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RMC Asia/Malaysia Opens Season in Hazy Sepang

Championship Standings | Pictures |  Full Results (MyLaps)

Hot, dry, and hazy weather didn’t put a damper on the opening round of the Rotax Max Challenge Asia/Malaysia event. 100 entries with almost a full grid in Juniors and record entries in DD2 made for a great start to the season. The event also had a very special guest in the form of 2-time KZ1 World Cup winner and 2003 European KF1 champion Bas Lammers. The overall wins went to Calvin Wong (Senior), Riki Tanioka (DD2), Perdana Putra Minang (Junior), and Muhd Sidqi.

In the Senior category ARTGP Asia driver Calvin Wong was pretty much untouchable, taking pole position by a margin of over 3 tenths ahead of Julio Prost (by comparison Prost had a similar margin to 10th place). Wong’s dominance continued in all the races despite occasionally dropping back at the start and having to re-take the lead later.  In the final he led all laps quite comfortably and set the fastest lap of the race, but only by one thousandth of a second from 2nd place finisher Lee Wai Cong (7 Racing), who found impressive pace for the final day after a 7th in qualifying on Saturday.  He started the final in 2nd but had to fight his way back to 2nd after dropping to 4th early on. 2013 champion Gilbert Ang came home in 3rd ahead of Mitchell Cheah and Eric Louis. Julio Prost’s championship hopes were blow a bitter blow after the pre-final in which he finished 2nd but was disqualified for a technical infringement related to the carburetor.  He fought back in the final to finish 12th, but should’ve been much higher after making it all the way to 10th less than 10 laps into the race.  A crash dropped him to 20th. The race was an astonishingly good performance from Malaysian drivers, with the top 6 positions occupied by Malaysians.  The first non-Malaysian was Indonesian driver Silvano Christian (Stratos FK Malaysia) in 7th place.

In DD2 the grid was incredibly close in the final, but it was Stratos FK Malaysia driver Riki Tanioka that controlled proceedings. After setting a slightly unexpected pole position ahead of his teammate Bas Lammers, Tanioka had a nightmare start to the heats as he wasn’t able to start heat 1 when his kart gave up on the formation lap due to a fuel filter issue. 2013 champion Melvin Moh (RL Karting / Birel) crossed the line first in heat one ahead of Bas Lammers but received a 10 second penalty for a jump start as he occupied the spot left by Tanioka. In heat two Tanioka showed that he had race pace by taking an easy looking win ahead of Lammers and Moh. In the pre-final Tanioka had his work cut out with a 10th place starting place, but he monstered through the field, and assisted by a technical issue on Lammers’ kart, he took the win and pole position for the final.  Lammer’s technical problems dropped him to 7th.

In the final Tanioka led from the start, and at one point it looked like Malaysian driver James Veerapen (HB Karting / Maddox) might have been able to challenge for the win but was missing just a fraction of a tenth in pace to be able to do so, eventually finishing just half a second behind. Lammers made a great start by jumping from 7th to 4th, but wasn’t able to find the pace to progress further, despite almost getting within attacking distance of 3rd place finisher Senna Sulaiman Noor (IS Racing / CRG).

The Junior grid had an impressive 33 drivers entered making for some great racing. Indonesian driver Perdana Putra Minang (ART GP Asia) took the win in the pre-final ahead of Cao Zhuo  (China /Prodigy / ART) and David Sitanala (Indonesia /Maxima / Kosmic). The start of the final was chaos for Cao Zhuo as he was pushed into a spin in the start-finish straight with 30 karts screaming towards him and his kart pointed the wrong way! Luckily there was no additional contact but it meant that Cao had to make his way up through the field in a damaged kart from the very back. He eventually made it to 13th place. Meanwhile at the front it was an Indonesian party in the top four as Perdana Putra Minang built a safe lead to David Sitanala (Maxima / Kosmic) and further back behind them Nabil Hutasuhut (Maxima / Kosmic) and Kezia Santoso battled it out for 3rd.  Santoso got very close to taking 3rd, crossing the line less than a tenth behind Hutasuhut.  Riki Okusa (Stratos FK Malaysia) from Japan was the first non-Indonesian driver on the results sheet, driving a strong first few laps setting himself up for a 5th place finish.

In MicroMax Muhd Sidqi (IS Racing / CRG) qualified first and won all the heats and the final for a clean-sweep of the weekend. It wasn’t quite as easy as it might sound though. In the final Alex Brown (Seven Racing / Kosmic) took the lead on lap two as Sidqi dropped to 3rd.  Muhd Sidqi didn’t take long getting back in control of the race as he was back in the lead a few laps later and controlled the race to take the win 1.6 seconds ahead of Brown.  Muhammad Harits did his best to wrestle second place away from Brown but crossed the line 0.06s behind!

The next round of the Rotax Max Challenge Asia/Malaysia series is set to take place at Speedway PLUS on the 26th/27th of April.

