Chennai, July 27 (IANS) Arjun Narendran and Sudanand Daniel completed a fruitful weekend as the fourth round of the Indian National Racing Championship concluded here at the MMRT track, which is celebrating its silver jubilee.
Narendran, the 21-year-old computer science student from Coimbatore, won three races, including the MRF F1600 and the double-header in the Indian Touring Cars (ITC) class while 38-year-old Daniel, a captain in Air Asia airline, won both his outings in Formula LGB1300 besides the second race in the Super Stock category on Sunday.
Also on the winning track were Goutham Parekh, who took the honours with a fine drive in the first race of the MRF F1600 class, and Sidharth Balasundaram, who achieved a double in the Indian Junior Touring Cars category.
In Race 1 of MRF F1600, Tharanisingh kept the lead heading into Turn 1 with Parekh jumping Narendran into second place. Parekh overtook his championship rival Tharanisingh on Lap 3 to take the lead.
Tharanisingh was given a drive-through penalty for a jump start which put him back in sixth place on Lap 4. Parekh comfortably took the chequered flag in first place ahead of Narendran. Tharanisingh fought back to finish in third place.
In Race 2, reverse pole sitter Chetan Korada took the lead followed by Narendran and Tharanisingh. Narendran passed Korada for the lead with Tharanisingh running off track and losing several places. Parekh got past Korada but could not pass Narendran, who drove brilliantly to win the race. Parekh came in second while Tharanisingh recovered to finish third.
Parekh said: “A good weekend which didn’t start off quite good. Race 1 was a turning point. A win and then a second place in the second race starting from fourth was not great. Nevertheless, a good weekend overall.”
Narendran was in a different league in both the ITC races that he dominated from start to finish. In the first race, starting from pole position, Narendran opened a big gap by the end of the first lap and won by a massive margin.
Narendran’s dominance was even more obvious in the second race that he won by the proverbial country mile despite starting fourth on the reverse grid.
Likewise, Daniel, who won the first race in the Formula LGB1300 on Saturday, enjoyed another fine outing as he took the honours in the second outing on Sunday after early leader and championship topper Mohit Aryan spun yet again.
The results:
MRF F1600 – Race 1 (10 laps): Goutham Parekh 1 (17mins, 30.851secs); Arjun Narendran 2 (17:39.655); Karthik Tharanisingh 3 (17:46.034). Race – 2 (12 laps): Arjun Narendran 1 (20:55.388); Goutham Parekh 2 (20:55.717); Karthik Tharanisingh 3 (21:03.205).
Indian Touring Cars – Race 1 (10 laps): Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster Racing) 1 (19:19.608); Ashish Ramaswamy (Red Rooster Racing) 2 (19:23.899); C. Rajaram (Prime Racing) 3 (19:36.299). Race 2 (10 laps): Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster Racing) 1 (19:09.178); Ashish Ramaswamy (Red Rooster Racing) 2 (19:36.487); Deepak Paul Chinnapa (Race Concepts) 3 (19:38.234).
Indian Junior Touring Cars (10 laps): Sidharth Balasundaram (Red Rooster Racing) 1 (23:44.871); Fahad Kutty (Team Game Over) 2 (23:45.636); Anant Pithawalla (Team N1) 3 (23:45.994).
Super Stock (10 laps): Sudanand Daniel (Performance Racing) 1 (24:19.420); Varun Anekar (Race Concepts) 2 (24:24.533); Chandresh N Tolia (Team Game Over) 3 (24:29.375).
Formula LGB 1300: Sudanand Daniel (Anish Racing) 1 (19:45.908); Mohit Aryan (Anish Racing) 2 (19:51.189); Rahul Rangasamy (Wallace Sports) 3 (19:52.304).