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Category: Racing
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Leela wins ITC National title
Noida (New Delhi), 19 Sept 2013: N Leelakrishnan was crowned champion in the Indian Touring Cars (ITC) class in the fifth and final round of the National Racing Championship for cars at the Buddh International Circuit here Sunday.
Leelakrishnan started on pole and convincingly led from start to finish. Arjun Balu starting second, also had a good start and was followed by Sivaramakrishnan and V Ramnarayan.
Despite a hard chase from Sivaramkrishnan who was all over him, Balu stayed put in second place. Sivaramkrishnan made his move on the third lap and passed Arjun Balu with Ramnarayan also getting ahead of him in the next lap.
Meanwhile, Leelakrishnan took the flag first and crosssed the finish line only to be slapped a penalty which pushed him down to third place. However, his third position in the race was good enough to clinch the National title in ITC class. Arjun Balu came second in the championship ahead of Ramnarayan in third.
N. Leelakrishnan, also known as Leela in Indian motorsport circles, is a seven-time National Rally Champion and one time Formula 3(India) champion from Coimbatore.
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Parth Ghorpade 9th in Formula Renault 2.0 Alps debut
Vallelunga (Italy), 8 April 2013: Young Indian racerParth Ghorpade had a promising start in his Formula Renault 2.0 ALPS debut when he finished in 9th position out of a total of 36 cars in Race 1 at the opening race at Vallelunga, Italy. In Race 2, Parth had a brilliant start and moved from 16th to 7th position in the opening lap before being punted out of the race.
The Friday practice sessions, which were all hit by heavy rain, saw Parth finishing in 24th and 19th positions. This also meant that Parth went into qualifying with limited dry running time. Qualifying is split into two groups since the grid has 36 cars on it. Parth put in a fantastic lap to go 4th fastest in his group and would start 8th on the grid for Race 1, just half a second of the pole-sitter in his very first qualifying session.
In Race 1, Parth had a bad start and slipped to 11th place. He managed to pull off two great overtaking moves and ended up finishing in 9th position. His lap times were close to the leader but with the field so closely bunched together, 9th position was the best he could do. He started Race 2 in 16th position and had ones of the best opening laps of his career to move up 9 places to 7th position. On lap 2 Parth was hit from behind and ended up in the gravel forcing him to retire.
Parth was confident of a better showing in the coming races after a good start to the season. He commented, “We always knew this was going to be a very competitive series so to qualify 4th in the group in our first qualifying session exceeded all expectations. I had a slow start and lost some positions at the start. After that I started pushing and managed to overtake 2 cars and move up to 9th place. I was quicker than some of the guys ahead of me but could not overtake due to the characteristics of the circuit. In Race 2, I probably had the best start of my racing career and was up to 7th position from 16th and the car felt really good. On lap 2 I suddenly felt a hit from behind and was punted into the gravel.
Overall I am satisfied with the opening race. You have 25 cars within 1 second of each other so it is easily the most competitive field I have even raced in. We will test again before the race next month. I am looking forward to the rest of the season and confident for the same.” added Parth.
The Formula Renault 2.0 ALPS, is one of the most competitive feeder series for the Formula Renault 3.5 championship. The Formula Renault 2.0 ALPS, powered by the Clio III Renault Sport engine, has a paddle-operated 7-speed sequential gearbox, with 250bhp and push rod suspension.
The ALPS series will have 36 drivers for the 2013 season with 7 rounds consisting of two races each. The 2013 Formula Renault 2.0 ALPS calendar includes visits to the historic Spa-Francorrchamps, Monza, Imola with the first race taking place in Vallelunga on April 7. Each race weekend will have three 60 minute practice sessions on Friday, with qualifying and Race 1 on Saturday and Race 2 on Sunday.
19 year-old Ghorpade is the 2012 Formula Pilota Asian Champion, a five-time National Karting Champion, and runner-up in the inaugural 2010 Volkswagen Polo Cup India.
Calendar for the 2013 Formula Renault 2.0 ALPS
1 April 7 Vallelunga 2 May 12 Imola 3 June 9 Spa-Francorchamps 4 July 7 Monza 5 July 28 Misano 6 September 8 Mugello 7 October 6 Imola Updated files 16 apr 2020
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Arjun Maini, Tarun Reddy, Jehan Daruvala win the `1 from a Billion Hunt’
Delhi, 28 Oct 2011: After hosting the regional rounds of the `One From A Billion’ Hunt spanning seven cities, the Sahara Force India Formula One Team Academy has finally chosen the three winners from thousands of applicants during the final round of the Hunt recently held at Silverstone.
