Yash, Ruhaan shine in National Karting opener

Yash Aradhya and Ruhaan Alva stole the show in the opening round of the FMSCI National Rotax Max Karting Championship here at the Chicane Circuit, comfortably winning all their races over the weekend.
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 on Friday and set the pace by winning the two heats on Saturday as well. They rounded up their shows on Sunday 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 5-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 Junior Max for 13 to 16-year-olds, Chirag Ghorpade (BPC) was on Yash's tail all the way but could not muster the pace to beat him. 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 (BPC) in the final.
In Micro Max for 8 to 12-year-olds, Arjun Rajiv and Satvik Raju, both from Bengaluru and Team Peregrine Racing, took the second and third place in the final.
Results (Only finals): Senior Max: 1. Aaroh Ravindra (Rayo Racing); 2. Nirmal Umashankar (MecoRacing); 3. Manav Sharma (BPC)
Junior Max: 1. Yash Aradhya (Meco); 2. Chirag Ghorpade (BPC); 3. Muhammad Ibrahim (BPC)
Micro Max: 1. Ruhaan Alva (Birel Art); 2. Arjun Rajiv (Peregrine); 3. Saathvik Raju (Peregrine).