KHALED Alsaei was crowned Max category champion in the Bahrain Rotax Mojo Max Challenge (BRMMC) following the narrowest of victories in the season-ending race at Bahrain International Karting Circuit (BIKC) in Sakhir.
Alsaie won the championship finale by just 0.504 seconds ahead of Abdulla Al Thawadi and 4.078s in front of Hussain Hassan.
That earned him enough points to bag the title as he topped the overall classification by just two points.
In other classes, Talal Beshara was named champion of the BRMMC’s Junior Max category, Anthony Genocchio was victorious in the BRMMC’s Max Masters and Rashid Almuammari was crowned champion in the Bahrain Sodi Sprint Championship (SSWS).
Both BRMMC and SSWS make up the annual Bahrain Karting Sprint Championship (BKSC).
In BRMMC, Alsaie headed into the concluding round engaged in a heated battle for the title with Hassan and Mohammed Mattar.
Things were set up for a nail-biting finish as Hassan showed off his pace by winning the pre-final race ahead of Alsaei. But in the final, Alsaei did enough to clinch victory in 14 minutes 24.596 seconds, and eventually also won the crown. Hassan’s classification in third cost him some crucial points, while Mohammed Mattar was ranked fourth.
With his win, Alsaei improved to 195 points on the standings, with Hassan finishing a close second on 193 points.
In the Junior Max class, Beshara had twice the reason to celebrate by taking home both the race and the title.
Beshara crossed the finish in 14:39.659, a dominant 15.629s ahead of runner-up Alexander Bekkers. Anas Lecaillon claimed the last podium spot.
Beshara ended the season with 140 points, while Lecallion was second on 125 and Bekkers third on 117.
Genocchio clinched the Max Masters crown 50 points ahead of Mohamed Faqihi while Batelco Racing Drag965 were the BRMMC’s Entrant winners with 664 points overall.
Meanwhile, in SSWS, Almuammari won the season’s title but only after Buhindi raced to the chequered flag in a thrilling final race.
Buhindi outsprinted Almuammari by a mere 0.084 seconds as 17 karters took to the grid for the last SSWS race.
Yousif Khamiri secured the final podium step, 9.430s behind the victor.
Almuammari ended the season with 252 points. Buhindi followed with 233 and Ahmed Ebrahim was third on 153.
The BRMMC is BKSC’s category for Rotax kart owners while SSWS is an arrive-and-drive championship where competitors race against each other in identical Sodikarts.