Van der Watt in commanding form in both SA Formula Ford and DD2 karts
He may just be in his second year of main circuit racing, but 18-year old Cape Town driver Julian van der Watt is quickly establishing himself as one of South Africa’s top up and coming race talents. Not only is he showing the way in a super-tight South African Formula Ford championship, but Julian is also starring in the equally fraught premier Rotax DD2 gearbox SA national karting class.
Despite his winning margin rarely being much more than a tenth of a second, Julian has won three of the four races of a most competitive SA Formula Ford championship so far this year in the Race Driver SA Mygale and he also leads the DD2 title chase following a triple-victory at Killarney’s national kart season opener.
“I’m having a great year,” Julian admits. “It’s my second season in Formula Ford and while I came close to taking the SA title last season, that extra experience is now playing a positive part in my effort this year.” But young van der Watt is no overnight sensation having honed and perfected his skills across a ten-year race career.
Julian started racing karts at nine years old in the Formula 100 class in 2008, where he quickly impressed en route to fifth in the championship and took the Rising Star award, a prize that proved prophetic as Julian sped to the overall championship the following season. Julian ended second in the 2012 Junior Rok national championship and backed that up with sixth at the Junior Rok World Finals in Italy.
A regular frontrunner in the highly competitive Cape and national Rotax Junior and Senior Max championships, Julian has competed and won against the cream of SA’s karting crop, among which successes include victory in the 2013 Junior Max African Open and ending second in the Rok Kart Autumn Trophy in Italy. Julian also ended second in the 2014 SA Senior Max championship and 8th in that year’s Super Rok Kart World Final.
2015 saw Julian take a stellar step up to the South African Formula Ford championship, where he was immediately on the pace and wining races. Sadly a double engine failure on a critical weekend took him out of the championship lead, but Julian fought back to second in the SA formula Ford championship in his main season debut year.
So far 2016 has proven a vintage year for Julian as he leads both the SA national Rotax DD2 championship following a dominant performance at his Killarney home race, where he took all three wins on the day and he similarly leads the SA Formula Ford title chase, once agin following a dominant double victory at home in Cape Town.
Julian ascribes much of his success to his long time racing mentor — former Rotax Max world kart champion and SA single seater legend Claudio Piazza-Musso. “All of my success has been achieved thanks to Claudio’s help, input, advice and expertise,” Julian admits. “I could not have done any of that without him.”
Now Julian is chasing a rare double title in karts and on the main circuit. “The racing has been fantastic and I am delighted to have won races and to be leading both championships, but it’s not all just down to me,” Julian admits. “It’s a team effort and I am lucky to have the likes of my dad and Claudio as well as Ian Schofield from Investchem, Hendrick Lamola and the rest of the team in my corner and I’m delighted to have been able to reward all of their hard work with successful results
“That said, it’s still all up to me when the racing starts and the trick is now to keep on progressing,” van der Watt concludes. “I’m racing against some pretty talented guys on both sides — they are hard to beat and it’s never easy, but we know what we need to do and I intend to keep on doing just that…”