Bengaluru, Nov 8 (IANS) Bengaluru teenager, Ishaan Madesh (Peregrine Racing) underlined his dominance with a rousing win in the senior max category to headline the fifth round of the MECO-FMSCI National Karting Championship 2025 at the Meco Kartopia circuit, here on Saturday.

Ishaan topped all the sessions – Official Practice, Qualifying, Heat, pre-finals and finals – to consolidate his position in the championship standings ahead of the sixth and final round which will be run this weekend.

“It wasn’t easy, especially the Finals. They were catching up with me and I had to keep pushing,” said Ishaan after holding off Guguram’s Aarav Dewan (Leapfrog Racing) and Mumbai’s Krish Gupta (Rayo Racing) who finished second and third, respectively.

Other winners in Round-5 included Mumbai’s Kiaan Shah (Rayo Racing) in junior max, Rehan Khan Rasheed (Momentum Motorsport) from Chennai in mini max and Coimbatore’s Shiv Neel (MSPORT), son of India’s first Formula 1 driver Narain Karthikeyan, in micro max category.

Kiaan Shah kept his wits about him to win a close race in the junior max class after starting from P2. There was considerable jostling in the early part of the race but Kiaan survived some tense moments before breaking through to win with something to spare.

Rehan Khan Rasheed enjoyed a good run in the mini max class, winning both the pre-finals and finals. Favourite and championship leader Rivaan Dev Preetham had a disastrous pre-finals where he was involved in a collision which saw him start the finals in P8, but he made grounds by finishing second behind Rehan Khan, ahead of Faridabad’s Yatharth Gaur (Leapfrog Racing) who, incidentally, posted the fastest lap of the race.

Shiv Neel, starting from P3, fought his way to the top with an impressive display of race craft while the lone female on the grid, Faridabad’s Arshi Gupta (Leapfrog Racing) battled her way to second place with local challenger and championship leader Shiv Tummala (Peregrine Racing) completing the podium.

–IANS

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