Karting: International Junior Round and Kart Challenge weekend |24 August 2022

The young drivers

Two young overseas Seychellois drivers join the championship round

The Seychelles Karting association had two interesting and dramatic days of events last weekend, when on Saturday in their Junior round, two young Seychellois drivers from overseas on vacation took part as guest drivers in that championship round, while on Sunday, the first Kart Challenge competition was held.

Junior Round 8

Two young drivers, Shawn Ah-Thew from Botswana, and Kayden Bonne from England, were entered as guest drivers in the Junior Round 8 karting championship and they performed well against the local junior drivers.

Ah-Thew was unlucky not to have taken the win in the final after spinning in the penultimate lap when leading the race, but recovered to take third, with Bonne grabbing second, while local driver Darrel Gabriel got the win.

Enzo Lionnet must be disappointed that he did not win this final, as from pole position he led and even opened a big gap with the rest before making an uncharacteristic error when he spun round letting the rest by.

At this time Darrel was second, with Tamnay Raghwani third, Kayden fourth, Shawn fifth, Johan Cadeau sixth and Delroy Lionnet seventh.

With Enzo trying to recover, Darrel now led, but soon Shawn got past the drivers ahead and closed the gap on Darrel, and with three laps remaining got past to lead with Kayden passing Tamnay for third.

Then the inevitable happened when Shawn spun in the esses, letting Darrel to win with Kayden second and the unlucky Shawn third.

In a truly “international” event, the Seychelles Karting Association (SKA) was pleased to have these two youngsters, both 16-year-old, competing here locally, and even more so, proud that, in particular, Shawn got interested in karting when he was living here in Seychelles, but at the time he was too young to join.

Kayden on the other hand is presently training with a club in the UK, but with roots here.

The SKA would also like to commend its local Junior drivers for putting up a brilliant performance and getting a chance to evaluate their standards against overseas opposition.

Kart Challenge

On Sunday the senior and junior drivers took part in the first Kart Challenge competition, where competitors drawn in groups competed against each other over a set of five-lap heats using same karts and grid positions to determine their group’s winners, with the top four drivers competing in a similar format in a final.

The circuit was altered to allow for a lot more overtaking and challenging opportunities, which was aplenty during the day, but more important it remained a fun event.

The SKA also had an opportunity to gather some data on its drivers in order to be ready to pick a national selection for any upcoming international team events.

The top four drivers from the “A” final were, Marc Delcy (first), Liza Rene-Cosgrow (second), Christian Bastienne (third) and Carlos Quatre (fourth).

In the “B” final, Fabio William was ranked fifth, Denilson Melanie sixth, Roland Delcy seventh and, Rennick Bonnelame eighth.

In the juniors final, Johan Cadeau finished first, Enzo Lionnet second and Delroy Lionnet third.

Fabio William was accredited with the fastest lap time of the day of 47.097 seconds.

Contributed