Martono, Rinus win on action-packed day

On a day that saw cars spinning and crashing, Netherlands’ Rinus van Kalmthout and Indonesia’s Presley Martono earned top honours in the concluding round of the MRF Challenge at the Madras Motor Racing Track here on Saturday.

While Rinus clocked 30:22.676 to finish first in the race one, Martono recorded an outstanding timing of 22:50.733 to bag No. 1 position in the race two.

The championship title, though, was secured by Brazilian driver Felipe Drugovich, who finished third and sixth in two races, but gained enough points to clinch the crown with two races to go. Apart from these drivers’ stellar performances, the day also witnessed a real chaos at the start of the second race. At turn two, Venezuela’s Manuel Maldonado, Singapore’s Pavan Ravishankar and Indonesia’s Perdana Minang collided and saw their cars getting crashed. France’s Julien Falchero was forced to retire after making contact with van Kalmthout.

There was more action as the race leader Alex Karkosik of Polland spun out of the lead. The race was red flagged on lap two with five cars going out of race.

When the race was restarted, Singapore’s Danial Frost took the early lead. He maintained it till the 11th lap before making a mistake and running wide, which allowed Martono and van Kalmthout to overtake him. Martono went on to win the race from there.

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