Bengaluru, May 25: Mumbai’s Krish Gupta (Leapfrog Racing) notched a brilliant double, winning the Sprint and Feature races in the Senior Max class to move to the top of the leaderboard on conclusion of the second round of the Meco Meritus Cup karting championship at the Meco Kartopia here, on Sunday.
Aided by two podium finishes, including a win, Hyderabad’s Shiv Tummala (Peregrine Racing) and MSPORT’s Ayansh Patil from Kolhapur, grabbed the top spots in the Mini Max and Micro Max classes, respectively, on a day that witnessed hot action up and down the grids.
After two rounds, Krish Gupta leads Chennai’s Shivaan Karthik (MSPORT) by nine points in the Senior category while Shiv Tummala has a one-point advantage over Bengaluru’s Jishnu Seralathan (Peregrine Racing) and Ayansh Patil is ahead of Rayo Racing’s Aarav Sureka from Mumbai by two points.
Meanwhile, in the premier OKJ Junior class, that was introduced by Meco Motorsports in 2023, and run concurrently with the Meritus Cup, Chennai’s Rivaan Dev Preetham (MSPORT) yet again dominated the point-scoring sessions, the Super Heat and Final Race, winning both quite comfortably, to repeat his Round-1 performance earlier this month at the same venue.
Due to some on-track incidents, both Super Heat and Final sessions were cut short by one lap, but Rivaan kept his focus to score handsome wins.
The OKJ Junior class provides the Indian junior drivers an opportunity to experience the FIA OK-J engine which is a replica of the FIA Karting Academy Trophy that runs with the FIA homologated OK-J engines and the FIA homologated OTK Chassis.
The final round of the Meritus Cup and the IKAT competitions will be held on June 6-7 at CoASTT circuit, Coimbatore.
The results:
Meco Meritus Cup:
Senior Max (Sprint Race-1, 14 laps): 1. Krish Gupta (Mumbai, Leapfrog Racing) (12mins, 59.423secs); 2. Akshat Misra (Bengaluru, Peregrine Racing) (13:01.729); 3. Shivaan Karthik (Chennai, MSPORT) (13:12.455). Sprint Race-2 (15 laps): 1. Krish Gupta (13:55.432); 2. Shivaan Karthik (14:04.415); 3. Ehsan Sayeed (Bengaluru, MSPORT) (14:05.485).
Mini Max (Sprint Race-1, 9 laps): 1. Shiv Tummala (Hyderabad, Peregrine Racing) (08:46.334); 2. Micah Hayden Andrews (Tirunelveli, Peregrine Racing) (08:49.375); 3. Jishnu Seralathan (Bengaluru, Peregrine Racing) (08:51.096). Sprint Race-2 (12 laps): 1. Jishnu Seralathan (11:39.280); 2. Shiv Tummala (11:39.550); 3. Micah Hayden Andrews (11:42.165).
Micro Max (Sprint Race-1, 9 laps): 1. Zidaan Arshaan Anees (Bengaluru, Peregrine Racing) (09:14.030); 2. Ayansh Patil (Kolhapur, MSPORT) (09:14.068); 3. Shriyan Rao Thakkalapelly (Hyderabad, Peregrine Racing) (09:24.800). Sprint Race-2 (12 laps): 1. Aarav Sureka (Mumbai, Rayo Racing) (12:16.506); 2. Ayansh Patil (Kolhapur, MSPORT) (12:23.613); 3. Saakhir Joseph Nagpal (Gurugram, Peregrine Racing) (12:25.696).
Indian Karting Academy Trophy:
OK Junior (Super Heat, 11 laps): 1. Rivaan Dev Preetham (Chennai, MSPORT) (10:18.874); 2. Rishik Rohit Reddy (Bengaluru, MSPORT) (10:21.462); 3. Rehan Khan Rasheed (Chennai, Momentum Motorsports) (10:28.527). Final Race (14 laps): 1. Rivaan Dev Preetham (13:06.729); 2. Hridaan Sanadhya (Pune, Crest Motorsport) (13:14.481); 3. Rishik Rohit Reddy (13:15.430).
