Rangasamy, Balu post victories on Day 1
Pole sitter Raghul Rangasamy secured a commanding victory to head the leaderboard in the MRF F1600 class in the fourth round of the MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Racing Championship at the MMRT track at Sriperumbudur on Saturday.
Apart from the 25- year- old Rangasamy, Coimbatores Arjun Balu ( Race Concepts) also stole the spotlight winning a thrilling race in the high- end Indian Touring Cars class.
His team mate Varun Anekar from Bengaluru, who started ninth and from the pit- lane, finished first in the Super Stock category.
Summing up his win, Rangasamy said: “I started thinking what I would say at the post- race interview and stuff like that. As my thoughts wandered, so did the pace. Suddenly, I saw Sandeep Kumar ( who finished second) catching up and it woke me up. I am absolutely exhausted. I am not a gym person like others drivers. I reacted a bit late to the lights at the start, but otherwise, it was a good launch and I quickly built up a big lead.”
The Formula LGB 1300 doubleheader produced two different winners in Chennai’s Ashwin Datta ( Momentum Motorsports) and Sohil Shah ( M Sport) from Bengaluru.
The results put Shah at the top of the championship standings in the class with 126 points to Dattas 123 with the third title contender Nabil Hussain ( M Sport), also from Chennai, on 117, going into the final round next month.
Rangasamy of Mamallapuram moved past championship leader Ashwin Datta who eighth.
Ahead of the two races to be run on Sunday, Rangasamy has 109 points to Dattas 100.
The championship winner at the end of the season, earns a ticket to the Mazda Road To Indy shootout in the United States this winter.
Arjun Balu took a lights to chequered flag win to move to second on the leaderboard with 93 points while Narendran, who missed two rounds, is on 68 while Bengalurus Ashish Ramaswamy ( Arka Motorsport) who finished third, continues to lead with 116 points, going into Sunday’s Race 2.
Dhruv Mohite from Kolhapur notched his fourth win in six starts in the Volkswagen Ameo Cup race ahead of Saurav Bandyopadhyay ( Mumbai) and Jeet Jhabakh ( Hyderabad).