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From being one of Britain’s most talented young karters and brightest prospects for the future, in the summer of 2008 Max Goff suddenly disappeared off the radar, and did not step back in a kart again until the beginning of this year. Now, though, he is back – and back in style.

Budgetary issues curtailed Max’s ill-fated 2008 campaign with Top Kart midway through, and it would be more than half a year before he could get his promising career back on-track once more. In agreeing terms to join forces with JRP and Maranello, however, the Brigstock ace has in a way come home, having previously competed with considerable success for Mark Berryman’s outfit in 2007, taking in glory in the highly prestigious, end-of-season Monaco Kart Cup along the way. He is clearly happy in the team – and it shows.

That familiarity, he acknowledges, has eased the adjustment process somewhat and enabled him to more swiftly get settled in again and back into the groove – but there was still, he admitted, the small matter of graduating from KF3 to KF2…

“It was a bit strange,” the 15-year-old reflected of his return to the competitive fray. “It felt quite weird going back into it again, but it was exciting at the same time. It took a little while to get back into it all; the WSK test at Garda went okay, as did practice for the first round at La Conca, but we were just struggling a bit on the racing front because I was slightly rusty. My first race in KF2 was actually my first race in seven months.

“It’s quite a big step-up from KF3 to be fair; the front brakes have a lot more stopping power, which makes it quite different in terms of overtaking and just generally trying to put fast laps in. The racing is really, really hard as well; if you drop back at all at the start, because the times are so similar it’s difficult to make up ground again, so there’s definitely more pressure there.

“Of course I’m racing against the best drivers in the world, too. There are so many top guys there, who have won major events and been on the podium. Everyone knows how to win races, but I think we got to grips with it all pretty quickly. For the first couple of races, the drivers with more experience in the class definitely had an advantage, but I’d say it’s pretty much evened out now.”

With a rather less-than-ideal total of just two days’ track time under his belt before the hotly-fought WSK International Series 2009 curtain-raiser at La Conca in southern Italy, three top ten finishes from his four heat races was no mean feat for the Northants-based star, and though he would run out of luck in the finals, the potential was clearly there. That potential would subsequently cement itself in the South Garda Winter Cup at Lonato a fortnight later, when ‘everything just clicked’ – and the runner-up trophy was the result.

Heading into the second WSK meeting of the campaign at Sarno, again in Italy, the Stamford Boys’ School pupil was aiming for a top five finish – if not slightly better – but he was equally mindful of the fact that many of the 80-strong grid he was up against had substantially more experience in the class, such as Matteo Viganò, a driver who has already achieved a number of international titles.

What’s more, the only previous time Max had raced at Sarno was in his final meeting of 2008 with Top Kart, and prior to qualifying this time around, he had never driven it in the dry before in KF2. All told, 16th position – second-highest of the five Maranello entries and earning him a starting spot of seventh for each of his four heats, by which time the rain had gone – was a far-from-unsatisfactory outcome.

“I like most of the European tracks,” the former BRDC Stars of Tomorrow JICA Vice-Champion enthused, “and Sarno is quite a fast and flowing circuit, yet technical at the same time, with a triple set of tight hairpins. In the first heat I was up to second and was just sitting there behind the leader, Sami Luka, saving my tyres and engine.

“I was planning to try and overtake him with a couple of laps to go, and then my exhaust fell off. The spring just snapped, which was really frustrating. Starting down in seventh makes it really hard to get up to the front like that, and we had the pace and everything felt really good, so I was very confident I could have won…”

Frustrating it may have been, but Max expertly made amends by triumphing in his following two heats – one ‘straightforward’, the other at the end of a fraught tussle with Viganò, Ben Cooper and Petri Suvanto – and in the last one he was up into third place and challenging for second when an electrical problem struck and he lost all power, dropping him down to an entirely unrepresentative 26th spot at the chequered flag.

He may not have had the fastest kart in the field, but in a situation in which as little as one tiny mistake can cost a whole handful of places, the erstwhile Italian Open Masters pace-setter was truly supreme, and without the brace of issues he had suffered, he would likely have been starting the pre-final from the very front of the pack. As it was, he was down in 15th.

“Because it was such a long race, I was still hoping to finish inside the top five,” he recounted. “The kart and engine both felt good, and I knew I had the pace to come through. I got a really good start and came out of the first corner in seventh. By the end of the first lap I was fifth, and after that I just closed down and passed the next two drivers ahead of me.

“I almost got Sami Luka for second on the last lap, too. Our pace was really good again, and that was without even getting a clear lap as we came through the field; we just needed to find a couple of tenths more for the final.”

Well aware that he could have won if only he had been able to start higher up, there were great expectations indeed for the grand final, which Max was beginning from third place. Though he found himself wrong-footed by a rival on the opening tour that left him playing a game of catch-up for the remainder of the race, nonetheless the 2007 European Bridgestone Cup winner came away with a second successive podium finish to show for his efforts, and the mantle of top Brit once again into the bargain. Now, he honestly believes, he can go all the way.

“I got a good start again and followed Viganò through into second,” he related. “As we were coming up to the hairpin I left maybe half a kart-width’s gap, and Luka came up the inside of me on the kerb, with the loss of momentum causing me to drop me down to fifth. I hadn’t expected him to do that and so hadn’t seen it coming, but I’ll be more prepared for that kind of thing in the future now.

“I got back up to third again, but Viganò and Felice Tiene ahead of me were gone. Our pace was so even that it would have been pretty much impossible to catch them; Tiene was about 15 kart lengths ahead of me, and Viganò had about the same margin over him.

“Still, it was a good result, and I would like to thank Maranello Kart and JRP, and KVS for the engines. Since La Conca, the championship has definitely been in our sights – we knew we had the pace there to do a lot better; it was just that we were unlucky. If we can continue getting podiums, I’m sure that by the end of the season we’ll be there or thereabouts…”

Photo by Chris Walker