Chennai, Aug 22 (IANS) Deepak Paul Chinnapa of Race Concepts team, Bengaluru, pulled off a dramatic win in the top-end Indian Touring Cars race which witnessed several on-track incidents leading to an investigation in the fifth and concluding round of the Indian National Racing Championship, at the Madras Motor Race Track (MMRT) track here on Saturday.
Also tasting success was Mohit Aryan of Anish Racing in the Formula LGB 1300 category who started from pole position and saw off an early challenge for his fifth win in nine starts to increase his championship tally to 113 for a 13-point lead over Chetan Korada who came in third in the race behind his Wallace Racing teammate Raghul Rangasamy.
Deepak Paul, son of yesteryear two-wheeler legend C.K. Chinnapa, started third on the grid, but squeezed out a win after pole-sitter Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster Racing), who has already sealed the championship, went off the track soon after the start following a contact with Ashish Ramaswamy, and later retired.
Chinnapa subsequently eased past race leader Sivaramakrishnan whose car lost power with two of the eight laps remaining to notch a deserving win. The two were involved in a close dog-fight that saw the cars making contact when Sivaramakrishnan’s car lost the drive exiting the Bridge Complex and Chinnapa pulled ahead.
Finishing second behind Chinnapa was veteran C Rajaram (Prime Racing) ahead of teammate B Vijay Kumar who was elevated from fourth to third. KE Kumar, also of Prime Racing, had originally finished third, but received a 20-second penalty for jump start, pushing him to sixth spot.
“I am happy that I took my second win of the season. We worked very hard on the car and everything fell into place, though it was a bit of a mess at the start. However, I will take this win,” said Chinnapa who moved to second spot in the championship.
Meanwhile, the battle for the championship in the MRF Formula Ford 1600 heated up as Karthik Tharanisingh, second on the leaderboard behind Goutham Parekh, grabbed the pole position for the first of two races to be run on Sunday.
Parekh, who enjoys a 12-point lead in the championship standings, will start second on the grid ahead of CS Tejasram.
Fahad Kutty of Team Game Over and Varun Anekar (Race Concepts) also qualified for pole position in the Indian Junior Touring Cars and Super Stock categories.
Provisional results:
Indian Touring Cars (8 Laps): Deepak Paul Chinnapa (Race Concepts) 1 (15 min. 38.170 seconds); C Rajaram (Prime Racing) 2 (15:41.295); B Vijay Kumar (Prime Racing) 3 (15:51.890).
Formula LGB 1300 (10 Laps): Mohit Aryan (Anish Racing) 1 (19:42.841); Raghul Rangasamy (Wallace Sports) 2 (19:46.841); Chetan Korada (Wallace Racing) 3 (19:49.748).
Qualifying – MRF FF1600: Karthik Tharanisingh (Chennai) 1 (1:41.301); Goutham Parekh (Chennai) 2 (1:41.876); CS TejasramA (Chennai) 3 (1: 43.065).
Indian Junior Touring Cars: Fahad Kutty (Team Game Over) 1 (2:04.926); Anant Pithawalla (Team N1) 2 (2:05.313); Sidharth B (Red Rooster Racing) 3 (2:05.335).
Super Stock: Varun Anekar (Race Concepts) 1 (2:07.154); Kashif Kapadia (Team Game Over) 2 (2:07.701); Sudanand Daniel (Performance Racing) 3 (2:07.773).
