Rough Seas
Michelangelo took the 2019 MRF2000 crown, but it wasn’t all plain sailing for the Belgian racer
THE FINAL ROUND OF THE MRF2000 took place at the MMRT, Chennai and saw some intense racing action. Michelangelo Amendola came in with a tally of 143 points. Dylan Young and Joshua Mason were 16 points and 28 points behind, respectively. With six races over the weekend, it could have been anyone’s game. However, Amendola’s two wins and two, third place finishes over the two days, sealed the championship for him.
Amendola stretched out a 10-second gap over the rest in the first race, in 15 laps! Young and Mason did well too, finishing second and third respectively. With a reverse grid in the second race, Manaf Hijjawi took the win, ahead of Mason. Valdemar Eriksen finished third followed by Young in fourth and Amendola in fifth.
Amendola started the third race on pole but Mason kept him humble early on. The Belgian started to pull away around the sixth lap, managing to win with a 10-second gap. Young came second followed by Louis Foster, both of whom capitalised on a mistake by Mason.
The championship fight was still on though, Young and Mason trailed by 34 points and 49 points, respectively. The reverse grid in the fourth race meant Yuven Sundaramoorthy started on pole, followed by Hijjawi and Mason. Amendola struggled to make any real progress, but defended well against Largim Ali. Sundaramoorthy finished first ahead of Hijjawi and Young, whose chances had improved after Amendola’s poor sixth place finish.
Sundaramoorthy was on pole in the fifth race, but conceded to Foster early on. After Hijjawi and Mason took each other off in the first lap, the Safety Car came out. Foster made a clean restart and the top three started to pull away. Young made a mistake in the tenth lap, shunting him to sixth. Amendola came home third, behind Foster and Sundaramoorthy, but more importantly his competitors didn’t score many points. Young scored just eight while Mason crashed in the first lap.
Young started the final race on pole, with a chance to redeem himself, Amendola was fourth. There was a four-way battle with the cars between Eriksen in second and Foster in fifth bunched up over a second and a half! Young came home in first, followed by Eriksen and Amendola. It was a great fight for the title, coming down to the wire, but Amendola kept his composure and showcased some really genius driving to take the MRF2000 crown. ⌧