Maiden victory for Chirag Ghorpade in MRF F1600; Rishon day’s fastest driver
Sim racer Justin gets podium on debut week-end in real race
Chennai, 11 Dec. 2021: Sixteen-year-old 11th grade student of Bengaluru Chirag Ghorpade, drove a brilliant race to win his maiden race in the coveted MRF F1600 class in the second round of the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Car Racing Championship at the MMRT, here on Saturday.
Ghorpade held off another 7-year old, Agra’s Shahan Ali Mohsin, for his maiden win in this category while Rishon Rajiv, 6, also from Bengaluru, finished third in the eight-lap race. Rishon became the fastest Driver of the day clocking 1:39.964. Ghorpade did a 39.8 on Thursday but was content in being consistent today and focused on his race victory. The trio was in a league of its own in a field that had quite a few experienced drivers.
“It was a tough race initially when Shahan caught up with me, but I realized that he was unable to narrow the gap any further and I managed to dictate the pace,” said Ghorpade who had earlier qualified for pole position.
Meanwhile, Coimbatore veteran, defending champion Arjun Balu (Race Concepts), at 47, and in his 29th racing season, was in imperious form when easily winning the premier Indian Touring Cars race from pole position, while two Rayo Racing drivers from Hyderabad, Anindith Reddy and Jeet Jhabakh finished a distant second and third, respectively.
“Honestly, I was quite surprised by the pace of the car (Honda City) and by the end of the first lap, I was comfortably ahead. Thereafter, I decided to back off a bit and scaled down on my aggression. Yes, I am quite pleased with the performance,” Balu said.
Performance Racing’s Deepak Ravikumar from Chennai and Bengaluru’s Varun Anekar (Race Concepts) topped in the Super Stock and Indian Junior Touring Cars category, respectively.
Pole-sitter Viswas Vijayaraj (DTS Racing) from Vellore emerged a facile winner in the Formula LGB 1300 race that was marred by a red flag stoppage following a series of crashes, reducing it to just five laps.
Mumbai’s Fahad Kutty (Red Line Racing) and Coimbatore’s A Balaprasath (Quest Motorsport) shared the top honours in the two MRF Saloon Cars (Toyota Etios) races. In the second race, a Delhi-born Punjabi from Gurgoan won his maiden podium taking a second place in his debut week-end in real motorsports as the sim-racer is racing for the first time at MMSC.
The results (Provisional – all 8 laps unless mentioned):
MRF F1600 (Race-1): 1. Chirag Ghorpade (Bengaluru) (13mins, 32.919secs); 2. Shahan Ali Mohsin (Agra) (13:34.252); 3. Rishon Rajiv (Bengaluru) (13:35.164).
Indian Touring Cars (Race-1): 1. Arjun Balu (Race Concepts, Coimbatore) (15:19.312); 2. Anindith Reddy (Rayo Racing, Hyderabad) (15:46.386); 3. Jeet Jhabakh (Rayo Racing, Hyderabad) (15:54.693).
Super Stock (Race-1): 1. Deepak Ravikumar (Performance Racing, Chennai) (16:09.974); 2. Rithvik Thomas (Race Concepts, Bengaluru) (16:12.079); 3. RP Raja Rajan (Performance Racing, Chennai) (16:17.578).
Indian Junior Touring Cars (Race-1): 1. Varun Anekar (Race Concepts, Bengaluru) (16:04.162); 2. Charen Chandran (Pvt, Coimbatore) (16:25.674); 3. Hatim Shabbir Jamnagarwala (Performance Racing, Chennai) (15:30.132, 7 laps)
Formula LGB 1300 (Race-1, 5 laps): 1. Viswas Vijayaraj (DTS Racing, Nellore) (11:14.406); 2. Arya Singh (DTS Racing, Kolkata) (11:15.966); 3. Deepak Ravikumar (Momentum Motorsport, Chennai) (11:20.775).
MRF Saloon Cars (Toyota Etios – Race 1): 1. Fahad Kutty (Red Line Racing, Mumbai) (17:08.849); Jamie Shaw (Red Line Racing, Mumbai) (17:09.332); 3. Chandresh Tolia (Red Line Racing, Mumbai) (17:11.833);
Race 2: 1. A Balaprasath (Quest Motorsport, Coimbatore) (21:17.190); 2. Justin Singh (Quest Motorsport, Haryana) (21:17.925); 3. Fahad Kutty (Red Line Racing, Mumbai) (21:20.784).
