Academy Report: How our karters handled 2024

Williams Racing continued investing in the future of motorsport at a grassroots level in 2024 as the Driver Academy welcomed a host of karting starlets.

New names joined over the year to follow Oleksandr Bondarev's signing in 2023, with Sara Matsui, Dean Hoogendoorn, and Lucas Palacio coming on board.

We continued the karting support just last week, too, when Will Green became our latest recruit.

All these young drivers now have our decades of F1 pedigree to help their growth, on-track and off, as our Grove team nurtures their fledgling careers.

Here are the highlights for Sara, Dean, and Lucas' first calendar wearing the Williams Racing W.

The first name added to our karting ranks this year was Japan's Sara Matsui, one of the finalists from 2022's Girls on Track Rising Stars.

2024 had Sara jetting around Europe's top karting venues, starting the season in Italy's South Garda Karting with two weekends of racing.

The WSK Champions Cup came first, and Sara's first round with Williams Racing support saw her claim P6 in the OK-N Junior category to kick off her year.

One week later it was the opening round of the WSK Super Master Series, and a P3 start morphed into a stellar P2 finish in an impressive demonstration of her potential.

Sara ended the four-round series in P11 out of 49 karters, and more racing awaited in the Champions of the Future Academy.

Stepping up to OK-N Seniors, a trip to the UAE's Al Ain Raceway saw her season highlight with a superb pole position as Sara showed her single-lap pace that'll help her shine in 2025.

Dutch driver Dean Hoodendoorn joined the Williams Racing family after the F1 summer break and immediately spent a dream Zandvoort weekend as a guest in our garage to see how the team operates.

He had already excelled in 2024 by taking a P3 finish in the WSK Super Master Series in the OK Junior category.

A well-earned P2 finish at Franciacorta in Round 3 helped Dean to that high championship position, finishing three tenths off victory, but still taking plenty of points for his earlier PreFinal win.

P4 in the Champions of the Future's opening round and P5 finish later in Round 4 at Kristianstad led to a P10 finish in the championship's OK Junior standings.

That's not a bad return considering some 170 drivers entering throughout the series' run.

Dean also contested the same class in the FIA Karting European Championship, ending the season in P15, and again faring well in Sweden's Kristianstad round.

All that experience culminated with Dean's season highlight in the WSK Final Cup, taking pole position and then victory in the second round at Cremona in November to earn P5 in the standings.

The youngest member of the Williams Racing Driver Academy is 10-year-old American Lucas Palacio, and his 2024 results continue to defy his age.

Also racing in the WSK Super Master Series to begin this year, Lucas narrowly missed out on the title in the Mini U10 class by only six points.

Despite settling for the vice-champion honour, victory in two of the championship's four Final races was an excellent way to underline Lucas' raw speed.

P4 in the Italian ACI Karting Championship, which also included a win kept him busy with honing his racecraft over 2024, too.

Lucas' racing adventures weren't solely kept to karts, either with the American taking to Charlotte Motor Speedway to drive his first Legends Chargers race and promptly claiming a debut victory.

That triumphant feeling continued with a graduation to the Mini Gr.3 category before 2024 ended, where Lucas secured a win in the Cremona PreFinal in his only weekend contesting the WSK Final Cup.