Champions crowned for 2019/2020 national racing season

The champions of the 2019/2020 national racing season have been crowned in both circuit racing and karting.

They include Ahmed bin Khanen for the BIC 2,000cc Challenge; Gracie Rose Grantham, Shantosh Kumar, Lewis Smith, Fahad Al Khaled and Osama Azzouka in the Bahrain Rotax Mojo Max (BRMMC) Challenge; and Ali Baslar in the Bahrain Sprint Sodi World Series (BSSWS).

Praga Middle East and BirelArt Bahrain were also multiple winners as entrants in the BRMMC; while GO Bahrain were double champions in the Bahrain Karting Endurance Championship (BKEC), with Bapco Motorsport, Racing BH Junior and Bapco Engineering winning a title apiece.

The newest title winners were confirmed following the decision of the Bahrain Motor Federation (BMF) to officially conclude the 2019/2020 season, with remaining events of the season cancelled. As per regulations, the BMF concluded that current championship standings were considered as the final championship classification.

Bin Khanen was able to claim his first-ever title in the BIC 2,000cc Challenge. The Saudi driver concluded the highly competitive season eight points ahead of his closest rival, Bahraini Raed Raffii; while 14 points clear on the championship standings was former multiple champion, Bahrain’s Shaikh Salman bin Isa bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, in third place overall. All three were competing in the series’ Pro class.

Bin Khanen accumulated 206 points in the six of seven rounds held in the season, in which he took on the field driving a Honda Civic EG4. He was able to clinch one victory from 12 races and was on the podium five other times.

Wiebke Buelow emerged as the top driver in the Novice class with 68 points, just three ahead of Husain Al Ghanem and seven in front of Andreas Buelow.

Shaikh Salman added to his top three overall finish by taking another pair of accolades. He also claimed the most pole positions with four, and registered the Season’s Fastest Lap of 1min 16.450secs around Bahrain International Circuit’s 2.55-kilometre Inner Track.

Meanwhile, in karting, the BRMMC crowned Gracie Rose as champion of the Micro Max category after finishing the season with 158 points. Khaled Alnajjar (129 pts) and Rasihd Alkhalifa (109 pts) followed in second and third, respectively.

Shantosh won the Mini Max crown with 152 points, finishing ahead of Luca Kane Houghton (127 pts) and Tye Mejia (105 pts); while Lewis triumphed in the Junior Max class with 164 points, as Abdullah Aldossery (143 pts) and Fahad Almuqla (116 pts) followed.

Al Khaled was the Senior Max category champion with 146 points. Mohammed Mattar (125 pts) was the runner-up and Omar Aldereyaan (106 pts) came third. Azzouka clinched the title amongst the Max Masters karters with 165 points, with Fred Clark (152 pts) and Essa Aldossery (51 pts) joining him in the top three.

Praga came away with a championship treble after finishing first in the Micro Max, Junior Max and Max Masters classes; while BirelArt were champions among the Mini Max and Senior Max entrants.

In the BSSWS, Baslar capped a dominant season with 150 points—50 ahead of championship runner-up Abdulla Buhindi. Abubaker Ali was a distant third with 62 points among the series’ 18 competitors.

Both the BRMMC and BSSWS were part of the Bahrain Karting Sprint Championship, which had its final two rounds of the season abandoned.

For the BKEC, which was able to complete its campaign with four races featuring three, six, 12 and 24 hours, GO Bahrain won the overall title with 155 points. Racing BH Junior followed with 144 points and Bapco Engineering with 129 points.

GO Bahrain secured their endurance double by also taking the Pro class title with 170 points, well ahead of Bapco Sadeem (135 pts) and Bahrain Airport Services (BAS) A (133 pts).

Bapco Motorsport clinched the Corporate class crown with 180 points, as BAS sister squads BAS C (137 pts) and all-ladies team BAS F (120 pts) were second and third.

Finally, Racing BH Junior and Bapco Engineering added to their top-three placings overall by sharing the title in the Nations class, scoring 167 points apiece. Manama Drift (85 pts) were a far second and BAS B (45 pts) third.

The BMF has also announced that new national racing season is scheduled to begin on October 2.