Shoot to thrill
The first round of the 2021 Indian National Car Racing Championship kicks off with a banger
ROUND 1 OF THE 2021 Indian National Car Racing Championship came to an end on September 26 at MMRT and it was a thrilling event to say the least. With seven different classes of racing, the first round was packed with surprises, action and drama. Shahan Ali Mohsin’s performance was a highlight among the different class winners as he dominated the MRF Formula 1600 class with two consecutive victories. With that said, let us take a peek into the weekend and see how it unfolded.
Deepak Ravikumar of Momentum Motorsport won the first race of the Formula LGB 1300 despite suffering from numb fingers over the eight-lap race. His condition led to some errors but he managed to overcome it. In the second race, Mohit Aryan (Quest Motorsport) was declared the winner after Ruhaan Alva from MSport was docked 20 seconds for overtaking under the yellow flag. In the MRF Formula 1600 category, 17year old Shahan Ali Mohsin’s performance over the three races in this class made him the star highlight of the event. Even though he could not grab a podium finish in the first race due to an overheating clutch, his dominant performance in the following two races saw him cross the chequered flag as the winner.
The highly popular Saloon Cars category saw Coimbatore veteran and defending champion, Arjun Balu, take pole for the first race and convert it into a win with some strong racecraft that comes with experience. But in the second race, Anindith Reddy of Rayo Racing led the entire ten-lap race while also surviving a clash with the defending champion, and notched up a sweet victory.
Rithvik Thomas (Race Concepts) from Bengaluru snatched pole in the Super Stock series from Deepak Ravikumar (Performance Racing) by just two-tenths of a second in qualifying, but on race day, Ravikumar out-classed the rest of the field and won both races.
The Indian Junior Touring Cars saw Charan Chandran from Coimbatore standing victorious in the first round after Bengaluru’s Varun Anekar of Race Concepts was disqualified following a postrace scrutiny in technical infringement. But Anekar quickly shrugged off the disappointment by winning the second race, thus proving his mettle.
Finally, in the Volkswagen Polo Cup, Aditya Swaminathan qualified for pole position in the first round with Bangladesh’s Aiman Sadat in second. Aditya came victorious from pole in the first race, with the second race seeing a completely different outcome as Pratik Sonawane from Pune took the win from Ritesh Rai at P2. All things said and done, we now wait for Round 2 scheduled for December 10 at the MMRT circuit in Chennai. ⌧