Chennai, Jan 23 (FN Agency) Four races, four winners marked the premier MRF Formula 2000 category, while Coimbatore ace Arjun Narendran bagged a double in the Indian Touring Cars class as the third and penultimate round of the MRF MMSC-FMSCI Indian National Car Racing Championship 2022 concluded at the Madras International Circuit, about 40 km from here, on Sunday. 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 won the first race yesterday quite comfortably, Dillon, Sai Sanjay and Mohammed Ryan hasve to bring their best to earn their victories. Dillon shrugged off an otherwise disappointing weekend, to notch up 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 retain his top position in the 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 record 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 here next weekend.