HE tinkers with his cars, looking for ways how he can make them go faster and trying to understand its setup and how it works. He tests his own engines and drives his racing machine some 90 to 110 kph.
And by the way, he’s just 10 years old.
Christopher Joaquin Garrido, last year’s Formula Cadet Expert overall champion, is a car nut at this early age and proud of it.
“I probably got it (passion for cars) from my dad, tinkering with cars looking at how to make them go faster is what got me hooked into motorsports. I just don’t drive, I also try to understand how the kart works and perform as it should. I’m the one that breaks-in and tests my own engines. My team always works with data and I always want to understand how this affects my performance,” said Joaquin, a Grade 5 student from Colegio de San Agustin and an accomplished young racer.
“The same fascination is why I only play video games where in I can tinker with the car’s setup and performance. I relax playing Real Racing in my iPad. I easily get bored with other games, but with simulation racing games, there’s always something different for me to do and adjust which makes it really exciting for me,” Joaquin continued.
Joaquin’s fascination for cars was triggered by his father Jerome and mother Candy. At age six, Joaquin knew about cars even before learning anything, associating car brands with their logos.
“My dad would use my love for cars as tools to learn the alphabet and even bugged him to let me join his fun run and track days with his friends. Instead of watching basketball, we would watch F1 races and get excited discussing technical and team strategies, it’s not just about racing and seeing great overtaking moves, I was also interested on why one team did a pit stop earlier than the other team. I was fortunate enough to have a dad, who’s willing to spend the time to explain and break it down for me,” he said.
But learning how to race verbally is entirely different from actually doing it.
“My first experience with karting was with my dad when I was 6 when he brought me to City Kart in the parking of Park Square in Makati. I was a slow poke even with multiple karting clinics, but there’s something with driving go-karts that got me hooked. For the next few years, my parents exposed me and my siblings to different sports given our diverse personalities. I would do swimming, taekwondo, football and even golf, which I all enjoyed but not as quite as karting,” Joaquin said.
His life took a dramatic turn when City Kart reopened in Circuit Makati, which was very near where they lived.
“I felt like the happiest kid since it was only 10 minutes away from where I lived. The owner and City Kart Racing Team Principal, Coach Jean-Marc Freihuber, being a good friend with my dad, let me do a clinic at the Carmona Race Track as my lap times were improving and shall I say the rest is history. I am now part of the City Kart Racing Team and for the longest time, the only Filipino in the team. My other teammates, I consider my brothers, Tai Zulberti and Constantin Reisch, both of whom I consider to be a big part of my development as driver. I wouldn’t be as good as I am today without them.”
Joaquin transformed that love for cars and racing into a virtuoso performance on the race track.
“Winning takes a lot of hard work and I’m sure not a lot will agree, a bit of luck knowing that everything has to be perfect in a race weekend to take the win. But if you have the mindset and perspective that you get to conquer your challenges, may it be getting a perfect start, being able to brake later or even just breaking your personal best time, then you’ll always have a sense of achievement regardless of the race outcome,” said Joaquin.
He started seriously competing in the sport in the middle of the 2014 season, with him missing two legs. He was so far behind in the national series, but still ended up securing the 2014 3rd Overall in Formula Cadet Novice.
“That was supposed to be my learning and formative season, so being recognized was more than enough to motivate me during the 2015 season. I was fortunate enough to compete in two classes, Formula Cadet Expert and mini-ROK, which is very tiring and but definitely made me a better driver,” he said.
And a better driver, he indeed become.
Joaquin went on to take the 2015 Formula Cadet Expert Overall Championship. He also bagged the Cadet Karter of the Year and in international races, he secured the 2015 Asian Karting Open Championship Cadet Overall Championship by winning the KAT-AKOC in Bira, Thailand last October and the Macau International Kart Grand Prix in Macau last December.
“What really came as a surprise not only with my team and family but even to me was in the mini-ROK, I was able to finish 3rd out of 22 drivers with only 5 drivers from the Philippines in the KAT-AKOC in Thailand and 6th out of 21 drivers in the Macau International Kart Grand Prix. That was the biggest grid I ever raced, which really helped me a lot in both Cadet and mini-ROK,” said Joaquin, who is also competing in the Sodi World Series, where participants earn points using rental karts. “It’s racing against 35,000 drivers worldwide. I’m currently ranked 3rd in the country and 65th in the world!”
Of course, all champion racers like Joaquin, who want to compete in the highest level in the CIK-FIA Karting World Championship in the future, feel the need to improve on their times.
“I’ve been fortunate enough through my team to be exposed with people from different countries. So the chance of racing abroad is the plan we are exploring, experience as my dad said is the best training I could get. For now, I will continue 120-150 laps of practice every chance I get, spending time in the gym and other sports to improve my overall physical fitness,” said Joaquin, who unlike other kids, is so serious about his racing, he wants to become a full-time professional driver or even a race engineer someday.
“As long as I can remember I live and breathe motorsports, I see myself spending my life in motorsports. Some kids my age would like to grow up as a doctor or lawyer. Me, I want to be a professional race driver, a test driver. I’m even thinking of understanding what it takes to be a race engineer,” he said. “For now, to be able to compete in a full series anywhere in Europe would be my dream. To compete in that level and have a chance of maybe someday being able to drive in F1 is closer if I compete in Europe.”
“Through racing, I have developed discipline, the value of hard work and team work,” said Joaquin.