Vikash Anand steals the limelight

Vikash Anand survived anxious moments to pull off a brilliant win in the MRF F1600 class in the MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National racing championship at the MMRT track in Sriperumbudur on Saturday.

It was Anand’s third consecutive win following his double in the previous round in March. Pole-sitter Anand was made to sweat for his win after slipping to third in a three-way battle involving Sandeep Kumar, who eventually finished second, and Anindith Reddy, who finished third.

Championship leader Karthik Tharani, who had started the season with four wins on the trot, finished a distant seventh after starting last on the grid as he crashed during qualifying. Consequently, he swapped cars with that of an absent Goutham Parekh, but was never in contention for a podium finish.

Meanwhile, Raghul Rangasamy and Keith Desouza scored double wins in two different categories with Rangasamy winning in the F1300 rookie championship and later super stock class while Desouza recorded victories in the Indian Junior Touring Cars and the Volkswagen Vento Cup.

Also achieving a double was Coimbatore’s Arjun Narendran of Red Rooster Racing in the premium Indian Touring Cars class for his sixth win in seven outings to extend his lead in the championship. After easily winning the first race from pole position, he started the second in fourth position on the reverse grid, but moved to the front in the very first lap and went on to score another comfortable win.

For Desouza, it was a profitable day. He took the honours in the IJTC race after initial winner Anant Pithawalla was docked time penalty for a jump start and later chalked up his first win in the Volkswagen Vento Cup which he attributed to a near-perfect set-up.

Rangasamy, among the busiest drivers in the championship, competing in three categories, won the F1300 race virtually unchallenged and then came through a very competitive race for the top honours in the Super Stock race before finishing the day with a fourth place in the MRF F1600.

The results (Provisional): MRF F1600 (Race one, 10 laps): 1. G Vikash Anand (Chennai) (18mins, 44.147secs); 2. Sandeep Kumar (Chennai) (18:47.373); 3. Anindith Reddy (Hyderabad) (18:47.975).

Indian Touring Cars (Race-one, 10 laps): 1. Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster Performance) (20:12.688.); 2. Deepak Paul Chinnapa (Race Concepts) (20:14.629); 3. Ashish Ramaswamy (Red Rooster Performance (20:16.899).

Race-2: 1. Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster Performance) (20:13.688.); 2. N. Leelakrishnan (Red Rooster Performance) (20:17.457); 3. Deepak Paul Chinnapa (Race Concepts) (20:27.990).

Indian Junior Touring Cars (Race-one, 10 laps): 1. Keith Desouza (UNIMEK Racing) (22.43.885); 2. Ananth Pithawalla (Team N1) (22:59.445); 3. Siddharth Praveen (Mega Racing) (23:24.375).

Super Stock (Race-one, 10 laps): 1. Raghul Rangasamy (Performance Racing) (23:00.633); 2. Dean Mascarenhas (Race Concepts) (23:14.863); 3. Deepak Ravikumar (Pvt) (23:14.920).

F1300 Rookie championship (Race-one, 8 laps): 1. Raghul Rangasamy (WSRF) (16:24.674); 2. Arya Singh (Momentum Motorsports) (16:28.768); 3. C. Tejas Ram (WSRF) (16:43.448).

Volkswagen Vento Cup (Race-one, 10 laps): 1. Keith Desouza (Goa) (21:11.542); 2. Niranjan Todkari (Pune) (21:16.422); 3. Karminder Pal Singh (Delhi) (21:19.519).