Arjun Balu, Suriya Varathan reign at National car racing championships

Former claims Indian Touring Cars section with his fifth win

Suriya Varathan of Coimbatore who won the first race in the Formula MRF 1600cc in the National 4-wheeler ch'ips in Chennai. Photo: Special Arrangement

Coimbatore racers, teenager Suriya Varathan and veteran Arjun Balu (Race Concepts), lit up the fourth and final round of the MRF MMSC FMSCI National car racing championships with remarkable wins here on Saturday.

Balu, the 47-year old defending champion, who qualified for pole in the morning by setting a lap record timing of 1:49.023 in a Honda City, chalked up his fifth win of the season and with that the championship in the Indian Touring Cars category with one more race left. Varathan, only 18, scored a fluent win from pole in the premier MRF Formula 1600 class.

Provisional results (all 8 laps unless mentioned): MRF Formula 1600 (Race-1): 1. Suriya Varathan (Coimbatore) (17m 29.252s); 2. Shahan Ali Mohsin (Agra) (17:29.511); 3. Chirag Ghorpade (Bengaluru) (17:30.188). Indian Touring Cars (Race-1): 1. Arjun Balu (Race Concepts, Coimbatore) (15:16.979); 2. Jeet Jhabakh (Rayo Racing, Hyderabad) (15:25.150); 3. Ishaan Dodhiwala (Rayo Racing) (15:26.345).

Indian Junior Touring Cars (Race-1): 1. Varun Anekar (Race Concepts, Bengaluru) (15:50.484); 2. Hatim Shabbir Jamnagarwala (Performance Racing, Chennai) (16:18.581); 3. K. Srinivas Teja (Performance Racing) (16:25.152).

Super Stock (Race-1): 1. R.P. Raja Rajan (Performance Racing) (16:13.456); 2. Deepak Ravikumar (Performance Racing) (16:13.947); 3. Rithvik Thomas (Race Concepts) (16:15.609).

Formula LGB 1300 (Race-1): 1. Viswas Vijayaraj (DTS Racing, Nellore) (15:22.116); 2. Tijil Rao (Momentum Motorsports, Bengaluru) (15:22.553); 3. Deepak Ravikumar (Momentum Motorsports, Chennai) (15:23.275).

Volkswagen Polo (Race-1): 1. Anmol Singh Sahil (Ghaziabad) (15:58.466); 2. Oshan Kothadiya (Pune) (15:58.852); 3. Sandeep Kumar (Chennai) (15:59.430).

MRF Saloon Cars (Toyota Etios) Race-1: 1. Fahad Kutty (Redline Racing, Mumbai) (16:39.303); 2. Anand Prasad (Redline Racing, Chennai) (16:39.677); 3. Justin Singh (Redline Racing, Delhi) (16:46.523).

Race-2 (10 laps): 1. Anand Prasad (Redline Racing, Chennai) (20:59.670); 2. Angad Matharoo (Redline Racing, Chandigarh) (21:05.286); 3. Zahan Commissariat (Redline Racing, Mumbai) (21:08.907) .