{"id":217885,"date":"2026-01-05T13:41:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T13:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/217885\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T13:41:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T13:41:16","slug":"karting-news-karting-legend-mike-wilson-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/217885\/","title":{"rendered":"Karting news: Karting legend Mike Wilson dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/edit-wilson-2.jpg\" alt=\"Karting legend Mike Wilson dies\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMike Wilson celebrating his World Championship<\/p>\n<p>Wilson was renowned for his performances on track through the late 70s and into the 80s becoming the only six-time World Champion in karting history.<\/p>\n<p>Wilson beat out legends such as Terry Fullerton, Tom Kristensen, Jorn Haase, and most famously Ayrton Senna during his career.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1016277\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/69d4254578d1c667ab2de191b42a180a440c92c0-500x500.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Mike Wilson and Ayrton Senna having a discussion after an on track incident<\/p>\n<p>Once his years as a driver were over Wilson took on a role as a mentor and coach to the next generation of drivers coming through the ranks.<\/p>\n<p>Fernando Alonso, Juan Pablo Montoya, Lance Stroll and many more came through the school of Mike Wilson at some point in their careers.<\/p>\n<p>More recently Alex Powell and Aussie James Wharton have also worked with Wilson.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1016279\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/wilson-stroll-7-500x333.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Mike Wilson when he mentored Lance Stroll<\/p>\n<p>Wilson will always be remembered for his ability behind the wheel that led to him becoming the most successful kart driver of all time.<\/p>\n<p>Along with his continued work in kart mentoring he will forever he known as a great in the karting world.<\/p>\n<p><a data-bid=\"1\" data-no-instant=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/b\/285249\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none; vertical-align: middle;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/285249.gif\" alt=\"\"\/><br \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Wilson celebrating his World Championship Wilson was renowned for his performances on track through the late 70s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13012,111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-217885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-mike-wilson","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}