Motorsport

MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Racing Championship 2018 : Day 2

Team Evo India

Ashish Ramaswamy representing Arka Motorsports won the saloon car race with a comfortable 30 second lead over Vijaya Kumar from Prime Racing in saloon car racing. Coimbatore boy Nikanth Ram also from Arka Motorsports was constantly engaged in battle for the second position with Vijaya Kumar.

However, during the second half of the race, Nikanth Ram spun his car, and the second spot was captured by Vijaya Kumar. The podium position was up for grabs now as Vidya Prakash was racing to grab the third position, behind  Nikanth Ram. But the Coimbatore lad held on to his third position, over 7 seconds behind Vijaya Kumar.

In the Indian Junior Touring Cars category, Prabhu AS representing Arka Motorsports finished first, while in the Super Stock and Esteem Cup saw RP Rajarajan and Raghul Rangasamy, both from Performance Racing, got the top honours.

The highlight of the day was Felipe Drugovich who won the 2017 MRF Challenge, amassing 283 points on the board, even though he took the third and sixth position in the two races of the day. Kalmthout started the race on the third position behind Martono and Drugovich, but he overtook both of them to take the lead in the very first lap. The Dutchman won the first race while Presley Martono grabbed the second spot and Drugovich finished third. In the second race, Drugovich was placed down the grid, in the 14th position with a 10 place penalty due to a fuel infringement issue.

Felipe Drugovich,  sealed the championship in the MRF Challenge

The second race was red flagged in the second lap, as Manuel Maldonado, Pavan Ravishankar and Perdana Minang all crashed, and Alex Karkosik from Poland spun off the track. When the race re-started, the laps were reduced to 15 and Danial Frost from Singapore was leading the race, until he ran wide on the 11th lap, with Martano and Kalmthout overtaking him. Frost grabbed the third position, while Maratono finished first, Kalmthout finished second and Drugovich dropped to sixth owing to the penalty. But Drugovich leads the overall championship with 283 points on the board, with still two races to go, while Martono is in second spot with 219 points and Kalmthout with 212 points sits in third position.