Arjun Maini (14 year old) from Bangalore was chosen as the winner of the Sahara Force India Formula One Team Academy’s One From A Billion Hunt. The first runner up was Tarun Reddy (14) from Chennai with the second runner up being Jehan Daruvala (13) from Mumbai. While Arjun Maini and Tarun Reddy qualified from the Bangalore and Chennai regional rounds of the One From A Billion Hunt, Jehan Daruvala qualified through the Wild Card Entry Round that was held in Hyderabad.
At the end of the intensive hands-on week, an expert panel consisting of Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal, Sahara Force India Formula One, Eddie Jordan, F1 Expert and Commentator of BBC, Anthony Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg, Test and reserve driver, Sahara Force India Team, evaluated and picked the three winners on the basis of a holistic assessment of their multiple capabilities and proficiency in requisite areas.
The winners were chosen from the ten national finalists selected during the National Finals held in Goa. The ten finalists went on to do a week-long intensive stint at Silverstone, UK comprising sessions of driver tuition on Dmax Karts, a day at the Porsche Human Performance Centre to assess and develop fitness for motorsports and media training with Goodman Media. The ten selected drivers completed their Silverstone experience with a race in Senior Dmax karts at the Daytona Kart Circuit, Milton Keynes.
“The top three were very close in the race for the championship and I have decided that all three would be sent to Europe for a comprehensive Driver Development Programme. The decision to be taken in consultation with their parents will ensure their education, lodging and training by Sahara Force India.” added Dr. Mallya.
Arjun Maini, Tarun Reddy and Jehan Daravala, will receive a fully funded European based driver development programme preparing them to become Formula One drivers. They will commence their journey to becoming a Formula 1 driver with a go-karting programme in Europe. They will then advance to appropriate single-seater formula series before progressing to GP3 and GP2 and then F1.
Bollywood connection
The Sahara Force India Formula One Team, hosted a very special guest at the inaugural Indian Grand Prix. Present at the Sahara Force India Formula One Team garage and showing his support for the team was none other than Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan. Present along with Mr. Khan was
Vijay Mallya, Team Principal and Managing Director, and Subrata Roy Sahara, Chairman of Sahara Force India Formula One Team
(Note: Retrieved from old website articles in Oct 2019)
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Vishnu Prasad back at the top
Chennai, 19 Oct 2011: The excitement is mounting with every round of the JK Tyre Volkswagen Polo R Cup 2011. The minimal points difference after Round Five has left the Championship wide open with the top 4 drivers having a clear shot at being the Champion. Noorani and guest driver, Gaurav Dalal, emerged as the winners of Race One and Race Two respectively. Vishnu Prasad, who was leading the championship till Round Three is back on the leadership position with 320 points. Vishnu is followed by Rahil with 315 points and Oshan Kothadiya with 288 points. Fourth and fifth positions are taken up by Avdumber Hede (277 points) and Mihir Dharkar (235 points) respectively.
In Race One, Oshan in car # 14 could not take advantage of his pole position due to extra wheel spin of his car. This incident gave Rahil the opportunity to take the lead into the first corner. He held the lead from there on and went on to win the race with Oshan right behind him. Avdumber in car # 2 started fifth on the grid and quickly overtook Munjal Savla. He maintained his fourth position till the eighth lap, where he overtook Mihir Dharkar in car # 19 to grab the final podium position. Vishnu, who had the second best time in qualifying, started the race from the 10th position owing to the previous round’s penalty. He finished 5th to grab 32 points from Race One.
In Race Two, Guest Driver Gaurav Dalal in car # 10, took advantage of starting second on the grid and went around the outside of pole sitter, Vidit Jain in the first corner. Vishnu in car # 22 who also had a great start, got past Vidit on lap two and stayed in second place for the rest of the race. Race One winner, Rahil Noorani had a dismal race after spinning out of fourth position and finally finished down in thirteenth position. Mihir who was in third place was followed by Munjal and Oshan in fourth and fifth position respectively. Vishnu was able to grab 60 points in this race as Gaurav was a guest driver and was not entitled to any championship points.
