CIK: Schumi third in World Karting event

Kerpen - Michael Schumacher took third position in the final World Karting Championship round at his home circuit of Kerpen today. The Formula 1 World Champion returned for a couple of days to his first love in motor racing. "All I wanted to do was have some fun," said Michael Schumacher. "I came here to race wheel to wheel in the pack and the result didn't matter. I really like this sport: compared with Formula 1, you are more involved in a manual sense, as you can work on your own kart, whereas in the single seater, all I can do is tell the engineers where I think something needs to be done. It was great to race here, in front of so many spectators and I hope karting will now be more popular in Germany. How has it changed since my day? There is no major difference, except that everything has evolved. Karting still remains the best school for motor racing."

The four-time World Champion entered the meeting simply to challenge himself by racing against much younger and lighter opposition, which counts for a great deal in kart racing. He does have the advantage of coming from Kerpen, though, and has undoubtedly completed thousands of laps around the track that bears his name.

He set the fastest time on Friday in the wet session on Friday, but started the two races from 16th and 14th. In Sunday's race 1, Michael had to pull out after 8 laps because of a technical problem on his kart. He was third at the time, having started sixteenth. The second race went much better. Despite starting sixteenth again, Michael climbed up to third place. After the race, the second placed finisher was disqualified, promoting him to second on the podium, 56"365 seconds down on reigning world champion, Italy's Vitantonio Liuzzi. The two-race event was held on a wet circuit, which was starting to dry out in race two.