It was an explosive front row for the Senior MAX Final of the Rotax Max Challenge in Bahrain with Tereza Babickova (CZE) on pole alongside Callum Bradshaw (GBR). The rest of the grid was equally promising with Paul Fourquemin (FRA) and Clayton Ravenscroft (GBR), followed by Mark Kimber (GBR) and Andrej Petrovic (SVK).
Bradshaw pushed Babickova on the inside at the start and Ravenscroft took advantage of the incident to take the lead. Bradshaw took over the lead on the second lap, while Babickova followed him and attacked him on the next lap. A superb duel started, Petrovic was 3rd and Fourquemin came back to 4th in front of Kimber. Thomas Ricci (FRA) had crashed at the back of the grid, Enzo Caldaras (FRA) was 22nd (+ 8 pl). Babickova was doing better than holding the pace against Bradshaw. Fourquemin lost ground, 11th on lap 7. Petrovic dropped back, Kai Hunter (GBR) moved up to 3rd position, more than 4” behind the leading duo. As the halfway mark approached, Babickova increased her lead to more than 8 tenths. Fourquemin came back to 6th behind Kimber and Sean Butcher (GBR) with Lachlan Robinson (ARE) on his heels.
Babickova was setting the fastest laps and distancing Bradshaw more and more. On the 15th lap, she had a lead of more than 2″ and was on average 2 tenths faster than Bradshaw. Kimber was 3rd ahead of Hunter and Butcher. Things were not going well for Fourquemin, who fell back to 13th. The last laps confirmed the hierarchy without any big clashes. Babickova led until the end and won more than 3 seconds ahead of the FIA Karting World Champion Callum Bradshaw. But a double penalty relegated her to 4th place while Bradshaw was penalised 10″ for his manoeuvre at the start and found himself in 7th place. Kimber was declared the winner ahead of Hunter and Butcher. 9th at the chequered flag, Fourquemin was classified 16th because of his front fairing and Caldaras continued his ascent to 11th position (+19 pl) while Ricci finished 30th.
Info Kartcom / Photo © KSP