Kartmasters is the biggest event on the domestic karting calendar, and Luke Milward’s first weekend at PF International with the XKART team produced a genuine step forward across all three days in Mini Max 950.
Day one brought a P4 qualifying position, the fourth quickest time in the field in a brand new chassis at a brand new event, before a tough Heat 3 dropped him to P29 and Heat 4 recovered ground back to P11. Day two continued that pattern of building through the weekend, finishing P17 overall.
Sunday, Grand Prix day, started with P11 in the Super Heat. Classified P15 heading into the Final itself, Luke came home P8, climbing seven places when it mattered most, in a genuinely stacked Mini Max 950 field at the biggest meeting of the year.
Mini Max 950 is one of the most heavily contested classes at Kartmasters every year, and PF International’s technical layout, extended in 2011 to include a bridge and flyover section, gives no driver an easy lap regardless of budget or experience. A top eight finish in the Grand Prix Final against that kind of field is a genuinely strong marker for a first weekend together.
A strong first weekend with the team
Kartmasters doesn’t get any easier than this, every serious name in the sport was in that field this weekend, and finishing inside the top eight in the Grand Prix Final on a first event with a new team is a result to build from. The qualifying pace shown on day one, backed up by a proper recovery drive in Sunday’s Final, points to real speed still to come as the partnership develops further.
New team, new event, and a genuinely stacked Mini Max 950 field made this about as tough a first weekend as it’s possible to have. First events together rarely run in a straight line, and the value in a weekend like this is in how the dips were answered rather than avoided altogether. That pattern, of finding the recovery every time the result dipped, is usually a stronger indicator of what’s building underneath than a single clean weekend would have been.
A big weekend for the wider group at PF International
Kartmasters produced strong results right across the board this year. Jackson Hilton won the GP Plate in Mini Max 950 in his first event with a new team, Fletcher Jamieson finished P2 in Junior Rotax on a remarkable comeback, Jack Thompson fought back from last on the grid to P17 in the Grand Prix Final before contact ended his race, and Benjamin Sljivar finished top privateer in Micro Max. Thirty years of this event, and it continues to be the meeting every serious karter wants on their record.
The OTM | On Track Marketing Take
A P8 finish in a Kartmasters Grand Prix Final, in a class as competitive as Mini Max 950, is a genuinely strong result for a first event with a new team, and the shape of the weekend matters as much as the final number. Qualifying fourth fastest on day one showed the raw pace was there from the very first session, and Sunday’s climb from a Super Heat position back up into the top eight of the Final showed that pace holding up under pressure when it counted most. First weekends with a new team rarely run perfectly smoothly, and the dip through the middle of day one and day two here is a normal part of that process. What stands out is that every dip was followed by a recovery, which is usually the clearer signal of what’s actually building underneath the results sheet.
