Samer Mattar clinched his first Max class victory in a roller coaster third round of the 2014 Lebanese Karting Championship at the Pit Stop karting track in Zouk this afternoon.
Mattar won the pre-final race after four of his competitors, including Karl Massaad, Patrick Njeim, Matthias Njeim and Karl Khadra were involved in an accident that dropped them out of contention for a podium finish; this allowed Mattar to cruise to a pre-final race win ahead of Joey Hajj and Michael Kanaan.
In the final race, Mattar made a clean start and preserved his lead. However, drama unfolded behind him as Joey Hajj went off track after locking his tyres and retired from the race.
Patrick Njeim benefited from a scrap between Matthias Njeim and Karl Massaad to move to second place, while Michael Kanaan dropped to last position after contact with Matthias. Patrick closed the gap to Samer as the race progressed, but the driver spun out while attempting to take the lead, allowing Matthias through to second place.
Patrick crossed the finish line in third place behind race winner Samer Mattar and second place finisher Matthias Njeim, but the latter received a penalty for his incident with Michael Kanaan, which demoted him to fourth and elevated Patrick to second and Karl Massaad to third.
Mattar described his race, saying: “I was comfortable in first part of the final race and I managed to pull a gap, but the conditions changed and I could not maintain my pace. Patrick is an excellent driver without a doubt, so he closed the gap. I had to take defensive action and Patrick did nothing wrong with his maneuvers, but he overshot it. All in all it was a good race.”
For his part, Patrick Njeim said: “I collided with Karl in the pre-final race, but my car wasn’t able to run anymore, so I had to start last in the final race. It was a good race, the first few laps were hectic and I was still in the back, but I took the advantage when other drivers started overtaking each other and there were some pretty nice maneuvers. Samer lost consistency with time and I got closer and closer; I did a silly mistake in the last lap, tried to overtake where it’s nearly impossible, so I spun out.”