MRF Challenge: Ryan Cullen ahead of Sowery and Bharath Raj to start in 6th
Irungattukottai (Chennai), 23 Jan 2015: Dark horse, Raj Bharath suffered initial hiccups as title contender Ryan Cullen boosted his chances by qualifying 2nd, ahead of championship leader Toby Sowery, who took P4 and Raj Bharath, who is third in the standings, will follow further back in 6th position. German driver Sebastian Balthasar took pole position in the final round of the MRF Challenge 2014 at the MMRT in Chennai.
2014 MRF FF1600 Champion Tarun Reddy was the fastest Indian and will start in 5th position. Young British driver Toby Sowery holds a slender 14 point lead over GP3 driver Ryan Cullen, with Indian driver Raj Bharath also in with a chance, albeit 29 points off the leader.
Qualifying was always going to be close after the tight practice sessions. British driver Oscar King, who has been quick in all practice sessions set a time of 1:35.563 to top the times after 5 minutes. Cullen was quick to respond and went almost half a second faster to set a 1:35.095. Balthasar and Sowery both broke the 1:35s barrier to do a late 1:34.9. Mid way through the session the top drivers came in to change for a new set of MRF tyres. The times started tumbling as Balthasar went even faster to set a fastest time of 1:34.543 which was enough for pole position. Behind him was Cullen, King, Sowery, Reddy and Bharath.
An ecstatic Balthasar commented, “It feels great to be on pole position in my first race this season. Qualifying was tough as the sun was setting and it was a challenge for all the drivers. Starting on pole always gives you the best chance to win and I am confident of having a great race tomorrow and will do my best to stay out of the title fight.”
GP3 driver Ryan Cullen was disappointed to miss out on pole position by just one tenth off a second but was happy to start ahead of his rivals. He said, “It was a really good qualifying session but a shame to miss out on pole position as I felt I definitely had the pace. But it is important I beat Toby (Sowery) and hopefully also have some cars between us as it will help me in the title fight. I am confident of a strong result tomorrow so really looking forward to some good racing.”
Earlier in the day Sowery topped Free Practice 1 ahead of King and Balthasar. All drivers were within one tenth off a second of each other with Cullen and Raj in 5th & 6th places respectively. Balthsar struck back to go fastest in Free Practice 2 edging surprise debutant Mathew Solomon and Toby Sowery.
Advait Deodhar and Karthik Tharani Singh look to be the favourites in the MRF FF1600 series as both drivers looked to be in a league of their own. Advait was fastest in both practice sessions with Karthik right behind in what promises to be an intesne battle between the two this weekend.
Saturday will see Race 1 & 2 of the MRF Challenge while Round 1 of the MRF FF1600 will feature the qualifying and the race.
eom/MMSC press release
