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 |