Saturday 16 / November / 2024
Muscat: Oman’s young karting star Shihab bin Ahmed Al Habsi did the country proud by winning the third round of the 2016-27 UAE X30 Challenge at RAK Track in Ras Al Khaimah.
Shihab improved steadily from the qualifying practice and right up to the final race to ultimately clinch the top honours.
In the qualifying practice session, the Omani boy recorded his best time of 40.801 in his tenth and final lap. That helped him to emerge the third fastest behind Jamie Day (40.479) and Ali Akabi (40.771).
In the Heats too, Shihab finished in the third place covering 12 laps in a time of 8:14.286 while Jamie continued to stay top in 8:13.075 followed by Ali in 8:13.979.
In the 15-lap pre-final, Jamie failed to finish the race and Shihab moved to second in a total time of 10:24.088 (best lap time of 40.820). Ali finished on top with 10:23.908 (best lap time of 40.940). Manaf Hijjawi was third in 10:24.766 (best lap time of 41.116).
In the final race, Shihab was in his elements as he went to win the day’s honours covering the 17 laps in a time of 11:43.479 with his best time of 40.904 coming in the penultimate lap.
Jamie, meanwhile, finished in the fifth place while Ali did not complete the race.
The second place went to Constantin Reisch (11:44.590) and Manaf (11:48.084) settled for third place.
Shihab Al Habsi has been doing well at the international level for the past couple of years.
The 12-year-old, who won the first MENA KF-Junior Championship in Bahrain in 2015, has excelled at several international competitions this year including WSK Super Master Series in Italy, CIK-FIA Karting Academy Trophy in Sweden and European CIK-FIA Championship finale in Belgium.