The Championship standings after Round Five of JK Tyre Volkswagen Polo R Cup 2011, as well as the podium results from the two races:SR NO
DRIVER NAME
RD 1 -RACE 1
RD 1 -RACE 2
RD 2 -RACE 1
RD 2 -RACE 2
RD 3 -RACE 1
RD 3 -RACE 2
RD 4 -RACE 1
RD 4 -RACE 2
RD 5 -RACE 1
RD 5 -RACE 2
TOTAL
1
Vishnu Prasad
30
30
20
30
60
EX
32
26
32
60
320
2
Rahil Noorani
17
3
30
15
40
30
40
60
60
20
315
3
Oshan Kothadiya
16
15
17
24
34
40
60
DNF
48
34
288
4
Avdumber Hede
15
16
16
12
32
60
34
40
40
12
277
5
Mihir Dharkar
24
24
15
14
24
10
24
18
34
48
235
6
Munjal Savla
14
17
7
8
22
26
48
DNF
30
40
212
7
Alisha Abdullah
13
20
3
16
28
28
16
30
20
14
188
8
Angad Singh Matharoo
8
4
4
3
18
24
14
48
26
32
181
9
Vidit Jain
5
5
6
10
26
34
30
20
28
10
174
10
Abhinav Aditya Agarwal
11
13
13
11
10
14
26
34
12
24
168
11
Aditya Pawar
9
12
5
4
8
20
20
28
24
28
158
12
Sourav Bandyopadhyay
10
8
DNF
6
20
22
28
22
14
16
146
13
Achintya Mehrotra
7
11
10
9
16
18
12
16
16
18
133
14
Swamathia Rayen
4
6
8
DNF
12
16
18
32
10
22
128
15
Ajay Kini
DNP
DNP
24
20
48
32
DNP
DNP
DNP
DNP
124
16
Donovan Vaz
6
10
14
5
14
12
6
DNS
22
30
119
17
Lawrence Taur
DNF
7
9
7
DNP
DNP
22
24
18
26
113
18
Prateek Dalal
DNF
DNF
11
17
30
48
DNP
DNP
DNP
DNP
106
19
Sayeed Shaikh
12
9
DNP
DNP
DNF: Did Not Finish
DNP: Did Not Participate
EX: Excluded from the racePodium Positions for Race One of Round Five
Position
Car Number
Driver
City
Total Time
1.
20
Rahil Noorani
Mumbai
20:46.700
2.
14
Oshan Kothadiya
Pune
20:49.075
3.
2
Avdumber Hede
Goa
20:51.552
Podium Positions for Race Two of Round Five
Position
Car Number
Driver
City
Total Time
1.
10
Gaurav Dalal
Chennai
20:43.175
2.
22
Vishnu Prasad
Chennai
20:48.082
3.
19
Mihir Dharkar
Mumbai
20:52.651
Thanks to its proven concept of promoting young talent abroad, the Polo Cup enjoys the reputation of being an ideal stepping stone to enter professional racing. Building on its success with the debut Polo Cup India last year, Volkswagen Motorsport will continue to make Polo R Cup the premier touring car championship in the country.
Motor sports enthusiasts interested in getting further information can log on to the website, www.polocup.in. This website displays information about the format of Polo R Cup, race updates and driver profiles. Follow Polo R Cup on www.facebook.com/vwpolocupIndia.
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‘The Flying Taurus’ is at it again; FIA F-2 beckons popular star Ajith
Ajith Kumar all geared up. INDIAinF1 file photo We at India in F1.com know him best as the Flying Taurus! The South Indian film star and motor racing enthusiast, Ajith Kumar is all set to take part in this year’s FIA Formula 2 Championship. This will be his third season in International racing. After his 2003 Debut in the Formula BMW Asia Championship, where he qualified 4th and finished 6th for his best result in the Korean leg, he entered the British Formula 3 Scholarship Class in 2004, where he scored two podium finishes.
Chennai, 24 March 2010: South Indian film star and motor racing enthusiast, Ajith Kumar is all set to take part in this year’s FIA Formula 2 Championship. This will be his third season in International racing after his 2003 Debut in the Formula BMW Asia Championship, where his best results were in Korea (Qualified 4th and finished 6th) and the 2004 races in British Formula 3 Scholarship Class, where he scored two podium finishes.
Ajith feels that the time is ripe for providing a much-needed impetus to the motor racing scene in India considering a few interesting developments in the sporting activity. While ace driver Narain Karthikeyan was the first Indian to get into Formula 1, he is now closely followed by Karun Chandhok who is racing in Formula 1 this year. In Formula 2, apart from Ajith Kumar, there are two other Indians in the fray – Armaan Ebrahim and Parthiva Sureshwaran. All this, Ajith feels, will induce more Indian youngsters to take to the sport. In the Indian racing scene, apart from the established JK Tyre series, in recent times, we have seen MRF also entering with their own Formula racing series. Volkswagen is introducing a new series of saloon car racing with its Polo cars.
“I have the confidence of achieving some success in this year’s FIA Formula 2 European Championships. I have already done some testing in Malaysia recently and am looking forward to more practice runs in Snetterton & Silverstone before the event kicks off on April 16th. I hope my participation along with the other two Indians, Armaan Ebrahim and Parthiva Sureshwaran will create the right amount of interest in the sport in India,” says Ajith Kumar.
