PUNE: Young Nikanth Ram from Coimbatore in Arka Motorsports livery chalked up maiden win of his saloon car racing career as the first round of the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Racing Championship 2018 concluded at the MMRT circuit, here on Sunday.
While Ram, a 21-year old commerce graduate from Coimbatore, bagged full points, team-mate Ashish Ramaswamy from Bengaluru achieved a double by winning the second race earlier but retired with an expired engine in the weekend’s third outing.
In the day’s first saloon car race, Ashish Ramaswamy was again the dominant force despite starting fourth on the reverse grid. He jumped two places by the end of the first lap, tailed leader Vidya Prakash for a couple of more laps before moving into the lead.
Nikanth who was running second, made the best of the situation to score a maiden win in his saloon car racing career and finished ahead of Prime Racing’s Raja Ram and Biren Pithawalla of Team N1.
THE RESULTS (PROVISIONAL):
National Championship: Saloon cars:
Indian Touring Cars (Race 2, 12 laps): 1. Ashish Ramaswamy (Arka Motorsports) 23mins, 25.024secs; 2. B Vijaya Kumar (Prime Racing) 23:51.922; 3. D Vidya Prakash (Prime Racing) 23:58.350.
Race 3 (8 laps): 1. V Nikanth Ram (Arka Motorsports) 15mins, 55.693secs; 2. C Raja Ram (Prime Racing) 15:59.000; 3. Biren Pithawalla (Team N1) 16:11.372.
Indian Junior Touring Cars (Race 2, 11 laps):
1. Kamlesh Parmar (Team N1) 23mins, 55.103secs; 2. Chrys D’Souza (Unimek Racing) 24:24.572; 3. Prabhu AS (Arka Motorsports) 24:24.812. Race 3 (8 laps): 1. Chrys D’Souza 17mins, 48.207secs; 2. Prabhu AS 17:48.434; 3. Nikunj D Vagh (Team N1) 17:49.100.
Esteem Cup (12 laps): 1. Raghul Rangasamy (Performance Racing) 24mins, 20.853secs; 2. Vinod S (Team N1) 24:33.727; 3. Archit Mylanda (Performance Racing) 25:06.829. Race 3 (8 laps): 1. Raghul Rangasamy 16mins, 21.542secs; 2. Vinod S 16:30.865; 3. Archit Mylanda 16:43.432.
Super Stock (12 laps): 1. RP Rajarajan (Performance Racing) 24mins, 55.565secs; 2. Srinivas Teja K (Performance Racing) 25:18.133; 3. Swajit Acharaker (Team N1) 23:38.158 + 1 lap.