Ameya Bafna dominates Round 3 of 9th JK Tyre Rotax Max National Karting Championship in Coimbatore

- Pradymn Danigod consolidates leadership position in Micro Max class -
- Krisharaj Mahadik in contention for the top spot in the Junior Max class -
- Fight for the top position still on in the Senior Max category -

Coimbatore, August 5, 2012: Round 3 of the 9th JK Tyre Rotax Max National Karting Championship held at Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore came to a thrilling end today. With two more rounds left for the Championship, the fight for dominance is far from over as was evident from the races witnessed this weekend.

In the Micro Max category Pradyumn Danigod (Team Mohites Racing) put in a stellar performance in the Pre-final and Final to claim the top spot in both the races. Keeping Pradyumn company at the top was the twelve year old girl from Baroda Mira Erda (Team Maini Racing). Mira had a good Pre-final race and was leading till an incident involving Phaneesh (Team Mohites Racing) caused her to spin out and by the time she recovered both Pradyumn and Phaneesh had taken a good lead over her. Mira displayed her aggressive driving style in the Final by clocking the best lap time at 45.226 seconds. Recovering well from his injury caused during Round 1 of the Championship, Phaneesh did very well to finish with a twin podium in Round 3.

Talking about the race, Pradyumn said, "It has been a very good race for me, after this weekend I have extended my lead. The hard work put in by the team is showing result and I hope the form continues till the end of the season".

The Junior Max category was the most exciting class on Day 2 of the Round 3. In the Pre-final Kush Maini (Team Maini Racing) was in the lead all through the race until the last turn on the last lap when the engine on his kart ceased which caused him precious championship points. The biggest beneficiary from this was Krishnaraj Mahadik (Team Mohites Racing) who finished first followed by Dhruv Mohite (Team Mohite Racing) and Arya Gandhi (Team Rayo Racing). While Krishnaraj won the Final race comfortably with a margin of 3.497 seconds, the performance of the race came from Kush who started the race from eleventh position. A consistent performance saw him overtake nine racers in a 22 lap race finishing a commendable second followed by Arya. Pushing the kart to its maximum limit, Kush averaged a whopping 99.320 kmph in the Final; he also returned the best lap time of 39.342 seconds.

While Kush started Round 3 on top of the points table, the performance by Krishnaraj is likely to put him on top. With this, the championship is very nicely poised with a close contest between the top two contenders.

Speaking at the post-race conference, Krishnaraj said, "I had slow start to the weekend, the times were not so great in the Qualifying, Heat 1 and Heat 2. But today the kart was doing very well which resulted in a twin podium for me. While Kush was leading the championship at the beginning of this round, today's performance will certainly put me in a good position as far as the championship is concerned".

In the Senior Max category Ameya Bafna dominated proceedings from the Qualifying right to the Final race. While in the Pre-final he beat the veteran Vishnu Prasad (Team Meco Racing) by 2.249 seconds, in the Final he beat the defending champion Chittesh Mandody (Team Mohites Racing) by 2.302 seconds. Chittesh who made a stunning entry into the championship by dominating Round 2 had a mixed weekend. A mechanical failure caused him to retire in the Pre-final resulting in him starting the Final at the back of the grid at twelfth position. In the Final, defending champion Chittesh displayed amazing race skills and seemed like a man on a mission when he started overtaking drivers at the rate of knots. Raj Ganatra (Team Rayo Racing) and was sitting pretty on the second spot till he started feeling the heat from Chittesh. Creeping closer to Raj with every passing lap, Chittesh finally got the second spot in the penultimate lap forcing Raj to feel content with a third spot.

Talking about his race weekend, Ameya said, "It has been a very good weekend for me and the team. I paced myself very well throughout the weekend and barring Heat 1 in which I lost out to Chittesh by a very small margin, I did well. With the championship still open I hope to continue the good form and perform as well in the remaining two rounds"

Team Mohites Racing with a double victory took home the 'Best Team' award in the Micro Max and Junior Max categories, while Team Rayo Racing took the award in the Senior Max class. For Round 4 of the Championship, the race returns to Lahiri Kart Center, Hyderabad on August 18 and 19, 2012.

Finals