Chennai’s Deepak Ravikumar dominated the first round of the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Car Racing Championship 2023 at the Madras International Circuit here this weekend with three wins and two podium finishes in six races as he led a Team Performance Racing sweep in both Indian Junior Touring Cars and Formula LGB 1300 categories.
Ravikumar, who celebrated his 36th birthday on July 20, shuttled between the two categories barely without a pause to underline his supreme fitness and adaptability to conditions that turned wet on Sunday which saw persistent light drizzle. He reserved his best for the three Touring Cars races that had a combined 17-car grid comprising three categories, the Indian Touring Cars, IJTC and Super Stock, winning two races and notching a second-place finish behind team-mate Akkineni Anand Prasad.
In the Formula LGB 1300 race today, Ravikumar won quite comfortably after front-runners, Viswas Vijayaraj, the 2022 champion in this category, and yesterday’s Race-2 winner Tijil Rao knocked each other out half-way through the eight-lapper when battling for the lead.
Meanwhile, last year’s champion Arjun Balu (Race Concepts) from Coimbatore, who won yesterday’s Race-1, completed a double in the Indian Touring Cars category with team-mate Gurunath Meiyappan winning the other race. With his regular Honda City in full ITC-trim still under preparation, he drove virtually a stock car that was anything but competitive as compared to the IJTC cars, while Thrissur’s Diljith TS (DTS Racing) won all three races in the Super Stock class without much ado.
Also achieving a triple for the weekend was experienced racer Angad Matharoo from Chennai in the MRF Saloon Car category (Toyota Ethios) without raising a sweat.
The results (Provisional, 10 laps except mentioned):
Indian Touring Cars (Race-2): 1. Gurunath Meiyappan (Chennai) (19mins, 53.610secs); 2. Arjun Balu (Coimbatore) (19:54.013); 3. Rithvik Thomas (Bengaluru) (19:58.313) (All Race Concepts Motorsports). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Arjun Balu (18:25.875); 2. Rithvik Thomas (19:16.427); 3. Gurunath Meiyappan (19:40.365).
Indian Junior Touring Cars (Race-2): 1. Deepak Ravikumar (Chennai) (19:31.198); 2. Akkineni Anand Prasad (Chennai) (19:37.062); 3. Hatim Shabbir Jamnagarwala (Chennai) (19:43.329) (All Team Performance Racing). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Akkineni Anand Prasad (17:59.606); 2. Deepak Ravikumar (18:00.195); 3. Srinivas Teja (Chennai, Performance Racing) (18:16.233).
Super Stock (Race-2): 1. Diljith TS (Thrissur, DTS Racing) (21:09.014); 2. Yokeswaran (Coimbatore, Momentum Motorsports) (21:24.193); 3. Jarshan Anand (Chennai, DB Motorsports) (21:24.775). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Diljith TS (18:56.803); 2. Justin Singh (Delhi, Redline Racing) (19:17.529); 3. Yokeswaran (19:26.035).
Formula LGB 1300 (Race-3, 8 laps): 1. Deepak Ravikumar (Chennai, Ahura Racing) (15:26.665); 2. Raghul Rangasamy (Chennai, MSport) (15:27.719); 3. Aman Nagdev (Noida, MSport) (15:29.919).
MRF Saloons (Toyota Etios) (Race-2): 1. Angad Matharoo (Chennai) (23:07.072); 2. Anirudha Arvind (Chennai) (23:44.035); 3. Jaiprashant Venkat (Coimbatore) (23:45.017) (All Redline Racing). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Angad Matharoo (19:36.048); 2. Zahan Commissariat (Mumbai) (19:43.684); 3. Jaiprashant Venkat (19:45.769).