MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Racing Championship

 Karthik Tharani made the best use of a poor start by his key rival Vikas Anand to take a comfortable win in the MRF Formula1600 race in the MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Racing Championship at the MMRT track, Sriperumbudur, near hear on Saturday.

Tharani took the lead from P2 even as Vikas slipped to fourth and slowly opened a huge gap and won by over 12 seconds. However, Vikas managed to recover to second place and is now seven points behind Tharani with two more races scheduled for Sunday. Sandeep Kumar finished third pushing Raghul Rangasamy to fourth. The winner of the championship is eligible for the Mazda Road to Indy shootout this December.

Arjun Narendran, who clinched the Indian Touring Car championship with a round to spare, won the first race with a lights-to-flag win while veteran Leelakrishnan came second with Ashish Ramaswamy third for a 1-2-3 finish for Red Rooster Racing.

Earlier, in Race 1 of the Indian Junior Touring Cars class, Charen Chandran of Red Rooster Performance took a surprise win while Ananth Pithawala of Team N1 pushed Keith Desouza to third place. Desouza (174) leads Pithawalla (173) with Race 2 scheduled for Sunday.

Veeresh Prasad (Race Concepts, 109) from Bengaluru took a one-point lead over Raghul Rangasamy (Performance Racing) after winning today’s race in the Super Stock category. Raghul finished third behind Deepak Ravi Kumar while Alisha Abdullah (Rad Racing) came in fourth which took her tally to 96. The other title contender Dean Mascarenhas (Race Concepts) remained on 102 points after failing to finish the race.  

Raghul Rangasamy extended his lead in the F1300 Rookie Championship by winning the first of the two races despite starting fourth on the grid. With his sixth win in nine starts, Raghul took his tally to 180 points, 19 clear of his nearest rival and Wallace Sports team-mate CS Tejasram, who started from pole position, but finished third behind Alex Bora.

Starting second on the grid behind championship leader Ishaan Dodhiwala, Delhi’s Karmindar Pal Singh took the honours in the Volkswagen Vento Cup race. As the lights went off, Ishaan got off the grid with a lot of wheel spin which allowed Karminder to get past him on the first corner. From then on, Karminder kept his lead all the way to the chequered flag ahead of Ishaan and Aditya Vijay Pawar.

On winning the race, Karmindar said: “My launch off the grid was the best today. That helped me get past Ishaan in the first corner itself. From then on, I just wanted to drive a clean race and make no mistake. I went off a little bit mid-way through, but fortunately Ishaan made the same mistake and I retained my lead in the race.”

The results (Provisional):

MRF F1600 (Race 1, 10 laps): 1. Karthik Tharani (Chennai) (17mins, 20.723secs); 2. Vikas Anand (Chennai) (17:32.296); 3. Sandeep Kumar (Chennai) (17: 36.497).

Indian Touring Cars (Race 1, 8 laps): 1. Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster Racimg) (15:32.658); 2. N Leelakrishnan (Red Rooster Racing) (15:43.242); 3. Ashish Ramaswamy (Red Rooster Racing) (15:50.872).

Indian Junior Touring Cars (Race 1, 10 laps): 1. Charen Chandran (Red Rooster Racing) (21:24.071); Ananth Pithawala (Team N1) (21:24.553); Keith Desouza (Unimek Racing) (21:32.575).

Super Stock (Race 1, 10 laps): 1. Veeresh Prasad (Race Concepts) (21:42.254); 2. Deepak Ravi Kumar (Pvt) (21:44.881); 3. Raghul Rangasamy (Performance Racing) (21:53.701).

F1300 Rookie Championship (Race 1, 8 laps): 1. Raghul Rangasamy (Wallace Sports) (15:53.517); 2. Alex Bora (Wallace Sports) (15:54.884); 3. Tejasram CS (Wallace Sports) (16:00.033).

Volkswagen Vento Cup (Race 1, 8 laps): 1. Karmindar Pal Singh (Delhi) (20:26.665); 2. Ishaan Dodhiwala (Hyderabad) (20:28.120); 3. Aditya Vijay Pawar (Mumbai) (20:34.500).