Chennai, 18 Aug 2017: Raghul Rangasamy (Performance Racing) set a hot pace to grab overall pole position in the saloon cars category at the MMRT track here on Friday as the fourth round of the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Racing Championship commenced with qualifying and practice sessions.
Rangasamy, hailing from the temple town of Mamallapuram near here, topped in the Esteem class, while Bengaluru’s Varun Anekar (Race Concepts) was the quickest in the Super Stock Category and Kamlesh Parmar (Team N1 Racing) from Mumbai topped the Indian Junior Touring Cars.
Aanjan Patodia of Momentum Sports grabbed the pole position in the Formula LGB 1300 category, in both Open and Rookie classes while Mumbai’s Saurav Bhandopadhyay was the fastest in the Volkswagen Ameo Cup qualifying session.
Earlier, Hyderabad’s Anindith Reddy (58.149secs) warmed up nicely by being the quickest during practice session in the marquee MRF FF1600 category ahead of Kolkata schoolboy Arya Singh (58.643), ahead of Saturday’s qualifying session.
In the premier Indian Touring Cars class practice session, Ashish Ramaswamy (Red Rooster Performance) from Bengaluru clocked a best lap of 01:06.121, upstaging championship leader Deepak Paul Chinnappa (Race Concepts) who did 01:06.501, ahead of defending champion Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster Performance, 01:06.866). The qualifying round will be run on Saturday.
The start of the day’s proceedings were delayed due to water puddles in some sections of the track following heavy overnight rains, forcing the organizers, with the consent of the competitors, to use the “short loop” (2.1Kms) instead of the regular full configuration.
The results (Qualifying – provisional):
Formula LGB 1300 (Open): 1. Aanjan Patodia (Momentum Sports) (01min, 04.675secs); 2. Yash Aradhya (Momentum Sports) (01:04.870); 3. Deepak Ravikumar (Wallace Sports) (01:05.448). Rookie: 1. Patodia; 2. Aradhya; 3. Bala Prasath (DTS Racing) (01:05.238).
Saloon cars – Esteem: 1. Raghul Rangasamy (Performance Racing) (01:09.472); 2. Narendran (RAD Racing) (01:09.789); 3. Anant Pithawalla (Team N1) (01:10.013). Super Stock: 1. Varun Anekar (Race Concepts) (01:10.475); 2. Deepak Ravikumar (Quickshift Racing) (01:11.174); 3. RP Rajarajan (Performance Racing) (01:11.736). Indian Junior Touring Cars: 1. Kamlesh Parmar (Team N1) (01:12.418); 2. Mikhail Merchant (Team Game Over) (01:13.917); 3. Prabhu AS (Red Rooster Performance) (01:14.586).
Volkswagen Ameo Cup: 1. Saurav Bhandopadhyay (Mumbai) (01:06.377); 2. Karminder Singh (Delhi) (01:06.457); 3. A Sandeep Kumar (Chennai) (01:06.680).
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.
eom/AP Media Communications press release
