13 December 2013
On Friday the 13th and Saturday 14th December 2013, Al Ain Raceway hosted their first Double-Header of the season for Round 5 and 6 of the UAE Rotax MAX Challenge where we witnessed some very close-nit driving throughout the classes with plenty of overtaking maneuvers, lots of high end competition, and the series first ever engine buyout, so it is safe to say that the weekend was definitely not short of action!
Also in attendance during the 2 days was ex Formula One driver Danilo Rossi, European Champion and 2 times British Champion Sean Babington, and last but not least, 3 times World Champion Ben Cooper. All of these experienced racing drivers came over to share their wisdom and help support drivers during the event which now leads us onto Friday's antics!
Round 5 kicked off at 8am sharp with Signing On following by Scrutineering and then the mandatory Briefing. Once all of the formalities were finished and practice had been completed, the racing begun!
In the Micro MAX class, all 10 drivers are constantly improving each round and really showing fantastic potential.
The 8 to 10 year olds completed a Practice, Qualifying, Pre-final and Final which was all very exciting to watch! Theo Kekati managed to get the quickest time in Practice and Qualifying but when the Heat came along, Sem Knopjes, Jamie Day and Ziggy Kermanshahchi found some great pace making the 6 lap heat very exciting to watch with only a second between the top 3 drivers. In the Pre-final, it was even more touch-and-go when Shihab Al Habsi got into the mix of things making the battle for the top 3 positions even more interesting, but Sem Knopjes was on a mission and managed a best lap of 1:14.492 seconds which helped him get 1st place and pole position for the final. Right behind Sem was Ziggy, whilst in the thick of the action was Shihab, Theo and Jamie who were all constantly changing positions right up until the end. Ziyad Houston was mid pack along with Georgie Zouein whilst young Ethan Walsh followed and Hamish Foster unfortunately did not finish. For the Final, all drivers managed to put on quite a show however their formation laps were not great which resulted in having to do an extra rolling-up lap. 10 laps of International Circuit proved to be quiet challenging for some but none of them gave up fighting which showed in the end as there was only 58.035 seconds between last place and first place finisher.
Whilst Ziggy and Jamie were battling for 5th and 6th place, Ziyad and Georgie were having a very close fight for 6th and 7th place, but taking a well deserved 1st was Sem Knopjes who managed a best lap of 1:14.115 seconds and Shihab Al Habsi finished 2nd. Jamie and Ziggy were close behind Theo during the 10 lap final but Theo managed to finish 3rd due to Ziggy and Jamie getting tangled up with one another half way through the race but both drivers managed to continue finishing with Ziggy 4th and Jamie 5th.Ziyad being consistent all throughout the day had managing to keep himself out of trouble finished 6th with Georgie Zouein 7th, Thomas Voss 8th, Hamish Foster 9th and Ethan Walsh 10th.
In the Mini MAX class, it was very hard to see who was going to be awarded a first place finish as the competition level was extremely high with plenty of on-track-action and some very professional overtaking maneuvers. Daniel Booth who only joined the UAE RMC this season was a man on a mission during the Friday's race meeting managing to take 1st place in the Heat, Pre-Final and also Final. Philip Ndegwa who had his first ever race meeting here in the UAE on the Friday showed huge potential and is definitely a driver to watch out for. All day he was getting heavily involved and during the first Heat, Philip managed to get 2nd place however, during the day, he seemed to be loosing pace and also got caught in a collision but still managed to finish a very respectable 4th place in the Final. Eliot Jones started Mini MAX this season and is improving each meeting by gaining more and more confidence on and off the track. During the Heat and Pre-Final, Eliot achieved 3rd place in both races but ended up finishing 5th in the final.
