Sibling success

He’s 10 years old, the younger of two brothers, Shahaan and Cyrus Engineer, both of whom are into international kart racing. Driving in the second round of the Belgian Championship at Genk, Cyrus stood third, obtaining his first international podium position on April 13, 2009. "If I am not mistaken, this is the first European podium by an Indian driver in karting. The Belgian Championship is a huge event… with 190 drivers in various categories,” his father Sharokh informed Parsiana on the e-mail. "Cyrus also had the fastest lap time in his category, beating the existing champion’s timing by one tenth.”

Living and schooling in Dubai, Cyrus entered the fast and furious world of karting in Belgium in August last year. In Genk "the track was different to driving in Dubai (and) because of the rubber and dirt off the line any mistake could result in spinning off the track,” Cyrus notes. The Championship was a two-day event, where each day started fresh, from scratch. Each of the four races on the two days carried equal points, which would be totaled to give championship points. During the first practice session the lad was fifth fastest but rain during the qualifying round saw him 15th on the grid at the start. Zooming off he managed to maneuver into the top half, refusing to relinquish his position throughout eight laps.

Cyrus Engineer on the podium (extreme right) and in his kart at the championship at Genk in Belgium

"Overtaking was difficult because if you went off the rubber by more than a few inches all the rubbish sticking to your tires would take a few laps to burn off so he was being quite cautious,” Sharokh provides the technical details. Towards the end of the second race, one of the minis veered off the rubber line into a 180° spin. "Since it was a sharp right-hander, two other drivers could not avoid him and there was a bad pileup with injured children. Cyrus came in next full speed into the blind turn and he too could not avoid them because there was no traction off the rubber line and it was a bad accident. From four of them he was obviously the least affected and by the time I ran to the track after I saw his neck whiplash he was back on track and finished the race with good points,” Sharokh relates.

The next day saw greater consistency in driving as "the setup was near perfect and his times were very fast… He spent several laps trying to make it to second place and on the last lap he conducted a successful pass, but was overtaken on the last turn by the same driver and finished third,” relates the proud father who also supports and encourages the karting skills of his older son, 13-year-old Shahaan.