Tarun Reddy recovers to take back championship lead after brilliant win

David Bodapati July 20, 2014

386 3 minutes read

Coimbatore, 20 July 2014: The 16 year old Indian Tarun Reddy put on a brilliant display to beat title contenders Vikash Anand and Advait Deodhar in the MRF FF1600 race at Round 3 of the 2014 MMSC-FMSCI National Racing Championship (NRC) at the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore. Vikash Anand had a great day which included a win and a 2nd place in the MRF 1600 championship. Other winners included Ashish Ramaswamy in the Indian Touring Cars, Varun Anekar and Advait Deodhar in the Toyota EMR, VJ Senthil in the Indian Junior Touring Cars, Balavijay in the Superstock and S Narendran in the Formula Swift 1300.

Race 2 of the MRF FF 1600 in Round 3 saw Goutam Parekh on reverse grid pole position. The race was red-flagged after lap 1 due to heavy rain hitting the circuit, forcing the drivers to change to wet tyres. At the restart Vikash Anand got the jump on Goutam to go into the lead. Behind him Advait jumped Goutam, who was busy battling with Championship leader Tarun Reddy. On lap 4, Tarun tried an audacious move on Goutam into the first corner, which resulted in both of them going off and causing a red flag for the second time. At the second restart Advait had a great start and beat Vikash into the first corner. However Vikash wasted no time and overtook Advait before the end of the lap to take the lead and go on to win in dominant fashion. Advait finished 2nd with Lee Keshav in 3rd place. Post race Tarun Reddy was given a 5 place grid penalty for an avoidable accident and causing a red flag.

Race 3 of the MRF FF1600 saw Advait Deodhar taking the lead with Goutam Parekh in 2nd and Vikash Anand in 3rd. Tarun Reddy, who was given yet another penalty for the consecutive race weekend started in 6th but quickly moved up to 4th at the end of the first lap. The next 4 laps saw a brilliant battle between Advait, Vikash and Tarun for the lead. Tarun pulled off a great move on Vikash on lap 2 to move into 2nd. On lap 4 Tarun went around the outside of Advait into the first corner to take the lead. Vikash, who was right behind Tarun also took advantage and went past Advait. They finished in that order with Tarun beating Vikash and Advait. Tarun now leads Advait by 6 points in the Championship with Vikash right back in contention after a great weekend.

Day 2 action resumed at the KMS with the Formula LGB 1300 category and it was S Narendran taking his second win in a row with a commanding performance. There was another close battle for 2nd place with Goutam Parekh just managing to beat Ajay Kini and Deepak Chinappa.

Next race of the day saw the Indian Junior Touring Cars (IJTC) with DR Senthil taking his first win of the season and breaking Feroze Kkan’s winning streak. Senthil had an early battle with Siddharth B but pulled away to win comfortably. Siddharth finished in 2nd place ahead of championship leader Feroze Khan.

The Toyota Etios Motor Trophy had some close racing in both races of the one make championship. In Race 3, Dean Mascarenhas took the early lead with Race 1 winner Varun Anekar right behind him. On lap 5 Varun made his move and overtook Dean to take the lead of the race. He went on to win comfortably with Dean finishing in 2nd place and Hashim finishing in 3rd place.

In the reverse-grid Race 4 of the Toyota EMR, Vidyuth started on pole position along with Advait Deodhar. Vidyuth held on to the lead but was overtaken by Advait with 5 laps to go. Championship contender Dean Mascarenhas moved in to 2nd place on lap 7 and closed in on Advait but was unable to launch a challenge. Vidyuth completed the third step of the podium.

Balavijay became the first driver to win all races to date in 2014 with another win in the Superstock category. In a replay of Race 1, behind him there was a great battle for 2nd place between Joel Joseph and Deepak Chinappa. Joel and Deepak had a race long battle with Deepak unable to find a way past.

The Indian Touring Cars was a race long battle between veteran B Vidyaprakash and youngster Ashish Ramaswamy. The race ended with Vidyaprakash being punted out of the lead by Ashish, who crossed the chequered flag in 1st place. Raja Ram finished 2nd while Championship leader Arjun Narendran had a tough race and finished in 3rd position, suffering his first loss of the season.

Race Classifications

LGB Formula 1300 – Race 3