The 2026 Canadian Karting Championship has come and gone, and once again it delivered everything we love about this sport.
There were wins. There were podiums. There were incredible drives through the field. There were also penalties, contact, missed opportunities and plenty of moments that left us wondering what might have been.
More than anything, though, the weekend was a reminder of why we put so much into this sport.
With close to 30 drivers racing under the Prime Powerteam tent across the Rotax and Briggs categories, it is almost impossible to capture everything that happened over three action-packed days. Every driver had their own story. Every mechanic had problems to solve. Every session brought a new challenge.
That is kart racing.
We are constantly chasing perfection while knowing that it is almost impossible to achieve. You prepare the kart, study the data, work on the driver, build the engine package and try to account for every possible variable. Then the lights go out and sometimes everything comes together. Sometimes racing has other plans.
The 2026 Canadian Karting Championship gave us plenty of both.
Rotax Junior: Chassé Delivers When It Matters
Prime entered six drivers in a huge Rotax Junior field of nearly 30 karts.
With a field that deep, there is nowhere to hide. A small mistake can cost five positions, contact can completely change a weekend and succeeding requires drivers to deliver lap after lap.
Our Junior drivers experienced plenty of highs and lows throughout the event, but Olivier Chassé put together one of the standout performances of the entire weekend.
Olivier was a constant presence at the front, running inside the top three throughout the three-day event. When it mattered most, he found another level.
In the Final, Olivier took the lead early and never looked back. While the battles continued behind him, he stretched his advantage and drove away to become the 2026 Canadian National Champion.
It was a fantastic performance and a well-earned championship.
Marley Chaudhary also put together an outstanding weekend. Marley was consistently one of the fastest drivers on track and found himself inside the top five session after session. It was another big step forward and a performance that showed just how far he has progressed.
We were also excited to welcome Cross Lombardi to the team for the Canadian Championship. Cross continued to improve throughout the event and saved his best for the end, working his way into the top 15 in the Final.
Stefano Lanzillotta, Carlo Lot and Matteo also experienced their share of ups and downs, but all three showed excellent pace and progress throughout the weekend. All three finished inside the top 15, with Stefano breaking into the top 10 finishing an impressive P7.
Sometimes the final result does not tell the entire story. The speed was there, the progress was there and each of them showed they belonged racing against some of the best Junior drivers in the country.
Rotax Senior: So Close to Another National Championship
Rotax Senior was one of our largest groups of the weekend, with eight Prime drivers competing in another field approaching 30 karts.
Ryan Maxwell entered Nationals as one of the drivers to beat and immediately showed why.
Ryan qualified on pole, won both Heat races and then won the Pre-Final. Heading into the Final, a repeat Canadian National Championship looked very much within reach.
Unfortunately, the opening stages of the Final did not go his way. Ryan was shuffled backwards following some aggressive moves around him and suddenly found himself having to recover rather than control the race from the front.
He fought back and made the most of the situation, but the opportunity for another National Championship had slipped away.
That can be a difficult part of racing to accept. You can do almost everything right for an entire weekend and still have the outcome changed in a matter of seconds.
Arnaud Sabourin also looked like a legitimate National Championship contender throughout the weekend. He spent much of the event running inside the top five and ultimately crossed the line in sixth.
Ari Theodoropoulos put together another strong performance, finishing inside the top 10 in 8th in his first season of Senior competition.
One of the stories we are particularly proud of is Noah Landry.
Noah has quietly put together an excellent season. His pace has been there at virtually every event and the results have continued to follow. He capped off his Canadian Championship with another top-10 performance and accumulated enough points through the RMC Quebec Championship to secure a ticket to the Rotax MAX Challenge Grand Finals.
Earning a Grand Finals ticket is difficult under any circumstances. Doing it in your first year of Senior is a tremendous accomplishment.
Congratulations, Noah. We have loved having you with us this season and watching the progress you have made.
Mini MAX: From the Back to the Podium
There are probably two ways to look at Yousef Adi’s Canadian Championship weekend.
You can look at what might have been.
Or you can look at what he actually did.
Yousef was the class of the field for much of the event. He qualified on pole, won Heat 1, won Heat 2 and crossed the line first in the Pre-Final.
A post-race disqualification changed everything.
Instead of starting at the front, Yousef suddenly found himself facing the entire field from 27th position.
That is the kind of moment that can break a driver’s weekend. After being the fastest driver for virtually the entire event, it would have been easy to become frustrated and simply go through the motions in the Final.
Yousef did the opposite.
He attacked.
Pass after pass, lap after lap, he worked his way through the field. He closed an enormous gap to the leaders and somehow turned a 27th-place starting position into a second-place finish at the Canadian National Championship.
P27 to P2.
It may not have been the result we expected when the weekend began, but it was one of the most impressive drives we saw all weekend.
Lincoln Lima had a similar story.
Fresh off earning his own Rotax Grand Finals ticket out West, Lincoln’s Canadian Championship did not begin the way he wanted. He made progress through the Heats but ran into problems in the Pre-Final, leaving him with plenty of work to do in the Final starting in P22.
