Rotax MAX Surprises In Benoni

Form shifts in penultimate Gauteng Max races

Rotax Max Karting hosted its penultimate Gauteng Kart Championships races at the Formula K Raceway in Benoni on Saturday, where there were a few surprises and new winners, some of which already points to a new order for the 2023 season.

First and foremost, the Gauteng Kart Championships and all those involved would like to wish the Formula K marshal who got caught up in a nasty accident during the DD2 race a speedy recovery.

DD2
Jamie Smith enjoyed a great day out as he took a couple of heat wins to conquer premier class DD2 after race 1 winner Wayland Wyman failed to make the second heat start. Smith also shared the second places out with second and third for the day, Eugene Brittz and Nicolas Spanoyannis, from Kian Grottis, Marcel De Beer and Preshlen Reddy.

DD2 Masters + Vets
By nature of the scoring, seventh placed Llewellyn Sutherland took the DD2 Masters from Reddy. Philippe Chapat did his regular domination of DD2 Vets from Ryan Schaper in each race. Frikkie Cornelius, Rob Nicholson, Derek Joseph, and Grant Veenstra shared the rest of those top six places.

Senior & Junior Max
KZN visitor Troy Snyman returned to his old Senior Max tricks as he took all three race wins. Karabo Malemela and Ethan Bostander shared out the seconds from Olerato Sekudu, Moosa Kajee and Kian Spies. New Junior Max winners Erich Heystek and Sa’aad Variawa shared the under-15 wins from Jayden Goosen, Jean-Hendrik de Villiers, Brandon Van Der Walt and Ndzalo Khoza. At the same time, Georgia Lenaerts made her Junior Max debut but unfortunately suffered an exclusion in race 1 for being underweight.

Mini & Micro Max
In Primary school action, Reagile Spice Mailula was another driver back to winning ways in under-13 Mini Max. He beat Kegan Martin and surprise third heat winner Amani Kin. Durelle Goodman, Aadam Kajee and Torben Roos followed. Emma Dowling continued her great under-11 Mini Max progress with a trio of wins over a great dice between Logan Billau, Taylin Patel, Rafael De Sousa, brother Brodi Dowling and Cristian Verheul after Rafael da Silva lost a chain in race 2, all but ending his hopes for a good result on the day.

Bambino
Last but not least, Noah Cronje took a second place and a couple of wins to take the baby Bambino honours for the day from, Ronaldo Koen, Adriaan Steyn, race 1 winner Diego Antunes, Luhan De Wet and Benjamin Gibhard.

Coming Up
Next up, the Rotax Western Province Kart Championships wrap up at Killarney on Saturday 5 November while their Gauteng counterparts will tackle the Zwartkops Raceway in Pretoria for a round of Club Racing. All this a week before the South African team sets off for the ‘Olympics of Karting’, The Rotax Max Grand Finals in Portugal.