F2 Series Director Jonathan Palmer said: “I am delighted to welcome Ajith to F2. To have a well known Indian film star who has demonstrated such ambition now racing in F2 is very exciting for the championship, and I really admire Ajith’s determination and enthusiasm. Paul Newman demonstrated that international celebrities can be competitive in international motorsport – and late in his career. Ajith, on the other hand, is several years younger than both Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello. The F2 team and other drivers look forward to giving maximum support to help Ajith become increasingly competitive.”
His professional approach to racing, as much as his involvement in films, is to be seen as a much-needed impetus to motorsports, especially in view of impending Formula 1 event expected to take place in India in 2011. Towards this end and based on his decision to turn a professional racer and make it a career alongside his acting profession, Ajith Kumar has hired the services of Eurasia Motorsport Management, the UK run by Piers Hunnisett to handle all his international motor racing activities and manage his racing career. Ajith’s foray into F2 would not have been possible without the help and support of Jonathan Palmer, Piers Hunnisett and Narain Karthikeyan.
(Note: This article is reloaded from old database.)
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I-Sport sign Chandhok for GP2 2008
DRIVER REPORT : Formula V6 Asia : Karun Chandhok
Dubai, 19 Dec 2007: India’s Karun Chandhok has been signed up by the UK based I-Sport International team to compete in the 2008 GP2 series. In addition, Chandhok, the 2006 Formula V6 Asia Champion will also compete in the all new GP2 Asia series as a pre-cursor to the main championship. I-Sport secured both the Driver’s as well as the Team’s Championship in the 2007 GP2 series.
The 23 year old from Chennai has also been appointed on to the ‘Red Bull Junior Team’ program. This will strengthen his links with the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team for whom Chandhok had his debut Formula 1 test in November and will now open up more testing opportunities with the team in 2008.
Chandhok’s team-mate for the 2008 season will be the highly rated Bruno Senna, the nephew of the legendary World Champion Ayrton Senna.
Chandhok had an impressive debut season with Durango in the 2007 GP2 series, becoming the first Indian GP2 race winner and scoring regular points through the second half of the year with a team that was not a recognized front runner. Speaking about his latest move, he said “Ever since the middle of the year I-Sport has been the most sought after drive on the grid. I know they’ve had nearly every GP2 driver on the grid chasing them for the drive and for them to have taken up the option to run me is a huge confidence boost. I enjoyed my time with Durango last year but when I tested with I-Sport soon after the last race of the season, right from the first few laps I knew that this was the team I wanted to be with. The guys in the team are real racers at heart. They have been very welcoming and we got along very well right from the first day. I’m really delighted and proud to be sitting here today as an I-Sport driver.”
I-Sport International’s Team Principal Paul Jackson spoke of his reasons for signing on the Indian “Karun had an impressive debut season and we initially got talking around the middle of the year about doing the GP2 Asia series. He tested with us in Jerez as part of our winter testing program to evaluate drivers for the future and we were all pleasantly surprised with how well he went especially in the race simulation run. What was very important for us was that Karun fitted in well with the mechanics and engineers very well and as a team we felt that we could certainly work well with him and have a successful season. The main European GP2 series is certainly the most important part of our program and the Asian series before that will be a good ‘warm up’ for him to understand our way of working before moving to Europe. I’m really glad we have concluded our deal and am now looking forward to a strong year ahead with Karun and Bruno.”
On his continued association with Red Bull, Chandhok said “Red Bull have really been awesome to me since the start of our partnership. Helmut Marko, Christian Horner and everyone involved with Red Bull Austria and the F1 team have given their blessing to my deal with I-Sport and being a part of the Junior Team program has made our association stronger. They were pleased with what I did in the F1 car in Barcelona at my first test and I look forward to being a test driver for them again in 2008. I always said that my ideal scenario for 2008 would be to race with a top GP2 team and test for a good F1 team and this has now worked out well.”
For 2008, the all new GP2 Asia series will start in Dubai at the end of January with 10 races including Formula 1 support races in Malaysia and Bahrain. The Asia series will be run using the older 2005-2007 specification cars while this year’s main European GP2 series will see a brand new specification car powered by a 650 bhp Renault engine capable of speeds of 330 kmh.
Chandhok spoke about his aims and paid tribute to his sponsors for their unstinted support “2008 is going to be the biggest challenge of my career. The aim is to have podiums, win races and to finish in the top 6 of the championship. The team and I both have the potential to do it and I really have to thank Red Bull, JK Tyre, Amaron and ICSA logistics for their incredible backing at this crucial time.”
courtesy: karunchandhok.com
Editor’s note: This is an old archived article transfered to the new website
