DOUBLING UP IN AL AIN

First off, we have to quickly fast forward to the celebration party held on Saturday night, where it was announce the venue for the 2012 Rotax Grand Finals edition. In 2012, the Rotax MAX Challenge Grand Finals is going to take place at the Kartodromo Algarve in Portimao, Portugal, from November 27th until December 1st.

Now we can resume the racing. After two very busy days of practice and qualifying heats, Saturday was the day of prefinals and finals.
In Junior, Sasahara stayed out of trouble in the prefinal finishing 3rd behind Mawson from Australia and his Japanese teammate Makino. The final instead saw Ukyo storm through the field building up a 2”5 lead over Mawson, with Britain’s James Singleton 3rd as Makino was forced to retire early on.
In Senior, Ben Cooper left nothing behind. He dominated the prefinal over Sera and Babington, with Brand finishing 4th, just ahead of Sasaki. In the final Cooper repeated himself and took the win over Sera and Sasaki, with the two Britons of the race.
DD2 saw a controversial end, with Finn driver Huttunen 3rd at the finish line in the final being inflicted 10” penalty for having pushed Canadian Nicolas Latifi out in the early stages. The win went to another Canadian, Pier-Luc Ouellette, already class champion in 2007 again in Al Ain, who crushed the competition for the entire weekend. Completing the podium were Jason Pringle from Australia and Georg Vann from Estonia.
In DD2 Masters, Cristiano Morgado was surely above everyone else on the weekend, and inflicted 1”4 in the prefinal and 4”8 in the final to experienced Belgian driver Danny Brand, best of the rest. Completing the podium, France’s Guillaume Berteaux 9” down the leader.