Yusuf Moola joined the series last season in Micro MAX and this weekend was his final race meeting here in the UAE due to relocating to America in the next few weeks but Yusuf defiantly did not leave us without a show. In the heat, Yusuf and Amir Hassan were both making some extremely daring passes which resulted in a slight collision causing Amir to loose some positions and Yusuf having to take the dreaded walk up the Stewards office to receive a 10 second Penalty. After this, Yusuf kept his head down and managed to get 2nd in the Pre-Final and 3rd in the Final. Meanwhile, as bad luck would have it, Amir also managed to get a 10 second penalty for jumping the Start and the Pre-Final went no better as he Did Not Finish. In the Final, Amir was coming through the field but collided with another driver which cost him another penalty. Tehmur Chohan, one of our top runners in Mini MAX didn’t seem to have much luck in the Heat after receiving a 10 second penalty due to an incident on the track however, his experience and driving ability shone through as he managed to achieve 2nd position in the Final. Constantly showing huge signs of improvement was driver number 52 Yahya Houston but unfortunately, during Fridays racing, Yahya Did Not Finish the Heat or Pre-Final which was a shame as his times were up there with 1st and 2nd place. Even though for the final he didn’t walk away with a trophy, he still managed to finish a very respectable 6th place.
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The Junior MAX class was as exciting as ever with 11 drivers on the grid who were all extremely experienced which led to some very interested racing throughout the day. In Qualifying, 10 out of the 11 drivers were all within 1 second of each other which shows how close the field was! Taymour Kermanshahchi who is the older brother of Ziggy in Micro MAX qualified 1st with Pasqual Pook just behind. These two competitive drivers were constantly battling throughout the day but just coming out on top was Pasqual who finished 1st in the final whilst Taymour finished 2nd. Also up there with the top runners was Fraser Rose who is coming on leaps and bounds this season finishing 3rd and Giulio Peroni right behind him with 4th. Driver number 126 Ricky Donison and 138 Arya Gandhi were 2 of the many drivers we had joining us from over seas and it looked like the competition was on for both of them during the days events, and these two drivers seemed to be having a race of there own as positions kept changing all throughout the day. Arya came out ontop in the Heat however, Ricky managed to creep back up in the Pre-Final, but just as it was getting interesting for the final, Arya got disqualified for not having his Helmet done up during the Final which had been pointed out by the Marshals on track leaving Ricky to take 5th place.
16 MAX drivers entered for Round 5 and leading the heat was the Oman driver Abdullah Al Rawahi who had fantastic pace all throughout the day which allowed him to not only finish 1st in the Heat and Pre-Final, but 1st also in the Final. Patrick Hannah, Alexandre Silanine and Kevin Day were running close to each other all day along with the only girl we have in the MAX category Stefanie Levesconte whilst Tom Bale, driver 232 who drives also a lot in Europe managed to get called up to the Stewards twice during the days procedures as his firm and egger driving caused him to receive two 10 second penalties. That being said, Tom still managed to come back fighting and finished just behind 4th place finisher Ameer Hassan. Sheikh Waleed Al Qassemi unfortunately got caught up in a racing incident during Round 4 and had broke his hand but the keen driver did not let that stop him from driving in round 5 as he still managed to compete but unfortunately did not managed to start during the Final.
The two gear-speed DD2 class had the largest grids of the day with 19 drivers. Piers Pakenham-Walsh did not seem to have too much luck during the start of the season but I think his luck definitely changed during Round 5 as he took 2nd in the Heat and 1st in the Pre-Final and Final. This however did not come too easy for him as Sanad Al Rawahi, brother of Abdullah Al Rawahi was right up his rear bumper along with English driver, Steven Lyall who were both only a second away from Piers during the Pre-final and Final so as you can imagine, it was a very good race to watch but Sanad didn't manage to finish the race in the Final due to a mechanical problem. Also in on the action was last seasons DD2 Champion Oliver George who struggled for pace a little throughout the day but his driving abilities enabled him to finish 2nd with Steve 3rd. Edward Stanley had a tuff day as he got caught up in an incident with Hamad Al Wahaibi during the Heat which resulted in Edward having extremely painful bruised and battered ribs. Even with this, Edward didn't give up and still managed to finish the Pre-Final and Final. Andrew Fuller and Paul Morris also had a very close race on there hands with each other during the day but Andrew managed to come out on top finishing 9th in the final with Paul 10th.
After a long day of racing, everyone got them selves dusted off and ready for Round 6.
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