MRF Challenge wraps up desert detour

Australian driver Joey Mawson stormed to the top of the championship with a win in the final race of the second round of the MRF Challenge 2016 in Dubai. Mawson won ahead of Felipe Drugovich fellow Aussie Zane Goddard as championship rivals Harrison Newey and Mick Schumacher were both forced to retire. However, eighteen-year-old Newey survived all the chaos to win his second race of the weekend when he crossed the chequered flag in Race three.

Race one saw Newey fight back from down the order to take victory after a battle with the 20-year-old Mawson, who won last year’s ADAC Formula 4 title ahead of Schumacher. The German came home third, which set in motion him losing the championship lead that he had held since the end of the first round in Bahrain. It is the second year of competing in what is an ‘off-season’ series for the son of the most successful Formula 1 driver of all-time. But unlike last year, the 17-year-old has started from the beginning of the season and is soon expected to make a move up to the FIA European Formula 3 Championship.

MAWSON BUTTS IN

Earlier in qualifying Mawson stole the show that was expected to feature a battle for pole position between Newey and Schumacher. Mawson’s lap of 1min. 55.945sec. was a lap record for an MRF F2000 car around the 5.39km Dubai Autodrome, pipping Newey’s effort of 1:56.020. Behind the top two were Schumacher, Juri Vips and Pedro Cardoso.

Starting on pole position, Mawson got a good start off the line but Newey tried to go around the outside heading into the first corner. Mawson just managed to hold on while Schumacher held station in third place just behind Newey, but unable to find a way past. Newey started to close in on Mawson and on the fourth lap and he passed the Aussie after both were side by side for three corners. Schumacher then tried to follow suit and applied pressure on Mawson but could not find a way past.

Newey set a string of fastest laps and took the chequered flag ahead of Mawson and Schumacher. Cardoso held off fast charging Brazilian driver Drugovich for fourth place with Vips finishing in sixth place. Kimi Schramm finished in seventh place ahead of Dylan Young, Van Kalmthout and Manuel Maldonado. Indian driver Parth Ghorpade fought back from last place at the end of the first corner to finish in eleventh.

Ghorpade had not been listed in the initial entry list for the 2016-17 season of the MRF Challenge and didn’t compete in the opening round either. The final two rounds of the four-round series will be held in India with the Buddh International Circuit near Greater Noida first up on the 28th and 29th of this month. The season will conclude at the Madras Motor Race Track at Sriperumbudur near Chennai on February 18-19.