Pune’s 14-year Sai Shiva Makesh gets maiden podium
Ryan, Dillon, Sai Sanjay win a race each: MRF F2000
Chennai, January 22: Fourteen-year-old Sai Shiva Makesh, the youngest among all the drivers in the National Championship, pulled a rabbit out of his hat to clinch his maiden podium, taking a well-defended second place in the Formula LGB class as the third and penultimate round of the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Car Racing Championship 2022 concluded at the Madras International Circuit here on Sunday.
The 9th Standard student of Bishop’s school in Pune, started on P3 in the reverse grid and defended well to keep his position till the last lap but with the driver ahead of him spinning in the last corner, Sai Shiva clinched a second place in the Formula LGB 1300 Race 2. After making his presence felt in the karting Nationals, Sai Shiva graduated to the Formula cars, only this year making his debut in the last round, the Round 2 of the Championship.
The MRF Formula 2000 category had three races today making it four races in this round. And the premier class saw four different winners from four races while Coimbatore ace Arjun Narendran bagged a double in the Indian Touring Cars class
The competition in the MRF F2000 category was fierce with Sohil Shah (Bengaluru), Dillon Thomas Zachariah (Chennai), Sai Sanjay (Salem) and Mohammed Ryan (Chennai) each winning a race over the weekend.
If Sohil Shah had won the first race yesterday quite comfortably, Dillon, Sai Sanjay and Mohammed Ryan had to earn their victories today. Dillon shrugged off an otherwise disappointing weekend, to notch his maiden win of the season while Ryan held off Sohil Shah in the next outing. It was then Sai Sanjay’s turn to edge out Sohil Shah in the fourth race to safeguard his top position in the championship standings.
Arjun Narendran (Arka Motorsports), winner of Race-1 yesterday, swept to another fine win starting from P5 on the reverse grid in the Indian Touring Cars category. Championship leader Arjun Balu (Race Concepts) from Coimbatore who moved up after starting P8, limped behind him for second place with his car suffering from loss of power, while Hyderabad’s Jeet Jabakh (Rayo Racing) finished a distant third in the 12-lap race interrupted by a Safety Car period.
In the Indian Junior Touring Cars category, Akkineni Anand Prasad led a podium sweep for Performance Racing with Raja Rajan and Srinivas Teja coming in second and third, respectively. Another Performance Racing driver, Ritesh Rai, also from Chennai, topped the Super Stock category to complete a double for the weekend.
Earlier, the experienced Raghul Rangasamy (MSport) survived tough competition to notch his third win in the Formula LGB 1300 category after starting from P8 on the reverse grid. Raghul received close attention from Viswas Vijayaraj (Nellore, DTS Racing) before the latter skidded off the track at the last corner when the pair was going wheel-to-wheel.
The incident saw Pune’s Sai Shiva Makesh Sankaran (MSport) finishing second, followed by Tijil Rao (DTS Racing) from Bengaluru.
Chandigarh’s Angad Mathroo notched his second win of the season in the MRF Saloon Cars (Toyota Etios) category. The victory brought him within 10 points of championship leader Justin Singh (Gurugram) who finished second ahead of Jai Prashanth Venkat (Coimbatore).
Later, Chennai’s Sandeep Kumar completed a clean sweep by winning his fourth consecutive race in the Volkswagen Polo Cup this weekend.
The fourth and concluding round will be held at the same venue on the weekend of January 27-29.
MRF Formula 2000 (Race-2, 10 laps): 1. Dillon Thomas Zachariah (Chennai) (15mins, 41.751sec); 2. Divy Nandan (Gurugram) (15:45.155); 3. Mohamed Ryan (Chennai) (15:45.403). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Mohamed Ryan (15:12.845); 2. Sohil Shah (Bengaluru) (15:13.898); 3. Divy Nandan (15:19.875). Race-4 (10 laps): 1. Sai Sanjay T (Salem) (15:35.461); 2. Sohil Shah (15:36.167); 3. Dillon Thomas Zachariah (15:47.167).
Indian Touring Cars (Race-2, 12 laps): 1. Arjun Narendran (Coimbatore, Arka Motorsports) (27:34.644); 2. Arjun Balu (Coimbatore, Race Concepts) (27:34.913); 3. Jeet Jabakh (Hyderabad, Rayo Racing) (27:52.303).
Indian Junior Touring Cars (Race-2, 12 laps): 1. Akkineni Anand Prasad (Chennai, Performance Racing) (28:07.045); 2. Raja Rajan (Chennai, Performance Racing) (28:11.000); K Srinivas Teja (Chennai, Performance Racing) (28:15.481).
Super Stock (Race-2, 12 laps): 1. Ritesh Rai (Chennai, Performance Racing) (29:05.372); 2. Diljith TS (Thrissur, DTS Racing) (29:13.249); Jason Saldanha (Mangaluru, DB Motorsports) (29:14.491).
MRF Saloons (Toyota Etios) (Race-2, 10 laps): 1. Angad Mathroo (Chandigarh) (20:52.676); 2. Justin Singh (Gurugram) (20:54.991); 3. Jai Prashanth Venkat (Coimbatore) (21:19.977).
Formula LGB 1300 (Race-2, 9 laps): 1. Raghul Rangasamy (Mamallapuram, MSport) (17:11.423); 2. Sai Shiva Makesh Sankaran (Pune, MSport) (17:11.572); 3. Tijil Rao (Bengaluru, Momentum Motorsports) (17:20.620).
Volkswagen Polo Cup (Race-3, 8 laps): 1. Sandeep Kumar (Chennai) (15:43.185); 2. Jeet Jabakh (Hyderabad) (15:47.025); 3. Aditya Swaminathan (Bengaluru) (15:47.891). Race-4 (10 laps): 1. Sandeep Kumar (19:43.676); 2. Raaj Bakharu (Mumbai) (19:48.119); 3. Aditya Swaminathan (Bengaluru) (19:55.032).
