MRF NRC 2018: Sandeep Kumar grabs pole in the MRF F1600 class

The third round of MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Racing Championship 2018 saw some thrilling action yesterday in Chennai.

Chennai’s corporate lawyer Sandeep Kumar finished ahead of everyone in the MRF F1600 class with a best time of one minute, 39.999 seconds around the 3.716km MMRT. The second and third positions were grabbed by Nirmal Umashanker and Keith D’Souza. The 19-year-old championship leader Ashwin Datta, winner of all three races in the previous round in Coimbatore, will start from the eighth position this time.

In the Indian Touring cars class, Arjun Narendran of ARKA motorsports, who regardless of missing the previous rounds finished with a best time of one minute, 52.053 seconds. Winner of both races in the last round, veteran Arjun Balo of Race Concepts finished in the second position while the championship leader Ashish Ramaswamy will start from the third position.

In the remaining categories, the pole position winners were -Mumbai’s Nikunj Vagh of Team N1, (Indian Junior Touring Cars), Bengaluru’s Varun Anekar of Race Concepts (Super Stock) and Vinod S of Team N1 (Esteem Cup) from Erode. Meanwhile in the Volkswagen Ameo cup, Kolhapur’s Druv Mohite took the pole ahead of Thane’s Saurav Bandyopadhyay and Ghaziabad’s Anmol Singh Sahil.

Find below the detailed qualifying results of the championship-

MRF F1600: 1. Sandeep Kumar (Chennai) (01min, 39.999secs); 2. Nirmal Umashanker (Chennai) (01:40.045); 3. Keith D’Souza (Goa) (01:40.069).

Indian Touring Cars: 1. Arjun Narendran (Arka Motorsports) (01:52.053); 2. Arjun Balu (Race Concepts) (01:52.350); 3. Ashish Ramasamy (Arka Motorsports) (01:53.177).

Indian Junior Touring Cars: 1. Nikunj Vagh (Team N1) (02: 04.493); 2. Chrys D’Souza (Unimek Racing) (02:06.663);3. Prabu AS (Arka Motors) (02:06.684).

Super Stock: 1. Varun Anekar (Race Concepts) (01:58.143); 2. Abhinay Bikkani (Race Concepts) (01:59.945); 3. K. Srinivasa Teja (Performance Racing) (02:00.026).

Esteem Cup: 1. S Vinod (Team N1) (02:01.642); 2. Raghul Rangasamy (Performance Racing) (02:02.600); 3. Alisha Abdullah (Infinite Piston) (02:06.878).

Volkswagen Ameo Cup: 1. Dhruv Mohite (Kohlapur) (01:54.713); 2. Saurav Bandyopadhyay (Thane) (01:55.197); 3. Anmol Singh Sahil (Ghaziabad)(01:55.326).