Wild One in Rotax Junior as Van Der Helm Wins; Woods-Toth Charges to 26th

The Rotax Junior final had a ton of excitement in with a huge pack of drivers in contention for majority of the race. Once the chaos settled in the closing stages of the race, it appeared as though it would be a three-kart battle for the win between Senna Van Walstjin (NED), Jaiden Pope (AUS), and Tijmen Van Der Helm (NED). The trio was able to pull away from the pack and decided to battle amongst themselves with three laps remaining.

While battle Pope took the lead going into turn eight from Van Walstjin, Van Der Helm tried to follow through at the same time in order to take second. He would make contact with his countrymen while making the pass allowing Pope to pull four kart lengths ahead and Tosei Mariyama (JPN) and American Tyler Gonazlez to catch up to the lead trio. With two laps remaining Van Der Helm retook the lead from Pope in corner two and was able to hold it for the remainder of the race.

The battle for second though was hard fought as Pope was attempting to set up Van Der Helm going into the third corner in order to retake the lead. Gonzalez who was sitting in fifth, after charging from nineteenth on the starting grid, had a huge head of steam from the draft approaching turn three and committed to taking second, diving to the inside of the three karts in front eventually making contact with Pope, taking both drivers out of the race. Mariyama would end up finishing second with Van Walstjin finishing third. Gonzalez ended up twenty-fifth.

Patrick Woods-Toth struggled at the start of the Final but managed to pull through and advance from thirty-second to the twenty-third position, however, he received a bumper penalty and ends up ranking twenty-sixth. American Jak Crawford finished sixth while Arias Deukmedjian finished twenty-first.

Patrick Woods-Toth