Arya Singh, Anindith Reddy emerge champions: MMSC National racing
Chennai, 16 Sept 2017: On a day of twists and turns, Kolkata schoolboy Arya Singh (Formula LGB 1300) and Hyderabad’s Anindith Reddy (MRF F1600) emerged champions even as the battles for titles intensified in the other classes in the fifth and concluding round of the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Racing Championship at the MMRT track here on Saturday.
In the MRF F1600, championship leader Anindith Reddy from Hyderabad sealed the title which will earn him ticket to the Mazda Road to Indy shootout in the United States later this year. Despite a non-finish following a collision that took the rear wing of his car, Anindith was well placed with a lead of 32 points over today’s winner Sandeep Kumar (Chennai) with two more races to be run on Sunday and a maximum of 25 points at stake.
For Arya Singh, it was a great weekend as he clinched both the National and Rookie crowns in the Formula LGB 1300 class. “I am extremely happy to win both National and Rookie titles. Today, I didn’t have the pace to win the races outright, but otherwise, it has been a great weekend for me,” said an elated Arya Singh who today won one race and was second in the other.
The biggest shocker of the day came in the premier Indian Touring Cars class where defending champion Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster Performance) from Coimbatore won the race after running third for the major part of the eight-lapper.
Championship leader and pole-sitter Deepak Paul Chinnappa (Race Concepts) from Bengaluru who led for six laps and looked set to win, suffered a brake failure to eventually finish seventh.
Narendran’s team-mate Ashish Ramaswamy, also from Bengaluru, who had taken over the lead, made a mistake in the last lap. It allowed Narendran to pass him to win the race.
“I had handling issues with my car and there was no way I could have caught Deepak. But after he spun twice, I moved to second and then passed Ashish in the last lap. I am leading Deepak by 12 points with the last race to be run tomorrow. Fingers crossed!” said Narendran who moved to 169 points to Deepak Paul’s 157 following his fourth win of the season.
Having dominated the Free Practice sessions as well as Qualifying yesterday with the fastest lap times, Saurav Bandyopadhyay (Mumbai) scored his second win of the season in the Volkswagen Ameo Cup ahead of guest racer from China Anning Sun and Sandeep Kumar, but still trails championship leader Karminder Singh (Delhi) by 92 points.
The results (Provisional):
Indian Touring Cars (8 laps): 1. Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster Performance) (15 mins, 24.752 sec); 2. Ashish Ramaswamy (Red Rooster Performance) (15:25.263); 3. D Vidya Prakash (Prime Racing) (15:38.322).
Formula LGB 1300 (National) – Race 1 (7 laps): 1. Arya Singh (DTS Racing) (13:19.668); 2. Deepak Ravikumar (Wallace Sports) (13:24.332); 3. Yash Aradhya (Momentum Motorsport) (13:25.309). Rookie Cup: 1.Arya Singh; 2. Yash Aradhya (Momentum Motorsports); 3. Nabil Hussain (DTS Racing) (13:29.076).
Race 2 (National, 8 laps): 1. Yash Aradhya (Momentum Motorsport) (14:57.852); 2. Arya Singh (DTS Racing) (15:06.503); 3. Rupesh Sivakumar (DTS Racing) (15:08.230). Rookie Cup: 1. Yash Aradhya; 2. Arya Singh; 3. Aanjan Patodia (Momentum Motorsport) (15:19.441).
Indian Junior Touring Cars – Race 1 (8 laps): 1. Kamlesh Parmar (Team N1) (17:11.214); 2. Mikhail Merchant (Team Game Over) (17:14.275); 3. Hisham EKP (DTS Racing) (17:23.706).
Super Stock – Race 1 (8 laps): 1. RP Rajarajan (Performance Racing) (16:24.531); 2. Varun V Anekar (Race Concepts) (16:25.977); 3. Deepak Ravikumar (Quickshift Racing) (16:51.969).
Esteem Cup (Race 2) (8 laps): 1. Narendran Sankaran (Rad Racing) (16:06.645); 2. Anant Pithawalla (Team N1) (16:07.509); 3. Vinod S (Team N1) (16:28.953).
Volkswagen Ameo Cup – Race 1 (8 laps): 1. Saurav Bandyopadhyay (Mumbai) (18:07.383); 2.Anning Sun (Shanghai) (18:08.130); 3. A Sandeep Kumar (Chennai) (18:11.152).
About Madras Motor Sports Club
The Madras Motor Sports Club has been the pioneer in developing and promoting motorsport in India since 1953, and we look to further improve in the years to come. It is the club’s endeavor to provide more opportunities for competitors and to this end, it has chalked out a progressive program for 2016. From the days of Sholavaram , MMSC built its own racetrack which was inaugurated in 1979 and secured its FIA Grade-2 international certification in 2015, making it the only club which owns such a facility. The club has organised the Porsche Super Cup, Formula Campos, Formula Asia, Asian touring car championships, Formula 3, Tata Prima Truck racing championship, the Asian 2-wheeler racing championships besides a host of other motorsport events over the years. The club also has active participation for its events from vehicle manufacturers who also use the Madras Motor Race Track (MMRT) extensively for testing their products.
ends/MMSC/AP Media Communications press release