Like Yousef, Lincoln saved his best drive for when it mattered.
He charged through the field to finish inside the top 10 in 7th and his performance earned him the Move of the Race award.
Across all three Rotax categories, our drivers showed tremendous pace throughout the weekend.
A huge thank you has to go to our partners at AURUM Racing Engines. Their team was on hand throughout the event making sure our drivers had the best possible engine package underneath them.
We were also proud to debut a special custom AURUM livery for our drivers who have already secured their tickets to the Rotax MAX Challenge Grand Finals. Seeing those karts on track was a great reminder of what has already been accomplished this season — and there is still more to come.
Briggs Senior Light: A Drive Through the Field to Remember
Our Briggs program brought another stacked group of drivers into the Canadian Championship, starting with five drivers in Senior Light.
Unfortunately, this was one of those categories where luck was not always on our side.
Owen McCarthy and Jaden Hundal showed immediately that they had the pace to contend at the front. Both qualified well and ran inside the top five through the opening Heat races.
Then came the Pre-Final.
Contact sent both drivers backwards and left them starting the Final from deep in the field, around the mid-20s.
Jaden responded by putting on an absolute clinic.
He carved his way through the pack, picking up more than 20 positions and crossing the line in second place.
Unfortunately, Jaden had collected a five-second push-back bumper penalty during the formation lap while leaving the pits. It had no impact on his performance during the actual race, but the rules are the rules, and the penalty ultimately dropped him to 10th in the official results.
The record book will show P10.
Anyone who watched the race knows there was much more to the story.
It was an incredible drive and one we were extremely proud to watch.
Briggs Senior: Fighting Through a Massive Field
Briggs Senior was another enormous category, with our five drivers initially split between two groups before the field was eventually narrowed to the top 36 for the Final.
In a class like Briggs Senior, the finishing positions can sometimes be deceiving. The racing is incredibly close, the draft plays a major role and drivers can gain or lose several positions in a matter of corners.
David Barnes was a model of consistency throughout the event.
He ran inside the top five through the Heats, Pre-Final and Final and ultimately finished fourth at the Canadian Championship.
Jaden Hundal followed his incredible Senior Light performance with another excellent drive, bringing home a seventh-place finish in Senior.
Logan Pacza showed front-running pace throughout the weekend as well. During most of the final he was in a podium position but contact and shuffling on the last lap pushed him back finishing 11th. The final result does not tell the whole story as Logan had incredible pace and racecraft all weekend.
Anouk Cybulskie made good progress, highlighted by some very strong performances in the Heat races and continued to show the pace we have seen from her throughout the season.
Briggs Cadet: Duncan Delivers
In Briggs Cadet, Emmett Duncan took on another large Canadian Championship grid and continued to improve as the weekend progressed.
By the time the Final arrived, Emmett was ready.
He put together an excellent drive and finished fifth in the country — a fantastic result against a very competitive field.
Well done, Emmett.
Briggs Senior Heavy: From the Wrenches Back to the Wheel
One of the favourites to watch from the Prime tent came in Briggs Senior Heavy.
Christian Savaglio decided to put down the wrenches for the morning sessions and get behind the wheel.
Christian spent most of the event running first or second and crossed the line second in the Final. A post-race penalty ultimately moved him back to fourth in the official classification, but it was still an impressive return to the driver’s seat.
Taking on a New Challenge
Oliver Gonsalves made the brave decision to add the weight and step up from Junior Light to Junior for the Canadian Championship.
It meant taking on a new challenge against some of the best drivers in the category, and Oliver showed throughout the weekend that he was up for it.
Unfortunately, contact in the Final resulted in a DNF and prevented him from getting the finish his effort deserved.
Still, there was a lot to take away from the weekend and plenty to be proud of.
More Than the Results
At the end of a National Championship, it is easy to look at a results sheet and decide who had a good weekend.
Kart racing is rarely that simple.
A finishing position does not show the driver who came from the back of the field. It doesn’t show the mechanic who worked late into the night solving a problem. It doesn’t show the driver who had front-running pace but was taken out in contact. It doesn’t show the parents keeping everyone moving through three exhausting days at the racetrack.
And it certainly doesn’t capture the pressure these drivers put themselves under when competing for a Canadian Championship.
We came to Hamilton with close to 30 drivers under the Prime Powerteam tent.
We leave with a Canadian National Championship, podiums, top-five finishes, incredible recovery drives and more evidence that our drivers can compete with the very best in the country.
We also leave with things we can improve.
That matters too.
The pursuit of perfection in motorsport can be relentless. Every time you find another tenth, you start looking for the next one. Every victory creates a new target. Every disappointment becomes something to learn from.
It can be difficult. It can be frustrating. It can test drivers, mechanics, coaches and families.
But those challenges are also what make us better.
They make better drivers.
They make better mechanics.
And they make a stronger team.
We are incredibly proud of every driver who raced with Prime Powerteam at the 2026 Canadian Karting Championship, and equally proud of the mechanics, coaches, parents, partners and supporters who made the weekend possible.
Thank you to everyone under the tent for the effort, the long hours and the commitment.
