Mumbai, May 4: Mumbai’s Kiaan Shah (Rayo Racing) produced his best result yet in international karting, with a second-place finish in Round 2 of the RMC Asia Trophy on Sunday in Pattaya, Thailand.
The 15-year-old delivered one of his best qualifying results, clocking 51.218 on the 1.2 km Bira circuit, just 0.118 seconds behind Thailand’s Pannu Stienmonkong, who was fastest.
Strong performance in heats
Kiaan started fourth in Heat 1 but lost a place at the start. He soon overtook Japanese racer Shun Sekiguchi and Eason Tseng of Chinese Taipei. Next, he got past Stienmonkong and finished second behind Thailand’s Toby Gale.
Disaster struck in Heat 2 when Kiaan’s engine shut off while running third. A quick-thinking Kiaan found the problem and fixed a wire, but still finished last.
Recovery in Super Heat
Kiaan started seventh in the Super Heat and drove a brilliant race to finish second. An accident caused a Full Course Yellow, allowing paramedics to attend to an injured racer. Rain and chaos ensued once the race resumed. Kiaan fell to sixth after a mistake but recovered to finish fourth.
Impressive final race finish
The result from all heats decided the starting grid for the final. Kiaan had a bad start from fifth and lost a place. He made an extremely daring move and moved to fourth on Lap 1.
A series of quick laps saw him catch and get past Tseng to move into third. Next, he overtook Krish Gupta to get behind the leader. Though he kept pace with the leader, Kiaan was unable to close the gap and eventually finished second, 3.8 seconds behind Gale. Stienmonkong was third. The same grid contested the Thailand Championship and therefore Kiaan won two trophies, one for the Asian Championship and one for the Thai.
Reactions from driver and coach
“I am very happy with how I drove this weekend. I had a bit of a pace deficit in Round 1, but now I am up there. The team did a fantastic job with the kart and I would like to thank everyone,” said Kiaan.
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Coach and mentor Rayomand Banajee added, “The grid was close at the top and Kiaan has had impressive pace all weekend. He has improved his qualifying pace on new tyres, and it’s good to see the progress he has made at this level.”
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