KRS had a successful weekend at the opening round of the Rotax Max Challenge series (Asia & Malaysia) held at the Sepang International Karting Circuit, which is now run anti-clockwise.
KRS had a large presence in the Senior category with drivers Mohamad Afiq Ikhwan, Mikko Nassi, Shirley Wong, and Red White Racing sponsored Indonesian driver Silvano Christian. Ross Green will join the team at the next Asia Challenge round in Surabaya, after not being able to make round 1.
KRS drivers Calvin Seibl and Eita Shimizu featured in the 26-driver strong Junior field, while in the MicroMax category KRS welcomes Brendan Seibl to the team.
Last year's champion Mikko Nassi took part in the event on a Storm Kart, which is made by Intrepid, and is available at only RM8,500, compared to the usual price of over RM14,000 for most other race karts. All the other KRS drivers took part in their Intrepid karts.
Senior
For the Seniors qualifying was a good start as Afiq grabbed 3rd behind Muhammad Nabil and Sena Fujita. Mikko took 5th place after only 5 laps of practice in his new kart. Silvano took 7th place in his first Senior event, while Shirley qualified in 18th.
The heats were a 2-3 for KRS drivers Afiq and Mikko as they improved their pace in an effort to close in on the leader. Silvano had crash in heat 1 but salvaged something from heat 2 with 13th. Shirley took a 14th and 18th moving her starting position for the pre-final up the field a bit from her qualifying position.
The KRS mechanics worked hard to get Mikko's new Storm kart dialed in and the result was a hard fought 2nd place in both the pre-final and final. Nabil took fairly comfortable wins in both, with 3rd place going to Andrew Tang.
Despite leading the opening laps of the pre-final and then looking like a good top-3 finish Afiq's race came to an early end as he suffered an incredibly disappointing tyre puncture. This put him to the back of the field for the final. He recovered for a 10th place finish in the final, and is looking to salvage a better result at the next round.
Silvano Christian struggled to gain places and enough pace to move up the field back to his qualifying position, but grabbed important points as he finished the pre-final in 13th and the final in 15th. Shirley
Junior
Calvin Seibl started off the weekend with a great 2nd place in qualifying on his Intrepid. Eita Shimizu was disappointed with a 15th.
In heat 1 Calvin blamed himself for a mistake which dropped him to 14th, and he then finished 7th in heat 2. Meanwhile Eita made steady progress finishing the heats in 10th and 11th.
Calvin and his mechanic regained their lost pace and after a 7th in the pre-final Calvin made the season opener successful with a 4th in the final. Eita Shimizu also finished the weekend on a high finishing 13th in pre-final before moving all the way to 8th in the final and showing enough pace for more to come in future rounds. Rahul Raj Mayer grabbed the win with Gilbert And in 2nd, and Freddia Ang in 3rd.
MicroMax
Brendan Seibl had an unfortunate qualifying session as the kart setup was not ideal resulting in a 11th place out of 23 karts. He quickly regained his composure and delivered outstanding drivers to take 4th and 6th places in the heats.
In the pre-final Brendan took 5th, and then went two better for a 3rd place finish in the final. First place went to Gezha Sudirman followed by Muhammad Luqman Hakim.
The weekend was a great start to KRS Racing Team's season with great performances by all drivers and mechanics resulting in 3 trophies from the three categories in which KRS competed in. The next event will be on the 10th and 11th of April in Surabaya, Indonesia.
For full results of the event please go to MyLaps.com
Final Results KRS:
Senior:
Mikko Nassi - 2nd
Mohamad Afiq Ikhwan - 10th
Silvano Christian - 15th
Shirley Wong - 17th
Junior:
Calvin Seibl - 4th
Eita Shimizu - 8th
MicroMax
Brendan Seibl - 3rd
Congratulations also to all non-KRS drivers using Intrepid Chassis, most notably Gezha Sudirman taking the win in MicroMax, and Freddy Lawan taking 2nd in DD2.
