Chennai, Jan 31 (Inditop.com) Ashwin Sundar stamped his authority on the first weekend of the MRF Challenge series with emphatic back-to-back wins in the showpiece Formula 1600 class here Sunday.
The 20-year old Sundar, who cut his racing teeth at this very track, demonstrated his skills and intimate knowledge of the 3.71 Kms long circuit to virtually destroy the field. In fact, he enjoyed the luxury of easing off after taking a commanding lead in both the races.
In fact, Sundar came up with an impressive best lap of one minute, 40.875 seconds, shaving off nearly two seconds off his qualifying time Saturday that had fetched him pole position.
Likewise, David Jones, the Welsh champion, was in a league of his own on the Triumph bike, undoubtedly the most powerful machine on the grid while winning both the Superbike races that had some competition in the mid-field rather than up front.
Emulating Jones was India’s top rider, Dilip Rogger who made a game bid to keep pace with the foreign riders, but his grossly underpowered 2006 Honda CBR was far too slow. Nevertheless, he topped in the Indian category in both the races the first of which saw M Gautam surviving a bad crash in the ninth lap.
Meanwhile, Sailesh Boliseti, the 22-year old from Visakhapatnam, completed a double in the cc-to-weight class of the Touring Car category as he took the honours with another command performance today following his comfortable win in the first outing yesterday.
The race was red-flagged after four laps when Bhuvaraghavan flipped his car in Turn-1 when he braked suddenly to avoid the spinning car of Madhumithaa Rao. While Bhuavaraghavan escaped unhurt thanks to the roll cage, a mandatory safety fixture for touring cars, the vehicle was badly damaged.
The race was re-started after considerable delay and the cars had to complete just one lap and Boliseti won handily as he had done in the first race Saturday.
Veteran Sriskandarajah came up with a fine ride to take the honours in the 165cc class (Group D, 4-stroke) as did K Umesh Babu in Group B (2-stroke).
The results:
Formula 1600 (15 laps) : Race 1: 1. Ashwin Sundar (26mins, 20.412secs); 2. Amer Beg (26:20.804); 3. Arjun Balu (26:37.242). Race 2 :1. Ashwin Sundar (25:52.433); 2. Amer Beg (26:05.314); 3. Arjun Balu (26:20.282).
Touring Cars (Race 2, 8 laps): Cc to Weight: 1. Sailesh Bolisetti (2:36296); 2. Nithin S Ravindran (2:43.300); 3. R Ramesh Babu (2:55.350). Race Star Cup: 1. Fahad Shamsudeen Kutty (2:53.370); 2. Deepak Paul Chinnappa (2:54.300); 3. Shravan Reddy (2:58.375).
Two-wheelers (7 laps): Superbikes (600cc) Race 1 (10 laps) ; Foreign: 1. David Jones (17:58.434); 2. Gavin Michale Hunt (18:04.847); 3. Jules Croft (18:44.116). Indian: 1. Dilip Rogger (19:03.061); 2. Sathish Kumar A (19:11.668); 3. Srikanth K (18:51.189, 9 laps). Race 2: 1. David Jones (18:09.112); 2. Gavin Michale Hunt (18:38.549); 3. Jules Croft (19:00.360). Indian : 1. Dilip Rogger (19:28.355); 2. Srikanth K (18:58.511, 9 laps); 3. Satish Kumar A (19:17.634, 9 laps).
165cc (Group D, 4-stroke, 7 laps): 1. Sriskandarajah (15:32.702); 2. Shyam Shankar (15:33.456); 3. S Sarath Kumar (15:33.997). Group B (2-stroke): 1. K Umesh Babu (15:08.256); 2. S Murali (15:10.547); 3. N Deepan (15:12.327).