INDIA in F1

Tag: Indian Car Racing Nationals

  • Arjun Balu to rely on pure talent and skill to defend title

    Arjun Balu to rely on pure talent and skill to defend title

    Chennai, 9 Feb. 2022: Veteran gentleman of motorsports Arjun Balu is raring to go and is looking to defend his National title in the prestigeous Indian Touring Cars class as four-wheeler competitors in other classes too are gunning for titles in the MRF MMSC fmsci National Car Racing Championship 2021, the fourth and final round to be held, near here, at the MMRT from February 11 to 13.

    Despite myraid ugly tactics on the track, Arjun Balu won the National Championship last year after narrowly losing to similar tactics a year earlier in 2019. This year too, the gentle giant, withstood such dirty tricks to let his driving and skill talk on the track.

    Drivers drive to win! But in ITC class a few of the “team drivers” have been driving to prevent a leading driver from winning. The class has seen some dirty driving in the last few years.

    Chennai’s Deepak Ravikumar of Performance Racing has sealed the National title in the Super Stock Class with a round to spare as he took an unbeatable lead after five wins from six starts. The championship in two other saloon cars classes – the Indian Touring Cars and Indian Junior Touring Cars – is still wide open. In the MRF 1600cc Class, Chirag Ghorpade will be looking to halt the advancing Shahan Ali Mohsin.

    These youngsters, have made a mark in the premier MRF Formula 1600 category and title fight narrowed to these two teenagers. Bengaluru’s Chirag has 153 points (2 wins) and Shahan Ali Mohsin from Agra has rallied brilliantly after a bad weekend to garner 140 points with 4 wins. The two are best-placed to win the championship. However, Rishon Rajeev (110), also from Bengaluru, has an outside chance alond with Coimbatore’s K Suriyavarathan (105, one win). These two cannot be discounted since a maximum of 75 points are available from three races and it all depends on the day’s form besides other conditions.

    Experienced Coimbatore driver Arjun Balu of Race Concepts, a private team will be fighting with VW factory-supported drivers. Balu heads the table in the ITC class and leads Rayo Racing’s Jeet Jhabakh by 18.5 points with a maximum of 25 points to be had from the double-header. Another Coimbatore racer, Charen Chandran is ahead of Chennai’s Hatim Shabbir Jamnagarwala of Performance Racing by 13.5 points in the Indian Junior Touring Cars (IJTC) class going into the final round.

    In the Formula LGB 1300 category, the race for the title is poised on a knife-edge. Two Momentum Motorsport team-mates, Tijil Rao (85) from Bengaluru, Deepak Ravikumar (72), head the championship table, ahead of Nellore’s Viswas Vijayaraj (DTS Racing, 64), Ruhaan Alva (MSport, 59) from Bengaluru, and Kolkata racer Arya Singh (DTS Racing, 58), all having a realistic shot at the title with a maximum of 50 points to be won.

    Chennai’s Sandeep Kumar and Fahad Kutty from Mumbai currently head the points table in the Volkswagen Polo and MRF Saloon Cars (Toyota Etios) categories, both of which are triple-headers.

    Ajit Thomas, President of promoters Madras Motor Sports Club, said: “Due to the Covid-19 situation, we could not offer five rounds to the four-wheeler competitions, but the action thus far has been quite exciting with close races. Given the pandemic, it is still heartening that the response has been fairly good with many youngsters, after graduating from karting, are already making their presence felt at this level. And surely, the concluding round this weekend will throw up its share of excitement and surprises. We also salute our sponsors, MRF Tyres, for their unstinted support to the championship.”

    There will be live streaming of the races on Facebook and the MMSC website.

  • Chirag Ghorpade, Arjun Balu set hot pace: Indian car racing Nationals

    Chirag Ghorpade, Arjun Balu set hot pace: Indian car racing Nationals

    Chennai, 20 Jan 2022: Chirag Ghorpade, the schoolboy from Bengaluru, and Coimbatore veteran Arjun Balu lit up the free practice sessions with some serious pace to kick-start the third round of the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Car Racing Championship 2021 at the MMRT, here on Thursday.

    Chirag, who heads the championship table, topped the two practice sessions in the premier MRF F1600 category with a best lap of one minute, 39.950 while his closest rival, teenager Shahan Ali Mohsin from Agra, posted the second best of 01:40.018 as the talented duo seemed to be heading for a close battle for honours in the triple-header to be run over the next two days.

    On the other hand, veteran Arjun Balu, piloting the Race Concepts-prepared Honda VTec, was in a league of his own in the Indian Touring Cars category. He was about a couple of seconds quicker than his nearest rivals, the Rayo Racing pair from Hyderabad, Jeet Jhabakh and Ishaan Dodhiwala, both driving the Volkswagen Polo. Balu’s best laps in the two practice sessions were 01:51.211 in the morning and 01:50.768 in FP2.

    Bengaluru’s Varun Anekar (Race Concepts) and Performance Racing’s Deepak Ravikumar from Chennai, set the fastest laps in the Indian Junior Touring Cars and Super Stock categories, respectively.

    Earlier, two teenagers from Bengaluru, Tijil Rao (Momentum Motorsport) and Ruhaan Alva (MSport) topped the two practice sessions in the Formula LGB 1300 category. Tijil was the fastest on the day, clocking a best lap of 01:51.242 in FP1, but was only third quickest in 01:51.886 in the next session. Ruhaan topped FP2 with a lap of 01:51.511, an improvement of over two seconds on his FP1 best of 01:53.700.

    In the 22-car Volkswagen Polo category, local challenger Sandeep Kumar set the fastest time of 01:55.657 over two sessions as he seeks to consolidate his position at the top of the leaderboard in this class.

    Haryana’s Justin Singh put in the quickest lap of the day in the MRF Saloon Cars (Toyota Etios) with a 02:03.391.

    The qualifying sessions for all categories followed by five races will be run on Saturday.

    About Madras Motor Sports Club

    Since its humble beginning­s in 1953, the Madras Motor Sports Club has grown in stature as the hub of motorsport activity in India. Having moved its racing activities from Sholavaram to its present location, the MMRT circuit in Sriperumbudur in 1979, MMSC has kept pace with changing times by upgrading facilities. At a cost of about Rs 20 Crore, the MMSC built a pit complex comprising 20 garages, VIP hospitality suites and a viewing gallery, on the eastern side, apart from a second Paddock on the western side with its own short circuit. Parallelly, MMSC imported timing equipment specifically for Drag racing. The Control Room too was upgraded with state-of-the-art hardware while the track itself was improved to meet the exacting FIA standards for Grade-2 certification. MMSC also constructed a 500-capacity grand stand with provision for garages / storage below. In another upgrade, the MMSC purchased Digi flags from TAG Heuer Chronolec that will be positioned strategically around the track. The facilities are also extensively used by various vehicle manufacturers for testing their products, displays and corporate days.