Shahan Ali Mohsin stars as Teen Brigade storms MMRT

Chennai, 27 Sept, 2021: A host of teenagers stormed the `Racing Capital’ of India, the new-look Madras Motorsports Race Track owned by Madras Motor Sports Club. With the ‘`Golden Oldies’ from Coimbatore missing in action, a depleted Indian Touring Cars’ Class saw the burden fall on evergreen hero, Arjun Balu, who duly won the first race, but it was the Formula cars that stole the limelight during the first round at Irungattukottai, near here. Shahan Ali clocked the fastest lap of Round 1 as he became the ‘Driver of the Day’ on all three days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He is the only driver to clock a sub-1min 40sec time in the entire week-end, posting a 1:39.557 in the afternoon Practice Session on Friday despite hot track temparatures.

The track record for Formula cars stands in the name of Yuven Sundaramoorhty in a MRF2000 car as he clocked 1min 30.323sec. With the new FIA regulations Halo Cockpit Protection becomes mandatory and hence, the MRF Challenge 2020 is likely to be last race of the series. “The MRF Formula 2000 is a single seater formula car with 2.0 litre Mountune Engine engine having a Carbon chassis from Dallara, Italy. It is similar to F3 car in performance. Carbon chassis is tested to FIA F3 Safety standards.”

Whereas, the F1600s are much below the F2000s. “The MRF Formula 1600 is a single seater formula car having a Van Diemen designed chassis with a 1.6 litre Ford Duratec Engine. The chassis is a multi- tubular chromoly space frame, which is bronze braced and tig welded in the cockpit and foot well areas, says J Anand, the man behind the machine, and one of the fastest Indians on track in yesteryears.

Meanwhile, the Formula LGB 1300 saw a huge grid of 26 cars and the MRF Formula 1600 also left many aspirant disappointed as there were only 12 cars ready to race. Even then, there was stiff competition among the ‘Teen Brigade’` with Shahan Ali Mohsin taking overall honours. The 17-year Agra talent clocked some fastest laps in Round 1 on the 3.717-km clock-wise tarmac to emerge with a brace. Bengaluru driver Ruhaan Alva, who won the X30 Karting Senior Nationals recently, made his debut in the National Racing Championship, lost a hard-fought “win” as he logged a penalty in the Formula LGB 1300 Race 1, but bagged the Rookie driver award.

Chirag Ghorpade, another Bengalurean, Coimbatore’s Suriya Varathan, Chennai’s Ahwin Datta, Rajiv Rishon, Amir Sayed, Mohit Aryan, Tijil Rao, Kolkata’s Arya Singh, local lad Dhillon Zachariah (debut podium) and Andhra’s Chetan Surineni all in their teens, are the other youngsters who caught the eye during the weekend. The 1300s too saw many newcomers from Kerala, Andhra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Jaden R Pariat from Guwahati, the vice-champion of X30 Junior Karting Nationals too impressed with some quick laps in FLGB1300.

Many of the drivers were coming after a long lay-off due to the COVID-19 pandemic which halted racing in all of India and also parts of the world for the last year. The MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Racing Championship returned for the 2021 season, with Madras Motor Race Track sporting a new 500-seat grand stand.

Having made his debut in the MRF F1600 championship back in 2019 as a 14-year-old racer, Shahan holds the record of being the youngest to compete in the history of the series, Shahan returned to racing action, now as a 17-year-old in the famed Indian single-seater championship, ably organised by the dedicated team of the Madras Motor Sports Club.

Shahan started off the weekend in style by topping both the practice sessions in the field of 12 cars, setting a time of 1m40.396s in the first Free Practice (FP1) and 1m40.673s in FP2 in his #11 machine. He followed it up, securing his maiden pole for Race 1, clocking a 1m 40.148s lap, his best of the weekend.

He ended up second taking the second best time of the session, only beaten by 0.064s margin. The Race 1 was not ideal for Shahan where a clutch overheat resulted in a jump start and eventual positions drop. A drive-through penalty further hampered his race as he finished seventh eventually.

This helped him to a second-place start in Race 2 where Top-8 from Race 1 were set-up in reverse order. It was a clean start this time and he got into the lead on Lap 1 itself. It was then a straightforward race to secure his maiden victory in single-seater competition by over four seconds, that is over half the straight.

He made the double in Race 3, where he started on the front-row in P2, and secured the race lead on Lap 1 itself. This time he had over seven seconds gap, a lead of over 200metres, to the second-placed runner to round off a solid first weekend in the MRF F1600 Championship, where he was racing after a year’s gap.

“Having been away from racing for so long due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it felt like first-time racing when the weekend kicked-off,” reflected Shahan. “The adrenaline rush you get is next level and this was certainly missing. It is definitely good to be back amid increased safety measures as the pandemic is still ongoing.

“Looking at the weekend, it was a good run and I felt comfortable from the start itself. Except for Race 1 where my clutch got overheated and I lost places in the start, it was, as I said, a fantastic race weekend for me. Being fast from free practice sessions to securing my first single-seater pole and also taking two wins from threeraces in the field of 12 racers was amazing. I hope to carry on with this momentum in the coming rounds too.”