Aaruthran Prabhu bags karting slalom gold at FIA Asia-Pacific Motorsport Championship 2025

Nine-year-old Aaruthran Prabu came up with a brilliant gold medal winning performance in the Cadet class of the Karting Slalom event while Aarav Dewan, the 15-year-old from Gurugram and Chikmagaluru’s Tarushi Vikram picked up a silver medal each in the FIA Asia-Pacific Motorsport Championship 2025 which concluded here on Sunday.

Aaruthran, hailing from Tiruchengode, Tamil Nadu, was the quickest through the two rounds and emerged a deserving winner with the result being announced late in the night.

Aarav finished second in the Senior class of the Karting Sprint event while Tarushi, who had won a silver in the Asian Auto Gymkhana Championship yesterday, gave another fine performance to be placed second in the Asia-Pacific Motorsport Championship Gymkhana.

The P2 finish for Aarav though was hardly a compensation for India after Kiaan Shah (Juniors) and Rehan Khan Rasheed (Cadet) retired from their respective Finals due to a mechanical issue and a crash, respectively, when in contention for a possible podium finish.

Eight-year-old Arshi Gupta (Faridabad) showed rich promise in finishing fourth, just five-hundredth of a second behind the third-placed Sum Lo from Hong Kong China while Bengaluru’s Rayan Gowda was ninth in the Cadet Final.

In the Senior final, Aarav drove well but could not match the pace of the leader Yu Ka Po (Hong Kong China), and focussed on defending his P2 spot which, though, was hardly challenged while B Kumar Gowda (Bengaluru) was seventh. “It was a good race, but I just didn’t have the pace to match the leader. So, I did the next best thing of defending my P2 position. I am thrilled to win a medal for India and it’s my first in an international championship,” said Aarav.

In the Junior section, Kiaan Shah’s retirement was a big disappointment when he was running second as the engine expired midway through the race. The other two Indians in the fray, Akshat Misra (Bengaluru) came in a creditable fifth and Thomas Jacob George (Kottayam) eighth. Similarly, Rehan Khan Rasheed, who led in the first two laps, faltered to drop to fifth, but was on a charge when an understeer led to a crash.

Karting Endurance: The two Indian teams finished fifth and eighth in the final standings after, at one stage, raising a glimmer of hope of being in the hunt for a possible podium spot in the two-hour Endurance race. In the two Endurance Sprint (30 minutes) races, the two Indian teams could not make much headway and finished in mid-field positions.

Autocross (Crosscar): Indian hopes of a medal in the Autocross event ended with Chetan Shivram (Bengaluru) and Philippos Matthai (New Delhi) finishing outside the top 8 that progressed to the medal round. Yesterday, the other Indian entry, Pragathi Gowda was eliminated.

APMC Gymkhana: Even as Tarushi won her second silver this weekend in the women's category, the gold medal winner in the AAGC event yesterday, Achintya Mehrotra (New Delhi) could not reproduce the form as he picked up too many penalties for knocking down the cones and dropped out of the medal contention. Prateek Dalal (Bahadurgarh, Haryana), the other Indian entrant, met a similar fate.

E-Sport (iRacing): Indian challenge ended when Pune’s Sai Shiva Makesh Shankaran (Pune), the lone Indian in iRacing event, crashed in the semi-final round.