TDT | Manama
Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
F1 legend Rubens Barrichello joins three extremely talented racers who took consecutive wins in the first two rounds of the Sakhir Rotax MAX Challenge (SRMC) 2023 held last weekend at the Bahrain International Karting Circuit (BIKC) in Sakhir. He took the lead. .
Barrichello won both DD2 MAX Masters Finals along BIKC’s world-famous 1.414-kilometre CIK-FIA track, with double wins for Julian Rivera in the Micro MAX category and Zen de Ruwe in the DD2 MAX class I joined as a member.
Meanwhile, Mini MAX’s Antione Remies, Junior MAX’s Tai Mejia, and Senior MAX’s Oliver Kruglov also made it to the podium as winners of the first round. From the second round, Caleb Odendaal won the Mini MAX, Luca Horton won the Junior MAX, and Pappasena Area took the checkered flag in the Senior MAX Final.
SRMC has opened the 2023/2024 domestic karting season at BIKC, a world-class grassroots motorsport facility at the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC). The final two rounds of this campaign are scheduled to take place this weekend on Friday and Saturday.
The SRMC will be followed by the Bahrain Rotax MAX Challenge (BRMC) 2023/2024, which will be held over eight rounds until March next year. SRMC and BRMC are for individual racers who use Rotax-powered karts to compete against each other in sprint races.
DD2 MAX Masters
At last weekend’s event, Rubens Barrichello was the pacesetter for the DD2 MAX Masters from the opening session. He took the lead in the first round of qualifying with a best lap of 55.167 seconds and went on to win the pre-final. In the final, Barrichello completed 15 laps and took the victory with a winning time of 13 minutes 45.822 seconds.
He joined second place Anathony Hogg on the podium. In the second round, Barrichello was even faster in qualifying, recording a best lap of 53.963 seconds and taking pole position. He won the pre-final and completed a sensational double in the final with a time of 13:37.545, again finishing ahead of Hogg.
Micro MAX
In the Micro MAX category, Julián Rivera narrowly defeated Rayan Najjar in the first round of qualifying with the fastest time of 1:05.542.
Rayan won the pre-final and Julien was disqualified from the session, but Julien bounced back in the nine-lap final and took the checkered flag with a wide lead over Rayan with a time of 9 minutes 30.913 seconds. In the second round, Julien picked up his form from the previous day’s suspension, topping the qualifying timesheet with the fastest lap of 1 minute 03.773 seconds and winning the pre-final as well.
Julien then won his second final of the weekend with a time of 9:29.924, and Rayan also joined him on the podium.
DD2MAX
In the DD2 MAX class, Xen De Ruwe recorded the fastest lap time of 53.800 seconds in the opening round qualifying and won the pre-final as well.
He then won the 15-lap final with a time of 13 minutes, 30.882 seconds, giving him a 14.767 second lead over second place Dainal Mualem. In the second round, Muallem attacked from the start and set the best qualifying time with a lap of 53.289 seconds. However, in the pre-final, de Rouwe took the lead on the opening lap and went on to win, setting himself up for victory in the final with a time of 13 minutes 28.966 seconds. This time there was a difference of 8.396 seconds with Mualem. Sheng Ya Hon also joined his DD2 MAX on his third place podium.
mini max
In Round 1 of the Mini MAX Battle, Nasser Nass set a best lap of 1:01.380, topping a competitive qualifying session. They then won the pre-final, but in the final, Nasser finished in first place, but was demoted to third place due to a 10-second penalty. Antione Remies, who started from 4th place and made an incredible late surge, took over the victory with a time of 9 minutes 12.133 seconds after nine laps.
Shaheen Shaheen followed closely with a 0.197 second difference, while Nasser completed the podium 4.646 seconds behind Antione. In the second round, Shaikh Ahmed bin Saqer Al Khalifa took the lead in Mini MAX qualifying with the fastest lap time of 1:00.584. Nasser then won the pre-final, but it was Caleb Odendaal who celebrated on the top step of the podium after the nine-lap final.
Starting from 3rd place, Caleb was in the lead by lap 3, powered on and won in 9:02.699. Nasser fell back to fourth place, but fought back brilliantly and moved up two spots to the finish, taking second place from Caleb with a time of 1.828 seconds. Shaikh Ahmed also joined the podium in third place, 2.176 seconds behind.
Junior MAX
The Junior MAX category saw plenty of heated action, with Luca Horton taking the lead in the first round as he qualified first with a best lap of 56.188 seconds. He won the pre-final, but in the final he dropped a whopping 11 places on the fourth lap before making a stunning comeback and joining winner Ty Mejia and second-place Brett King in the top three. entered in.
Ty started 8th on the grid, but moved up three places in the first lap and was in the lead by lap 5. He took the checkered flag in 14:07.524 after completing 15 laps. Brett followed 2.410 seconds behind, himself starting 6th and moving up 4 spots during the race, while Luca finished 2.470 seconds behind Ty. In the second round, Luca recorded his 55.645 second lap, again setting the best time in Junior MAX qualifying.
He then won the Pre-Finals and took an impressive pole-to-flag victory in the final with a time of 13:54.904. Ty followed by just 1.064 seconds, with Brett 2.321 seconds behind in third place.
Senior MAX
The Senior MAX class had the highest number of participants at last weekend’s SRMC round.
In the opening meeting, Shaikha Haya bint Duaij bin Salman Al Khalifa topped the qualifying timesheet with a best lap of 54.813 seconds. Oliver Kruglov then won the pre-final and continued his good form in the 15-lap final, taking pole-to-flag victory with a time of 13:42.966. Pappasena Elia was second with a difference of 2.399 seconds, and Theo Kekati was third with a difference of 6.958 seconds.
The next day, Elia rode that momentum into the second round, setting the best qualifying time with a lap time of 54.158 seconds. He won the pre-final and capped off a perfect race with a clean sweep in the final, completing 15 laps and finishing in 13:42.752.
Elia won with a difference of 5.235 seconds over second place Fahad Almukra, who took third place with a difference of 5.347 seconds. After the completion of all his SRMC activities on each day, the winners were presented with their respective trophies and medals by his BIKC and BIC officials at an awards ceremony.