Arjun Balu to rely on pure talent and skill to defend title

Chennai, 9 Feb. 2022: Veteran gentleman of motorsports Arjun Balu is raring to go and is looking to defend his National title in the prestigeous Indian Touring Cars class as four-wheeler competitors in other classes too are gunning for titles in the MRF MMSC fmsci National Car Racing Championship 2021, the fourth and final round to be held, near here, at the MMRT from February 11 to 13.

Despite myraid ugly tactics on the track, Arjun Balu won the National Championship last year after narrowly losing to similar tactics a year earlier in 2019. This year too, the gentle giant, withstood such dirty tricks to let his driving and skill talk on the track.

Chennai’s Deepak Ravikumar of Performance Racing has sealed the National title in the Super Stock Class with a round to spare as he took an unbeatable lead after five wins from six starts. The championship in two other saloon cars classes – the Indian Touring Cars and Indian Junior Touring Cars – is still wide open. In the MRF 1600cc Class, Chirag Ghorpade will be looking to halt the advancing Shahan Ali Mohsin.

These youngsters, have made a mark in the premier MRF Formula 1600 category and title fight narrowed to these two teenagers. Bengaluru’s Chirag has 153 points (2 wins) and Shahan Ali Mohsin from Agra has rallied brilliantly after a bad weekend to garner 140 points with 4 wins. The two are best-placed to win the championship. However, Rishon Rajeev (110), also from Bengaluru, has an outside chance alond with Coimbatore’s K Suriyavarathan (105, one win). These two cannot be discounted since a maximum of 75 points are available from three races and it all depends on the day’s form besides other conditions.

Experienced Coimbatore driver Arjun Balu of Race Concepts, a private team will be fighting with VW factory-supported drivers. Balu heads the table in the ITC class and leads Rayo Racing’s Jeet Jhabakh by 18.5 points with a maximum of 25 points to be had from the double-header. Another Coimbatore racer, Charen Chandran is ahead of Chennai’s Hatim Shabbir Jamnagarwala of Performance Racing by 13.5 points in the Indian Junior Touring Cars (IJTC) class going into the final round.

In the Formula LGB 1300 category, the race for the title is poised on a knife-edge. Two Momentum Motorsport team-mates, Tijil Rao (85) from Bengaluru, Deepak Ravikumar (72), head the championship table, ahead of Nellore’s Viswas Vijayaraj (DTS Racing, 64), Ruhaan Alva (MSport, 59) from Bengaluru, and Kolkata racer Arya Singh (DTS Racing, 58), all having a realistic shot at the title with a maximum of 50 points to be won.

Chennai’s Sandeep Kumar and Fahad Kutty from Mumbai currently head the points table in the Volkswagen Polo and MRF Saloon Cars (Toyota Etios) categories, both of which are triple-headers.

Ajit Thomas, President of promoters Madras Motor Sports Club, said: “Due to the Covid-19 situation, we could not offer five rounds to the four-wheeler competitions, but the action thus far has been quite exciting with close races. Given the pandemic, it is still heartening that the response has been fairly good with many youngsters, after graduating from karting, are already making their presence felt at this level. And surely, the concluding round this weekend will throw up its share of excitement and surprises. We also salute our sponsors, MRF Tyres, for their unstinted support to the championship.”

There will be live streaming of the races on Facebook and the MMSC website.