Ayden Ingratta secured his second Canadian Karting Championship of the day at the Mosport Karting Centre with an impressive drive in the Rok Junior Final where he started from the rear of the field and made his way to the front.
With only eleven karts on the grid, it wasn’t a huge charge for Ingratta (AI/RedSpeed), but his quick competitors didn’t make it easy for him.
Logan Pacza (Prime/BirelART) was the early race leader ahead of Friday’s fast-qualifier Frankie Esposito (Prime/BirelART) while Ryan Maxwell (Prime/BirelART), Marcello Paniccia (PRO/CL Kart) and Joseph Launi (Powerhouse/Exprit) were mixing it up for third.
Behind them, both Ingratta and Callum Baxter (REM/Kosmic) were moving forward from the rear.
Unfortunately on lap five, Launi retired from third place with a chain failure and Baxter slowed and retired, with his gas cap coming undone and fuel spilling all over him.
By lap seven Ingratta had worked by Paniccia and Maxwell to get into third, but the lead pair had a sizable gap.
Ingratta blistered off a number of purple laps to close the gap up and on lap fourteen he had caught the leaders.
A big draft down the hill allowed Ingratta to pass Esposito into the hairpin and on the following lap, he used the same pass on Pacza to get into the lead. On the same lap, Maxwell retired from the fourth position with an issue.
The race of attrition saw Ian Qiu (BBR/TonyKart) the next to retire in corner one from fourth.
Pacza came firing back with the same pass the next lap to regain the lead.
With Pacza defending the lead, Esposito was able to close back in on the leaders, but a slick pass by Ingratta up the inside of corner one caught Pacza off guard and Esposito was also able to slide by. A little flustered, Pacza missed his marks in corner three and spun off the track and out of the race, a very unfortunate early ending.
It was smooth sailing from there for Ingratta to drive home his second win of the day and his fourth Canadian Karting Championship overall. Esposito ended up second while Paniccia completed the podium ahead of Caleb Campbell (Prime/BirelART) and Christian Menezes (KGR/RedSpeed).
For his win, Ingratta scored a ticket to the Rok Cup SuperFinal in Italy this October while Esposito and Paniccia scored entries to ROK Vegas. Ingratta was also awarded the Champion Fine Tuned award.
Motomaster Canadian Karting Championships – Rok Junior Final Results
