Sandeep Kumar and Arjun Narendran cruised to comfortable victories in the MRF F1600 and the Indian Touring Cars (ITC) categories in the fourth round of the MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Racing Championship at the MMRT track on Saturday.
Sourav Bandyopadhyay from Mumbai pulled off a fine win in the Volkswagen Ameo Cup, pushing championship leader Karminder Singh (Delhi) to second place while Sandeep Kumar completed the podium.
In contrast, competition was at its fiercest in other categories. Raghul Rangasamy (Performance Racing) topped the saloon car race after an initial blip while Bengaluru schoolboy Yash Aradhya, only 14, and Pune’s 18-year old engineering student Aanjan Patodia, both of Team Momentum Motorsports, fought tooth and nail to win a race apiece in both categories (Open and Rookie) of the double-header Formula LGB 1300.
In the other categories of the saloon cars, Bengaluru’s Varun Anekar (Race Concepts) and Hashim EKP (DTS Racing) emerged comfortable winners in the Super Stock and Indian junior touring cars, respectively.
The MRF FF1600 race turned out to be disappointing especially after pole-sitter and championship leader Anindith Reddy (Hyderabad) pitted at the end of lap one to repair a damaged nose cone following a contact with Chennai’s Sandeep Kumar at the start of the race.
Reddy, on rejoining the race, finished a lap down in fifth while Sandeep won untroubled, leaving Chennai’s Chetan Korada and Kolkata schoolboy Arya Singh to scrap for the other two podium spots.
The results (Provisional – all 15 laps unless mentioned): MRF FF1600 (Race one): 1. Sandeep Kumar (15:01.880); 2. Chetan Korada (15:10.711); 3. Arya Singh (15:11.709).
Volkswagen Ameo Cup (Race one): 1. Sourav Bandyopadya (16:05.858); 2. Karminder Singh (16:13.204); 3. A Sandeep Kumar (16: 14.485).
Indian Touring Cars-Race one: 1. Arjun Narendran (16:50.960); 2. Ashish Ramaswamy (17: 02.745); 3. C Raja Ram (17:26.277).
Saloon Cars (Race one)-Esteem: 1. Raghul Rangasamy (17:49.329); 2. Narendran (17: 51.486); 3. Ananth Pithawala (17: 59.385). Super Stock: 1. Varun V. Anekar (18:12.176); 2. Deepak Ravikumar (18:33.902); 3. B. Bala Vijay (18:42.584).
Indian Junior Touring Cars: 1. E.K.P. Hisham (18: 15.268); 2. Mikhail Merchant (18:27.330); 3. A.S. Prabhu (18:35.509).
Formula LGB 1300 (Race one, 13 laps)-Open: 1. Yash Aradhya (16:14.230); 2. Aanjan Patodia (16:14.778); 3. Arya Singh (16:16.906).
Rookie: 1. Yash Aradhya; 2. Aanjan Patodia; 3. Arya Singh.
Race 2 (Open): 1. Aanjan Patodia (16:35.848); 2. Arya Singh (16:40.056); 3. Deepak Ravikumar (16:48.463).
Rookie: 1. Aanjan Patodia; 2. Arya Singh; 3. Yash Aradhya (16:48.495).
