Update: There was a critical mistake in the Junior championship standings. The standings have now been updated. The championship leader is Gilbert Ang. The error was due to a mistake creeping into the round 2 points for this revision which resulted in 0 points for Gilbert in the final rather than 30 which it was in the points published after round 2 and should rightly be now as well. Apologies from the organisers for the mistake to all competitors.
The 3rd round of the Rotax Max Challenge Malaysia series was held last weekend at the Speedway PLUS karting circuit. As was the case at round 2 the championship tables were yet again turned around as drivers at the top of the standings in both the Junior and Senior category had difficult weekends. A mainly sunny Saturday with a dash of rain for the qualifying sessions was replaced by a scorching hot Sunday. The full results can be viewed on the MyLaps Website, and you can download the updated Championship Standings.
In the Senior category KRS driver Moh Afiq Ikhwan drove himself back into championship contention moving up to 4th in the standings after taking a comfortable win in both the pre-final and final, while defending champion Mikko Nassi took the championship lead with a 2nd place finish for a KRS 1-2. Andrew Tang dropped from 1st to 3rd in the standings because of a crash resulting in a DNF in the pre-final. He managed to limit the damage damage with a storm through the field to take 3rd in the final. Nasri Naufal dropped from 2nd in the standings down to 5th. The top 6 in the championship are separated by just 11 points, leaving the championship wide open with 2 rounds to go.
In the Juniors the big loser was Freddie Ang as he dropped from the championship lead down to 6th place, as GP Racing Asia driver Syazwan took the win with an overtaking move on the final lap past Gilbert Ang. Gilbert Ang leaped back up to the top of the standings while Calvin Seibl took 2nd in the championship despite a fairly average weekend as he struggled to find pace, finishing 9th in the final. Close behind him in the championship are Timothy Yeo and Rahul Raj Mayer, just 5 and 6 points adrift respectively, while Gilbert Ang remains in the championship lead.
MicroMax was headed by KRS driver Brendan Seibl as he took a slightly more comfortable win in the final after some very close racing in the heats and pre-final with Luqman Hakim. Presley Martono wasn’t far from the two as he took 3rd in both the pre-final and final. This resulted in Brendan moving past Presley to take 2nd in the standings while Luqman remains at the front with an 8 point margin.
In the Masters category Kyle Blockley’s domination was put to an end by Terence Chap of GP Racing Asia as he managed to overtake Kyle on the start of the final and take the win with a 2 second margin at the finish, becoming the only driver other than Blockley to win a masters pre-final or final this year. The championship order has remained as it was before the event, with Terence closing in on Ray Kong’s 3rd place, and Rock Racing’s Kyle Blockley extending his lead over 2nd to 18 points.
Siti Shahkirah maintained her championship lead with dominant performances in the DD2 category, taking her first win this year, while Kelvin Choo finished in 2nd for his best result of the year. Ray Kong finished in 3rd followed by series newcomer Andrew Littledale.