Full results: http://www.mylaps.com/en/events/991480

Pictures:

Championship Standings after round 1:

Rotax DD2




Pos No Name Round 1 Total
PF F
1 301 (M) RIKI TANIOKA 34 55 89
2 322 JAMES NICHOLAS VEERAPEN 33 52 85
3 342 SENNA SULAIMAN NOOR 32 50 82
4 321 MOHD FIKRI RAZIN 31 49 80
5 323 (M) ANG KOK WEE 30 48 78
6 345 (M) KEIFLI OTHMAN 29 46 75
7 331 (M) KYLE JAMES SPENCER BLOCKLEY 28 45 73
8 333 (V) KONG CHUN KEAT 27 41 68
9 315 (M) GARY KOH 24 44 68
10 303 (V) LEE LUNG NING 26 40 66
11 316 (M) SHUNJI IGUCHI 21 43 64
12 382 (V) NICHOLAS PELLERIN 25 37 62
13 302 MELVIN MOH 12 47 59
14 312 (M) ONG CHEE MENG 20 38 58
15 311 BRENDAN PAUL ANTHONY 19 39 58
16 399 (M) KENNETH JOHN SMITH 23 34 57
17 313 (M) LIM KEONG WEE 18 36 54
18 383 CAO MU HUA 12 42 54
19 388 (V) CHUA PENG CHEW 17 35 52
20 369 (V) ASHRAFF DEWAL 22 29 51
21 338 (V) DAVID FRISINA 0 0 0
Rotax Senior




Pos No Name Round 1 Total
PF F
1 213 CALVIN WONG WENG MAN 34 55 89
2 288 LEE WAI CONG 33 52 85
3 261 GILBERT ANG DING FENG 32 50 82
4 298 MITCHELL CHEAH MIN JIE 31 49 80
5 277 ERIC LOUIS PRAGASAM 30 48 78
6 251 SILVANO CHRISTIAN 29 46 75
7 225 IZZAT HANIF 28 47 75
8 218 TERUHISA TANAKA 27 44 71
9 258 ZAHIR ALI 26 45 71
10 299 HARRY SCOTT 25 43 68
11 233 ARIA BIMA FERRA 22 42 64
12 239 MOHD DANIAL ROSLAN 23 39 62
13 281 YIN FU YI 21 40 61
14 204 AMEYA BAFNA 20 38 58
15 212 SYAZWAN MD NOOR 19 37 56
16 200 DANIEL MIRANDA 17 35 52
17 238 HUA MIAO 16 36 52
18 230 ESHAN PIERIS 18 33 51
19 210 LONG MOHAMAD NOR ARIFF 24 26 50
20 224 CHEN SHI YIN 14 31 45
21 268 OSCAR DELUZURIAGA-A 13 32 45
22 252 NAYAN CHATTERJEE 15 26 41
23 216 BEN GRIMES 7 34 41
24 271 ANANDA JULIO PROST 0 41 41
25 203 KENNETH BOEHLER PAALSRUD 12 26 38

 

 

Rotax Junior




Pos No Name Round 1 Total
PF F
1 102 PUTRA PERDANA MINANG 34 55 89
2 121 DAVID JULIANO SITANALA 32 52 84
3 115 KEZIA SANTOSO 30 49 79
4 168 NABIL HUTASUHUT 29 50 79
5 188 JAKKARIN SIRINONTHANAWECH 31 47 78
6 126 RICKY OKUSA 26 48 74
7 111 CAO ZHUO 33 40 73
8 177 KANE SHEPHERD 27 46 73
9 110 MUHAMMAD LUQMAN HAKIM 28 43 71
10 198 GABRIEL ANTONIO TAYAO CABRERA 25 45 70
11 138 VERAVICH WONGSANGANAN 23 44 67
12 199 M.FEREL FADHIL 24 38 62
13 197 HUGO BRADLEY 20 41 61
14 108 RICKY DONISON 22 36 58
15 106 CHRISTOPHER DARYL J. WENAS 18 39 57
16 193 GLENN CHIAM BO SHIUN 17 37 54
17 117 SAMUEL EDWARD GRIMES 19 30 49
18 185 PRASSETYO HARDJA 16 33 49
19 125 SEAN NICHOLAS SMITH 13 34 47
20 105 KHALID ADAM KHALID EMRAN 0 42 42
21 116 JACOB PAOLO ANG 10 31 41
22 136 GEZHA SUDIRMAN 14 26 40
23 119 MOHD NAZIM AZMAN 21 18 39
24 186 KEANON SANTOSO 7 32 39
25 123 KYLE CROSLAND 9 29 38
26 178 RIKO A. TJONNADI 12 24 36
27 170 PAVAN RAVISHANKAR 8 27 35
28 133 JON LEE XUAN HAO 0 35 35
29 129 BARRICHELLO NOOR 15 18 33
30 144 MIRA ERDA 11 18 29
31 118 ARMAND JOHANY 0 28 28
32 104 SUSHANTH SUGUMARAN 2 25 27
33 107 DANIEL BOEHLER STOEKERSEN 2 23 25

 

 

Rotax MicroMax




Pos No Name Round 1 Total
PF F
1 10 MUHAMMAD BIN SIDQI AHMAD SAID 34 55 89
2 57 ALEXANDER DIMAANO BROWN 32 52 84
3 12 ARSH EMIR JOHANY 33 50 83
4 74 MUHAMMAD HARITS 31 49 80
5 21 MUHAMMAD AMIRUL HAIKAL 30 48 78
6 88 SERGIO NOOR 28 46 74
7 25 PUTERA ADAM HALIM 26 47 73
8 17 YASH ARADHYA 29 43 72
9 11 AALIA ZAAFIRA TOVAR 25 44 69
10 24 AKHEELA CHANDRA 24 42 66
11 27 HAN CHE YU 27 38 65
12 29 WAN ALIF AIMAN 23 41 64
13 18 LI HAO RAN 22 40 62
14 19 ANEIRIN AKRASANEE 21 39 60
15 76 MUHAMMAD AFIQ HAIKAL 19 37 56
16 15 BIANDRA NURULY C. MINANF 20 34 54
17 68 AKMAL MOHAMMAD ASHIBLI 18 36 54
18 13 MUHAMMAD FIRDAUS 0 45 45
19 16 DALJIT SINGH 0 35 35

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