Bafna, Maini and Francis winners in JK Tyre karting championship

Ameya Bafna

Kolhapur, Sep 7 (IANS)

Mumbai's Ameya Bafna, recovering from a relapse of malaria, drove a brilliant final race and emerged winner in the Senior Max category and jumped to the top of the championship points table after the third round of the JK Tyre-FMSCI National Rotax Max Karting Championship on Sunday.

Beginning third on the grid, Rayo Racing's Bafna went into the lead and never relinquished the top spot throughout the 20-lap race when pole-sitter Chittesh Mandody of Mohite's Racing packed up with a mechanical problem.

Bafna was followed home by teammate Nayan Chatterjee and Meco Racing's Vishnu Prasad. The local crowd had a further let down as Dhruv Mohite, who drove an aggressive pre-final race to finish second after starting in 11th place, could not repeat his form in the final and had to settle for fourth place.

After three rounds, Bafna is leading the points tally with 109, followed by Dhruv Mohite (100) and Vishnu Prasad (99).

The Junior Max Category saw Kush Maini of Dark Don Racing maintain his form to comfortably win the race ahead of BPC Racing's Ricky R Donison and Aaroh Ravindra.

Maini also extended his lead at the top of the championship points table as he has 115 points followed by Ravindra (106) and Akash Gowda (102).

Earlier, 12-year-old Meco Racing's Paul Francis of Bangalore overtook leader Yash Aradhya on the last corner of the last lap to win the Micro Max race and move to the top of championship points table.

Aradahya, who had won both the heats and the pre-final took the early lead in the final and seemed to be cruising to victory before Francis began closing the gap with three laps to go. Locked bumper to bumper in the final lap, Francis squeezed through the gap in the final corner and then raced to victory.

Also driving a brilliant final race was Shahan Ali Mohsin of Agra, who was unlucky to be served a technical disqualification in the pre-final and had to begin 11th on the grid. From there, Mohsin overtook the rest of the field to finish a creditable third. However, the disqualification cost Shahan the lead at the top of the table.

Francis with 113 points, is one ahead of teammate Yash Aradhya, while Shahan is in third place with 98.

The results:

Senior Max (20 laps): Ameya Bafna (Rayo Racing) 1, Nayan Chatterjee (Rayo) 2, Vishnu Prasad (Meco Racing) 3.

Junior Max (18 laps): Kush Maini (Dark Don Racing) 1, Ricky R Donison (BPC) 2, Aaroh Ravindra (Rayo) 3.

Micro Max (12 laps): Paul Francis (Meco Racing) 1, Yash Aradhya (Meco) 2, Shahan Ali Mohsin (Meco) 3.