Coimbatore veteran Arjun Balu (Race Concepts) and Chirag Ghorpade, the schoolboy from Bengaluru, lit up the second round of the MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Car Racing Championship 2021 with dominating performances in their respective categories on a rain-marred Sunday at the MMRT here.
Chirag, who had won the first race in the MRF F1600 category on Saturday, topped the third today of the triple-header after local teenager Dillon Zacharaiah took the honours in the second outing for his maiden win in this class.
Balu, the 47-year old ace from Coimbatore, brought into play all his vast experience to complete a double in the premier Indian Touring Cars class after starting from P3 (reverse grid) in a “wet race” following a bout of heavy showers in the afternoon.
The day’s programme was delayed due to bursts of rains overnight and this morning, but the track dried up quickly later in bright sunshine.
The results (provisional, 8 laps unless mentioned):
MRF F1600 (Race-2): 1. Dillon Zacharaiah (Chennai) (16mins, 37.473secs); 2. Suriyavarathan (Coimbatore) (16:37.844); 3. Viswas Vijayaraj (Nellore) (16:38.344).
Race-3 (6 laps): 1. Chirag Ghorpade (Bengaluru) (10:37.982); 2. Viswas Vijayaraj (Nellore) (10:45.318); 3. Ashwin Datta (Chennai) (10:45.995).
Indian Touring Cars (Race-2): 1. Arjun Balu (Race Concepts, Coimbatore) (17:00.366); 2. Jeet Jhabakh (Rayo Racing, Hyderabad) (17:09.508); 3. Anindith Reddy (Rayo Racing, Hyderabad) (17:09.774).
Super Stock (Race-2): 1. Rithvik Thomas (Race Concepts, Bengaluru) (18:32.647); 2. Deepak Ravikumar (Performance Racing, Chennai) (18:33.644); 3. R.P. Raja Rajan (Performance Racing, Chennai) (18:50.454).
Indian Junior Touring Cars (Race-2): 1. Charen Chandran (Pvt, Coimbatore) (18:03.480); 2. K. Srinivas Teja (Performance Racing, Chennai) (18:07.131); 3. Hatim Shabbir Jamnagarwala (Performance Racing, Chennai) (18:11.507).
Formula LGB 1300 (Race-2): 1. Raghul Rangasamy (MSport, Chennai) (19:34.504); 2. Tijil Rao (Momentum Motorsport, Bengaluru) (19:36.053); 3. Viswas Vijayaraj (DTS Racing, Nellore) (19:40.848).
Volkswagen Polo (Race-1): 1. Sai Sanjay (Salem) (16:45.578); 2. Sandeep Kumar (Chennai) (16:46.427); 3. Sourav Bandyopadhyay (Thane) (16:53.278).
Race-2: 1. Ritesh Rai (Chennai) (16:57.162); 2. Avik Anwar (Bangladesh) (16:57.729); 3. Sandeep Kumar (Chennai) (16:58.533).
MRF Saloon Cars (Toyota Etios – Race 3, 4 laps): 1. Fahad Kutty (Red Line Racing, Mumbai) (12:11.978); 2. Jamie Shaw (Red Line Racing, Mumbai) (12:16.327); 3. Jai Prashant Venkat (Red Line Racing, Coimbatore) (12:16.595).
