On a day of twists and turns, Kolkata schoolboy Arya Singh clinched the top spot in Formula LGB 1300 category while Hyderabads Anindith Reddy emerged champion in the MRF F1600 segment in the fifth and concluding round of the MRF MMSC Indian National Racing Championship at the MMRT track here on Saturday.
In the MRF F1600 category, championship leader Anindith sealed the title, thereby earning a ticket to the Mazda Road to Indy shootout in the United States later this year.
Despite failing to finish, following a collision that took the rear wing of his car, Anindith was well placed with a lead of 32 points over Saturday's winner Sandeep Kumar (Chennai) with two more races to be run on Sunday and a maximum of 25 points at stake.
For Arya, it was a great weekend as he clinched both the National and Rookie crowns in the Formula LGB 1300 class.
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"I am extremely happy to win both National and Rookie titles. On Saturday, I didn't have the pace to win the races outright, but otherwise, it has been a great weekend for me," an elated Arya said.
The biggest shocker of the day came in the premier Indian Touring Cars class where defending champion Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster Performance) from Coimbatore won the race after running third for most part of the eight-lapper.
Championship leader and pole position holder Deepak Paul Chinnappa (Race Concepts) from Bengaluru, who led for six laps and looked set to win, suffered a brake failure to eventually finish seventh.
Narendran's team-mate Ashish Ramaswamy, also from Bengaluru, who had taken over the lead, made a mistake in the last lap which allowed Narendran to overtake him and win the race.
"I had handling issues with my car and there was no way I could have caught Deepak. But after he spun twice, I moved to second and then passed Ashish in the last lap. I am leading Deepak by 12 points with the last race to be run on Sunday. Fingers crossed!" said Narendran who moved to 169 points to Deepak's 157 following his fourth win of the season.
Having dominated the Free Practice sessions as well as the qualifying session on Friday with the fastest lap times, Mumbai's Saurav Bandyopadhyay scored his second win of the season in the Volkswagen Ameo Cup ahead of guest racer from China Anning Sun and Sandeep Kumar, but still trails championship leader Karminder Singh of Delhi by 92 points.
--IANS
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