Sami Cetin with his Super Mario Kart World Championship 2012 trophy

UK Super Mario Kart champ Sami Cetin has regained the PAL version Time Trial World Title for the second time. Sami previously held the title from September 1998 until April 2004, and beat one of the World Records set by former title holder Karel van Duijvenboden of the Netherlands on Sunday, March 10th to earn the overall world title again based on average finish score.

Sami Cetin has also won the Super Mario Kart Multiplayer World Championships 2012 held in France last August, while taking on 50 of the best players from 8 countries around the globe, so it has been a successful year.

Sami achieved a time of 48.33 seconds on the Vanilla Lake 2 course to grab the PAL Time Trial title — you can check out the video below:

Amazingly, Sami Cetin's niece Leyla Hasso also hit a record on the same track of 53.31 seconds at the UK-based GEEK 2013 event on 23rd February. This is not only a new Women's World Record on the PAL version of Super Mario Kart but also the second fastest time in the UK, and ranked 22nd in the World! Gordon Sinclair — One of the event's organisers and Director at Replay Events Ltd — was present when the record was set.

Leyla's record attempt can be seen below:

That means that both the male and female Super Mario Kart PAL Time Trial World Records are in the same family — amazing stuff, we're sure you'll agree!

Like her Uncle Sami in 2012, Leyla Hasso was also featured in the Guinness World Records 2013 Gamer's Edition that was released this January for holding the female World Title on both PAL and NTSC Versions of Super Mario Kart. She reached the NTSC Title after beating the records of the fastest female karter in Japan and former Women's World Champion, Yukiko Takada. Leyla also made her debut at the Official Super Mario Kart World Championships last year in France alongside her Uncle and the rest of their "Team UK", placing 32nd. With her great improvements since then she is looking to reach a much higher rank at the next one.

Leyla Hasso Guinness

Sami Cetin and Leyla Hasso will be attending some of the major video game and retro events in the UK this year such as Revival 2013 in Wolverhampton on Saturday 18th May, Eurogamer 2013 in London on Saturday 28th September and Play Expo 2013 near Manchester on the weekend of 12th / 13th October. If you're planning on attending any of those, keep your eyes peeled for some Super Mario Kart action.