New Delhi: Bangalore based Kush Maini continued his strong start in the WSK Masters Championship by taking over the lead from Martinez Eliseo and now has a total of 100 points and is leading the Championship by 27 points. Round 2 was held at the International Circuit Napoli Sarno and is an excellent track which is 1700 metres long and has nice mountains as a backdrop. Kush added 30 points by finishing second in the final and 10 points for finishing 3rd in the Pre-finals. The final was a very close race with 34 Karts taking part and Kush starting 3rd on the grid. Kush got off to a very good start and was in second place right behind Lindh Rasmus of Sweden.
Kush made a brilliant pass on lap 2 and took over the lead. Lindh once again came back and took the lead from Kush. In a closely fought contest Kush once again secured the lead in the 4th lap and then continued in the lead till the very last corner. Meanwhile, Marselia of italy had moved into the second place and was right behind Kush. In the last corner he made a very premature move on Kush which pushed Kush wide as well as also slowed Marselia down. This gave Lindh the chance to slip into the lead and Kush had to be content with second place just .3 secs behind the winner.
Kush Maini said, "This victory should have been mine, but this is racing and till its over, you cannot say anything. I am extremely happy that I have been very consistant in the championship which has allowed me to stay in the lead. My goal will be to stay focussed as the next track is at Lignano and I have never raced there before. I am going to give it my best shot to win the Championship".
The weekend had not started off very well for Kush as he came 18th in qualifying due to issues with his set up. During the 3 heats that the 44 Karts made against each other Kush came 4th, 5th and 12th which then gave him 21 points making him start 13th on the Grid for the pre-final. The pre-final race was run over 6 laps which saw Kush have a brilliant start and move into 9th place in the first lap. Kush was driving very well and with a lot of confidence and was making excellent moves at regular intervals and kept moving up the grid. He was fast catching the leaders and also in the process posted the fastest lap of the race at 1min 17.3 secs and touched a Top speed of 102 kms per hour. At the end he finished the race only .22 seconds behind the number one kart of Marseglia.
Kush's Elder brother Arjun moved over for the first time to the KF category from the KFJ category. This was the First time that an Indian driver made it to the final of the KF category with only 2 days of practice. The extra front brake which is hand operated as well as the extremely soft tyres and the sensitive carburettor settings made it a memorable experience for Arjun. After a failed carburettor made him start from the back of the grid Arjun showed some good performances which he culminated with finishing fourth in the reperage with a fastest lap and securing him a berth in the pre-finals and the final races.
Having to start 31st in the finals, Arjun very quickly moved ahead and by the mid Point of the race was in 13th position. Subsequently he lost a few places as he was trying all the time to learn from the new experience. He finished 22nd but was extremely satisfied and is looking forward to racing in the KF category.