Mumbai: Kian Shah gives career-best international performance by finishing second at RMC Asia Trophy in Thailand

The 15-year-old Kian produced one of his best qualifying results, clocking 51.218 seconds at the 1.2 km Beira Circuit, just 0.118 seconds behind Thailand’s Pannu Steenmonkong, who was the fastest.

Great performance in heats

Qian started fourth in Heat 1, but fell one place behind early on. He soon overtook Japanese racer Shun Sekiguchi and Chinese Taipei’s Ison Tseng. Subsequently, he overtook Steinmongkong and finished second behind Thailand’s Toby Gale.

There was trouble in Heat 2 when Kiyan’s engine stopped while running in third place. Quick-thinking Kian discovered the problem and fixed a wire, but still finished in last place.

recovery in super heat

Kiyan started seventh in the super heat and raced brilliantly to finish second. An accident caused the full course to turn yellow, requiring paramedics to attend to an injured racer. When the race restarted, there was rain and chaos. Kiyan dropped to sixth after a mistake, but he bounced back to finish fourth.

Great final race finish

The results of all heats determined the starting grid for the final. Qian had a poor start from fifth place and dropped one place. He made a very courageous move and came up to fourth place on lap 1.

A series of fast laps saw him overtake Tseng to take third place. After this, he followed the leader leaving Krish Gupta behind. Although he remained level with the leader, Qian was unable to close the gap and ultimately finished second, 3.8 seconds behind Gayle. Steenmönkong finished third. The Thailand Championships took place on the same grid and so Kian won two trophies, one for the Asian Championships and one for the Thai.

Driver and coach reactions

“I’m very happy with the way I drove this weekend. My pace was a little off in Round 1, but I’m better than that now. The team did a great job with the kart and I want to thank everyone,” Kian said.