The first CIK-FIA World Karting Championship was held in 1964. It established the international championship now known as the FIA Karting World Championship.
CIK stands for Commission Internationale de Karting, the FIA commission responsible for developing and regulating international karting. The championship’s creation reflected karting’s rapid growth from a postwar pastime into an organized form of motor sport and an important starting point for racing careers.
The 1964 event was not the first competition ever described as a karting world championship. Before CIK-FIA sanctioning, the Grand Prix Kart Club of America organized its own world championship events, beginning with an international meeting in Nassau in 1959. Those earlier contests are part of karting’s history, but they are separate from the official CIK-FIA championship lineage.
The inaugural CIK-FIA championship was held over a single final round, as was the 1965 edition. Later championships developed more elaborate formats involving practice, qualifying heats, pre-finals, and finals. The series is regarded as the second-oldest FIA world championship after Formula One.