Yash Aradhya and Ruhaan Alva stole the show in the opening round of the Meco Motorsports FMSCI National Rotax Max Karting Championship at the Chicane Circuit in Hyderabad, comfortably winning all their races.
Yash (Meco Racing) and Ruhaan (Birel Art), both from Bengaluru, picked up 89 points apiece to take the lead in the five-round championship.
Both finished on pole in the qualifying rounds and set the pace by winning the two heats on the other day as well. They rounded up their shows on the next day too brilliantly, taking the pre-finals and finals.
In Senior Max, Mumbai’s Aaroh Ravindra (Rayo Racing) took advantage of the intense tussle between Manav Sharma (BPC Racing) and Nirmal Umashankar (Meco Racing) to jump to the top of the points table.
Manav (Faridabad) and Umashankar (Chennai) won a heat each on Saturday to set up a Super Sunday.
But the opening race of the day saw Umashankar suffering a five-place penalty in the grid position for making contact with a driver while Manav got disqualified for a technical infringement.
It opened the race up for Aaroh and he gleefully capitalised on the opportunity. Starting the final race at pole, he drove smartly to record his second straight victory.
Umashankar and Manav duly took the second and third place to make up for their earlier follies.
In the Junior Max for 13 to 16-year-old, Chirag Ghorpade of BPC was on Yash’s tail all the way but he could not muster the pace to beat Yash who finished top on the podium. He had to be satisfied with the second place in the pre-finals as well as the finals.
Shahan Ali Moshin of Agra (Meco) made a smooth transition from Micro to Junior Max to finish third in the pre-finals.
He was, however, displaced from the podium by Muhammad Ibrahim of BPC in the final who held his nerves till the last seconds of the race.
In the Micro Max for 8 to 12-year-old, Arjun Rajiv and Satvik Raju, both from Bengaluru and Team Peregrine Racing, took the second and third places respectively in the final behind the top placed Ruhaan Alva of Birel Art who was at his best.
The Results (Finals)
n Senior Max: 1. Aaroh Ravindra (Rayo Racing); 2. Nirmal Umashankar (MecoRacing); 3. Manav Sharma (BPC).
n Junior Max: 1. Yash Aradhya (Meco); 2. Chirag Ghorpade (BPC); 3. Muhammad Ibrahim (BPC).
n Micro Max: 1. Ruhaan Alva (Birel Art); 2. Arjun Rajiv (Peregrine); 3. Saathvik Raju (Peregrine).
