circuit Viterbo in Viterbo, Italy over the October 8-11 weekend with his details on the trip below.

Monday, October 5, 2026

Like always when traveling to a race in Europe, we try to leave a few days early to get used to the time change. This time my mom came (I think more to make sure my school work was being done) and left New York on Monday, traveled overnight to land in Milan at 6am Tuesday morning local time.

Tuesday, October 6, 2026

We had a day of running around when we arrived. Brandon wanted to visit the OTK factory so that was our first stop on the trip. We were greeted by Luis Ruibal of OTK USA at the factory for a great tour of all of their manufacturing. It was an eye opening experience (even though I have been there before). I think Brandon Jarsocrak, my driver coach and mechanic from Brandon Jarsocrak Racing, was amazed on what goes into building the OTK product. The factory is truly amazing! From the factory we took the short drive to Lake Garda to have a nice lunch by the lake followed by some tasty gelato. After we drove to South Garda Karting to check out the track for a bit. It is another must see if you’re in the area. We then drove to Maranello where we would be spending the night.

Wednesday, October 7, 2026

Another busy day ahead. We got up early and headed to the Ferrari Museum in Maranello. The cars and history there are amazing. After that we went to my dad’s favorite part of the trip – lunch at Ristorante Montana (if you know you know). We had an amazing meal, no menu, all I can say is the history in that place is unbelievable, the staff were wonderful and the food was everything you could imagine. Now it was time to get to work. From there, we drove to Viterbo (about 3.5 hours drive from Maranello). We got to the track in the afternoon and did a track walk to see the track. The facility was amazing, so clean and modern. After the track walk, we drove to our hotel in Viterbo, got washed up and went for dinner. Tomorrow the real work starts.

Thursday, October 8, 2026

We had to be at the track early as the FIA meetings started at 9am. When we arrived at the track we went to pick out our tent spot and get settled in for a long day. I had several FIA meetings to attend during the early part of the day. By 10:45am, it was our time slot to pick up our kart for the event. The next few hours were spent getting the kart set up, tires collected and all the paperwork sorted for the weekend ahead. The day ended with one 15 minute practice session. We were lucky that the rain held off and we got a dry session in to see the track and shake down the kart. Afterward, we left the track to go to the old town of Viterbo. It looked like a medieval town with a castle and lots of restaurants hidden in little streets. How people live there is crazy but so cool.

Friday, October 9, 2026

Sadly, the rain did not stay away, and we woke up to a wet morning. We got to the track, mounted up some practice rain tires and got set up for some rain practice. This was unfortunate as I was really looking forward to pushing on the track a bit more in the dry. The weekend called for potential on an off rain, so the rain practice was good as we got the kart dialed in for the rain. The last practice of the day was dry, so we were able to see the track one more time dry before qualifying. I finished that session in P6 and was confident that with a few changes qualifying would go well.

The last session of the day was qualifying and I was ready. We were on the grid getting ready to roll off and two karts in front of me crashed. I could not leave the pits for about 45 seconds and this put me on behind the rest of the field. Once I got rolling my first hot lap was great, I went straight to P1. Sadly, in the next few laps I had to deal with my bad track position and get past a few slower karts. This track is known for difficult passing to get a clear track. I finally had a clear lap and heading to the line the checkered came out. I missed another flyer by about 2 seconds. This left me P10 in group, not at all what I wanted.

Saturday, October 10, 2026

We woke up ready to race. Luckily the day stayed dry, and we got our two heats in before the rain came. Warm up was good as I went P2 showing the pace in me and the kart. The first heat I had a bad first lap and spent most of the heat trying to get past a kid that was blocking for P10 on lap two (he even apologized to me said I should have let you pass). It was very frustrating. The second heat was much of the same. The start was hard from P10 and I got stuck battling the same kid again (apology not accepted)! This time I cleared him a bit quicker. I ended the day P8 and P5. Not too bad.

Sunday, October 11, 2026

Today we had one more heat to make it through to the final. Sadly, the motor we drew in the lottery for this day was less than good. This time we had a great start, and I was hopeful, but we were losing so much time on the straights that I was just getting passed every lap. We ended the third heat in 10th. The good news is we made final, the bad news, we start P17 and we have a motor that we really could not compete with. We talked to the Vortex people that were on site and after reviewing the data they agreed that the motor was not right and they allowed us to pick an unused motor for the final. This was a bit of a gamble but like I said, the one we had before was not good enough to race.

The race start went well for about four turns until I was punted wide in turn 4. It was complete chaos and brakes were optional. I dropped back several spots and from that point on it was a recovery drive. I did my best to make passes with the new motor running a lot better. Sadly, three-quarters into the race there was a crash in front of me, and I had nowhere to go. This took me out of the race. This was a disappointing end to my weekend.

Overall, the experience was a great one, I feel so lucky to have been picked, the Academy was a well-run event, sadly my results were not what I hoped especially that every event I was top 5 but Lady Luck had other plans. I did win one heat race in round one, which ended up as the highlight of all of the events.

Monday, October 12, 2026

We woke up super early to drive to Rome to catch our flight back to New York. It also meant back to school for me until we race again in Las Vegas for both ROK Vegas 2026 and SKUSA SuperNationals 29.

I’m upset as I wanted to get the USA on podium, but knowing I went to three new tracks with minimal sessions to get them down and be one of the fastest every event, I feel happy, frustrated, confident and ready to take the next challenge.

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