MRF MMSC 4W NRC
Plenty of action from the two weekends at Coimbatore and Chennai
WWHILE THE MRF FF1600 was absent at the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore, the other categories did run alongside the opening round of the 2016 Volkswagen Vento Cup. However, it was a packed weekend at the next round of the championship at the MMRT circuit in Chennai which had been freshly resurfaced. Here’s all the action from the two weekends.
MRF F1600
The single-seater F1600 series took a break from Coimbatore and resumed racing in Chennai. In round four, Vikash Anand continued his stunning form by securing pole position for the races. 2015 VW Vento Cup champ, Anindith Reddy, qualified second with Sandeep Kumar and Raghul Ran gas amy completing row two. Defending champion and current championship leader, Karthik Tharanisingh, had a crash in qualifying and damaged his suspension in the process and qualified last.
Vikash had a tough time in the first race of the weekend as he was harried by the trio behind him. However, after many lead changes, he opened up a gap of over three seconds to win the race from Sandeep. Reddy finished hot on Sandeep’s tail.
Reddy won the second race by a country mile from Rangasamy. Sandeep finished ten seconds after Rangasamy in third. Vikash completed a double over the final race of the weekend. Reddy and Rangasamy completed the podium.
“Yeah, it was pretty close. I started from pole, but after an off at turn 2, slipped to third. However, I put in consistent laps to stay in touch with Sandeep and Anindith. I then regained the lead when the two went off the track. I was not able to sustain the pace since the track was a bit slippery, but managed to stay in front and win,” said a relieved Anand.
Tharani made the most of his low starting position and finished seventh,
fourth and fourth in the weekend’s three races keeping his championship hopes alive but, of course, losing the lead.
FF 1300
Kolkata’s Arya Singh made his debut in the rookie series in Coimbatore and was fastest from the word go. He was the quickest during Saturday’s qualifying session. However, in the first race he had a coming together with Alex Bora forcing them both to retire. Tejasram won the race comfortably as Raghul Rangasamy too suffered a failed engine.
Arya bounced back to win the second race from Rangasamy and Tejasram by a huge margin of 8.4 seconds. The four battled hard in the third race where Tejasram won by 0.137 seconds from Alex Bora. Arya held off the charging Rangasamy for third.
In the following weekend in Chennai, Rangasamy was miles ahead of the competition. He was a second and a half faster than Arya, and Tejasram and Alex Bora were even further off. They finished the first race in the above order with quite a big gap between Arya and Tejasram.
In the next race Rangasamy did win with ease yet again. Alex managed to come second ahead of Arya and Tejasram. But it was found that Alex had jumped at the start, hence he was slapped with a ten second time penalty and lost out his second place and dropped to fourth.
Rangasamy sits in prime position to win the championship this year. Alex, Tejas and Arya have got their work cut out if they want to snatch the title away from Raghul.
Touring Cars
Arjun Narendran swept clean the proceedings at his home race in Coimbatore. He qualified on pole and won all three races of the weekend in his Red Rooster Performance Maruti Suzuki Esteem. His nearest championship rival, Deepak Paul Chinnapa, had a tough time at Kari. He qualified his Honda City VTEC
third but had to retire from the first race. He finished fourth in the next race and managed to come on the final step of the podium in the last race.
Narendran continued his stunning form in Chennai as well by winning two races and finishing second in the last race. The results meant he has already sealed the championship, which just goes to show his, and his team's dominance of the class.
Arjun began the weekend by being the fastest man in qualifying. He converted pole position to win race one from Chinnapa by just over two seconds. Arjun’s teammate Ashish Ramaswamy came third.
The victory in the second race of the weekend helped him seal the championship and he was helped by his teammate and team-owner N Leelakrishnan, who finished second. Chinnapa could do no better than finish third.
In the final race of the weekend Chinnapa did manage to secure his first victory of the weekend from Narendran by 1.34 seconds. Ramaswamy finished third.
“I had good races today. The car was superbly set-up. Also, with the guys fighting for positions behind me, it helped me to increase my lead. This will be my last season of racing here as I am off to UK for higher studies, but hopefully, I can make time to race occasionally,” said Narendran.
Ananth Pithawalla of Team N1 Racing and Keith DeSouza of Unimek Racing took a victory each at both the Coimbatore and Chennai rounds of the Indian Junior Touring Cars. It was the same story in the Super Stock category that was run concurrently with the IJTC grid, Raghul Rangasamy and Deepak Ravikumar taking a victory at each of the rounds.
Round five of the championship takes place again at the MMRT circuit for the final time this year from August 19-21 .
THE FRESHLY RESURFACED MMRT TRACK IN CHENNAI WAS HOME TO AN
ACTION PACKED WEEKEND