Luca Kane leads the way for Bahrain in opening practices of Rotax grand finals

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Luca Kane Houghton highlighted an impressive day of action yesterday for Bahrain’s karters competing in the Rotax MAX Challenge Grand Finals 2021 at Bahrain International Karting Circuit in Sakhir.

The youngster finished in first place in the day’s third practice session for odd-numbered competitors in the Mini MAX class.

Yesterday’s first day of racing featured three sessions of non-qualifying practice in each of the event’s categories, with Luca Kane spearheading the hometown competitors flying the Kingdom’s flag, who were able to impress in their runs.

The BirelArt Bahrain driver had the best lap of 58.255 seconds to top his third and final practice for the day.

Earlier, he was fourth in the opening session with the fastest time of 58.940s, and then nearly topped the second with a best lap of 58.648s— just 0.019s off the pace.

Also in the Mini MAX’s first practice, Bahrain’s Shanthos Kumar was 28th (1:00.299) and Khaled Najar 32nd (1:01.378).

Shanthosh was then 23rd (59.542s) in session two with Khaled 36th (1:00.624s); and then the pair was 34th (59.734s) and 35th (59.760s), respectively, in practice three.

In the Mini MAX’s even-numbered practices, Charles Goddard was 28th (59.988s) and Gracie Rose Grantham 33rd (1:00.700) in session one.

Charles was 24th (59.494s) in the second practice and Gracie 26th (59.701s), and then Gracie ranked 25th (59.168s) in practice three with Charles finishing 35th (59.999s).

Meanwhile, in the Senior MAX category, Bahrain’s Lewis Smith finished third amongst 36 odd-numbered karters in their first practice session of the event.

He had the best lap time of 54.296s. Lewis was then ranked 17th (54.174s) in session two before rising to sixth (53.903s) in session three.

Also competing for Bahrain in the Senior MAX was Fahad Al Muqla, who ran in the same sessions as Lewis and was classified 34th (55.720s), 21st (54.349s) and 16th (54.000s).

In the practices for even-numbered Senior MAX karters, Fahad Alkhaled was 11th (54.552s), sixth (54.119s) and third (53.815s).

Meanwhile, in the DD2 Master's category, Bahrain’s Mohammed Mattar was in fine form, going fourth in both the first and second practices with the best laps of 53.972s and 53.754s.

Mattar was then the second-best karter from the 36 drivers in his class for session three, ending the day with a best lap of 53.370s.

In the Junior MAX class, Bahrain’s Tye Mejia was 23rd in the first practice for even-numbered entrants with the fastest lap of 55.480s.

Tye was then 35th (55.588s) and 23rd (55.079s) in the second and third practice sessions.

Bahrain’s Qasem Abdulqader, competing amongst the odd-numbered karters, was 31st in the first practice with the best lap of 56.034s, before going 35th (55.968s) and 33rd (55.889s) in the second and third practices.