Arjun seals Touring Cars title
September 18, 2017
Coimbatore-based Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster Performance) chalked up his fifth win-in-a-row and clinched the title in the premier Indian Touring Cars class at the MMRT track on Sunday as the curtains came down on the fifth and final round of the MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Championship.
Karminder Pal Singh of Delhi won the championship in the Volkswagen Ameo Cup finishing 138 points ahead of Chennai’s Sandeep Kumar.
The names of champions in the Saloon car categories — Indian Junior Touring Cars, Super Stock and Esteem Cup — have been withheld pending post-race scrutiny.
Chennai’s Sandeep Kumar dominated the MRF F1600 class, winning all the three races over the weekend for a total of six race this season. But he finished second in the championship behind Reddy, who too won six outings.
Much of the focus on Sunday was on the Indian Touring Cars race with defending champion Narendran leading his closest rival Deepak Paul Chinnappa (Race Concepts) of Bengaluru by 12 points. As such, Narendran needed to finish third to annex the title, but he did much better by winning the race and thus defended his crown.
“I am happy that everything came together during the second half of the season, and of course, I am thrilled to have won back-to-back championships,” said Narendran.
The results (Provisional – all 8 laps):
MRF F1600: Race 2: 1. Sandeep Kumar 13:39.835s; 2. Anindith Reddy 13:40.026; 3. Arya Singh 13:40.668. Race 3: 1. Sandeep 13:34.344; 2. Arya 13:34.625; 3. Keith Desouza 13:42.660.
Indian Touring Cars: Race 2: 1. Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster) 15:38.832; 2. Ashish Ramaswamy (Red Rooster) 15:42.044; 3. D. Vidya Prakash (Prime) 15:42.065.
Indian Junior Touring Cars: Race 2: 1. Mikhail Merchant (Game Over) 18:26.442; 2. Diljith (DTS) 18:31.785; 3. Chrys D’Souza (Unimek) 18:40.081. Race 3: 1. Merchant 17:20.042; 2. Diljith 17:21.854; 3. D’Souza 17:22.003.
Super Stock: Race 2: 1. Varun V. Anekar (Race Concepts) 17:52.629; 2. Deepak Ravi Kumar (Quickshift) 17:56.341; 3. Bala Vijay B. (Performance) 18:00.524. Race 3: 1. R.P. Rajarajan (Performance) 16:33.909; 2. Deepak Ravi Kumar 16:47.053; 3. Bala Vijay 16:48.146.
Esteem Cup: Race 2: 1. Ananth Pithawalla (N1) 17:38.690; 2. Narendran Sankaran (RAD) 17:41.051; 3. Charen Chandran (Red Rooster) 17:59.077.
Race 3: 1. Sankaran 16:11.451; 2. Raghul Rangasamy (Performance) 16:12.690; 3. Charen Chandran 16:32.022.
Volkswagen Ameo Cup: Race 2: 1. Karminder Pal Singh 16:14. 396; 2. A. Sandeep Kumar 16:26.701; 3. Affan Sadat Safwan Islam 16:27.541.
Race 3: 1. Anning Sun 15:29.336; 2. Karminder 15:35.022; 3. Dhruv Mohite 15.36.299.
