Wade and Hannam excel at UAE Rotax Max Challenge 7th round

Al Ain Raceway hosted the seventh and penultimate round of the 2019-2020 UAE Rotax MAX Challenge (RMC) on Saturday, an action-packed day at the venue held under the auspices of Abu Dhabi Sports Council.

Although some drivers opted to miss the round for various reasons, the cream of the crop gathered for two days of Practice, Heats, Pre-Finals and Finals which provided close racing on the challenging and longest track layout at Al Ain Raceway.

In the Micro MAX class, Benjamin Wade continued with his fine vein of form and was unbeaten all day with Zain Elhommossany, Adam Awan and Shivali Sinha chasing. There was little to separate the compact field, with close racing throughout.

In the final, Elhommossany claimed 2nd place ahead of Awan while their battle allowed Wade to edge ahead and take the victory by 1.7 seconds.

Unbeatable Harry Hannam again delivered a masterclass of driving in the Mini MAX class where, after claiming pole, he won the three races with ease, including the Final where he crossed the finish line 7.6 seconds ahead of the rest.

Behind him, there was non-stop action with Sofia Necchi, Iko Segret, Adam Jones, Bertie Gibbons and Lewis England separated by less than half a second, and the rest of the field a further second adrift.

With Hannam leading in the distance, Necchi profited from a great start to claim 2nd place while England hustled Segret all the way to the line, the pair crossing the finish line almost side-by-side with Segret edging 3rd.

Kayne Cherian rocked the establishment by qualifying on Pole Position in the highly-competitive Junior MAX Class with Anshul Gandhi, Georgie Zouein, Kamal Agha, Zack Scoular and Alessio Di Scipio within a quarter of a second, setting the stage for a riveting day of racing for the juniors.

Second in the championship ahead of the seventh round, Agha made no mistakes this time around and proceeded to win all three races, including the Final but was made to work hard by Zouein who missed out by a mere 0.183 of second and had to settle for the runner-up spot. The title will be decided at the final round and it could go either way.

In their slipstream, Cherian and Gandhi fought their own battle to finish third and fourth respectively. Di Scipio was fifth and Scoular sixth.

The story of the Senior MAX this year has been all about Khaled Saab with Theo Kekati leading the pursuit and the storyline remained pretty much the same.

In the Heat race, Saab was disqualified for an ill-advised move to snatch the win which promoted Kekati to first, followed by Jacopo Mazza and Iya Seys.

Kekati again did the business in the Pre-Final, with Saab snapping at his heels and then going one better by simply running away with the final, beating Kekati by 1.2 seconds, followed by Mazza in third and Seys fourth.

Kyle Kumaran was again the complete package as he dominated the DD2 class, nearly half a second faster than his closest rival in qualifying, and then won all the races including the Final by 3.9 seconds as he cemented himself as the class of this year’s field.

Behind them, it was very close with little between Constantin Reisch, Lukas Randerath, Marcus Marker and Nadim Khneisser, who fought it out for best-of-the-rest behind Kumaran.

In the Final, Reisch powered through the field after a bumper-penalty in the Pre-Final to finish second. He broke away from the third-place battle between Marker and Randerath, the latter doing enough to sneak onto the final step of the podium with a move on the last lap.

Veterans Tony Hogg and Dario Rubio slugged it out for top honours in DD2 Masters, with Rubio doing the business in the Final, beating championship leader Hogg by six-tenths of a second followed by Maurizio Colombo in third, Greg Watt fourth and Daniel Jones fifth.

Championship Director Guy Sheffield summed up: “We are now at the sharp end of our championship calendar with only the Final of our eight-round series remaining. Therefore it is positive to report that the standard of driving and racing was of the highest order this weekend.