Christmas comes early for 12-year-old driving ace, Rory Armstrong, a pupil at St. Patrick’s Grammar School in Downpatrick, as he becomes World Rotax 125 Mini Max Champion in Bahrain at the start of December.
Fending off seventy-one world-class drivers from across the globe at the finals held at the Bahrain International Karting Circuit, Rory’s rise to world champion has been a fairly short but arduous task. A feat which only one other Irish racer has achieved before, when Charlie Eastwood was crowned around a decade ago.
Speed is in the veins for the Armstrong family as Rory’s dad, Andrew, has been successfully competing from a similar age. And despite Andrew having plenty of success nationally both in cars and karts, Rory goes one better than dad with this global accolade. Mum, Orla, and brother, Ryan, have also been very much part of Rory’s success story to date.
I caught up with them just days after they flew back from Bahrain to find out how Rory’s career has unfolded to date.
Rory only started karting in 2018, and by the end of the following season he had won both national championships in the Bambino kart category via the Northern Ireland and Ulster associations. A move to Rotax karts meant that all of Rory’s future racing was done in Great Britain, where he clenched one of the national championships and was runner up in the other national series.
Spain welcomed young Rory to his first European event in 2022 where, having been talked into trying out a European event, the County Down driving ace qualified in second position. This event led the Armstrong’s to commit to a full season in Europe running as privateers, with Rory finishing the season fighting for third overall. Sadly, another competitor took Rory off the circuit at the final round. dropping him to sixth in the series.
For this season, Rory raced under Strawberry Racing, a team based in Sheffield, and he finished the Belgian National Championship in second overall. The arrive-and-drive package under a team made huge logistical and mechanical sense, as then Rory and his family only needed to worry about getting themselves to events, with the kart and all that goes with it being handled by the team.
For Rory, this season was much more than just a hobby. His aim, to reach the World finals.
But getting to the Rotax World Finals is no mean feat, as to get there, you must finish first or second overall in the qualifying championship that you compete in, wherever that may be in the world. Even then, only seventy-two tickets are available for the finals each year.
Racers represent their country at the finals, and by finishing second overall in Belgium, Rory met his goal and secured his ticket to the finals, representing Team GB, where it really is la crème de la crème competing.
“Rotax supply everything,” explains Andrew. “You’re given at the start of the week a brand-new kart, engine, all your tyres, everything supplied to you free of charge. It’s a prize for getting there. This year it was obviously in Bahrain and there were seventy-two of them out there competing for it.
“You only get five practise sessions, followed by qualifying, and then you go into heats, so they divide them into four groups. So, if you are say Group A, you’ll go against Group B, C and D. And then you’ll get an intermediate standing of where you are.
“Then they’ll do a pre-final, and everybody gets to compete the pre-final, and by the end of that whenever you are ranked, the top thirty-six head into the final and the bottom thirty-six go home. So, yeah, thankfully we got into the top thirty-six where Rory started ninth on the grid for the final.”
To start within the top ten in the final, Rory finished his first heat in P2. Some brake issues on the second heat forced him from P3, to P25, but it was a simple issue that was easily resolved ahead of the third heat in which Rory finished P6.
Sitting thirteenth overall, Rory entered the pre-final with confidence, a P5 here moved him to ninth overall, with a great chance in the final. Starting from P9, Rory knew he had to stay out of trouble, but pace himself to be in the top five all race to stand a chance at a podium.
At this level of racing, with drivers and karts so equally matched, it is beyond nail biting and, having climbed to second overall, contact from another racer dropped Rory to seventh with three laps to go. Fighting his way back to fifth, despite losing the tow from the leading back, Rory made a clear run through to take victory in the closing two corners of the race.
“It feels amazing! just getting to know that you are world champion!” stated Rory after powering his 125cc Birel to the top of the rostrum at the finals, an event which was raced by Formula 1’s most experienced driver, Rubens Barrichello, from Brazil, who was set up just feet from young Rory in the service tent, such is the calibre of this annual event.
Rory has put over one thousand ours of training in on his racing simulator to get to this point in his career, combined with a personal trainer keeping his fitness levels at a standard that can cope with the huge strain racing a kart at this level puts on your body.
Alongside some swimming, Rory would easily spend two to three days a week testing his kart when he isn’t racing. The year 8 student clearly doesn’t have a great deal of time for traditional studies, but with great support from his school, he doesn’t let his learning drop away.
“You have to do school,” explained the St. Patrick’s pupil. “I always do schoolwork whenever I’m in the hotel or the house, wherever we’re staying off the track, I always catch up on some schoolwork.”
Next season, Rory makes the move from his cadet kart into a junior kart, which is essentially the same thing. The 125cc junior machine adds a little more power thanks to the removal of an exhaust restrictor as well as a carburettor restrictor being removed alongside a different ECU.
With an invite to test in Italy for a team, next season’s plans are yet to be confirmed, but there is no doubt Rory will be in the eyes of a few teams looking to find young successful drivers to mentor. No matter if he runs as a team driver or independent, there is another two years at the helm of a junior kart, after which a move to Formula 4 would be something Rory is keen to achieve by the time he’s 15-years-old.
