Good article on Frankie Cheng Congfu

[Kiwi3]

Good article on Frankie can be found here - http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sports/...nt_6398049.htm

China is fortunate to have someone of Frankie's experience and ability at the moment. Unfortunately I don't see any other Chinese drivers following him for quite a few years. The karting circuit Frankie grew up on is now no longer used, and Beijing has a total of zero karting circuits! Shanghai has two, one of which has regular competition, Zhuhai has one, and the only other one I know of is in the city of Xiamen. With so few I cannot see a decent training ground for young drivers developing. There are no mainland Chinese drivers in Asian F3 or Formula BMW, and the few in Asian Formula Renault get well beaten by the Europeans that come over. To my knowledge none are competing in Europe like Frankie did in British Formula Renault, and I cannot see many being supported by their parents in karting like Frankie was. The culture here is very much focused around getting a good education and a stable job, unless you are an athlete in an Olympic sport in which case the government might give backing.

I'd love to see more Chinese racing drivers emerge like the Japanese did in the '80s and '90s (they are so competitive in international F3 now - just look at the Macau results), but I cannot see it happening. For the sake of A1GP I hope Frankie sticks around for the long term as if he doesn't then Team China will be without any decent alternatives.

[Asa]

In China there is Formula Geely. But really not many have the ability to go overseas due to lack of competition experience.

Hong Kong has recently opened a permanent kart track called "Diamond Coast Kart Circuit" near Tuen Mun. Macau also has a kart track. Good drivers may come from these places and they can go on to FBMW, F3...etc.

Diamond Coast Kart Circuit:
www.dckart.com

[Lam Pak]

Diamond Coast Kart Circuit is a joke compared to Kartodromo de Coloane at Macau. Imo the problem of china mainland is the lack of more Cheng CongFu vision drivers. Race in the serious level and not in those crapy formula geely series.