JKNRC: Ashwin Datta holds onto his lead for the championship

The second day of JK Tyres FMSCI National Racing Championship, round 3, proved to be the perfect mixture of exciting and nerve-wracking. Saturday was marred by a few crashes, but swift work from the marshals ensured minimal injuries.

Three qualifying sessions were held for the LGB Formula 4 category and ultimately, Rohit Khanna (Dark Don Racing), Chittesh Mandody (Avalanche Racing) and Raghul Rangasamy (M Sport) grabbed the top three places, respectively.

Sandeep Kumar started the LGB Formula 4 race in fourth, but quickly picked up places during the initial stages and soon he was challenging his fellow Dark Don Racing teammate, Rohit Khanna, for the win. Both put on a delightful display of wheel to wheel racing, while still keeping it clean. They swapped positions back and forth before Rohit won by a margin of 0.285 seconds as Sandeep came second, with Raghul Rangasamy following in third.

The Novice Cup was a thrilling affair, with each participant putting up a healthy fight. 14-year-old Tijil Rao impressed one and all with his tenacity and skill yet again. After having missed out on a podium on Friday by coming fourth, the driver from Bangalore finished third on Sunday. He was bumped up one position in both the races due to a disqualification later on.

Joseph Matthew showed just how difficult it is to catch him on the tarmac in the Suzuki Gixxer Cup category when he dominated throughout the day to add 10 more points to his tally. The restart after the red flag saw his position come under threat from Malsawmdawngliana, but Matthew held on to the lead as the Aizawl driver finished second infront of Clinton Cordeiro.

Karthik Tharani found a rich vein of form during the first two races of the round 3 of Euro JK as he finished on the podium in both instances. Ashwin Datta held onto his lead in the championship by claiming victory during the first race.

Nayan Chatterjee qualified on pole and with just two points separating him from Ashwin, looked good to steal a victory and bridge the gap to the latter. Karthik Tharani, however, had no plans of letting the Maharashtrian driver score an easy win as he overtook Nayan for P1 at the start.

The two continued to battle on track but an incident between them spelt disaster for Nayan as he had to retire. Karthik, despite going off track, was able to recover and finished second. As a result, Ashwin inherited P1 and then showed exactly why he is leading the championship by not letting the victory slip from his hands.

In the 2nd race of Euro JK ’18, a reverse grid meant that Yash Aradhya started on pole. The youngster had a splendid start off the line and was in a position to win, however, a collision later on pushed him down the grid. Sudarshan Rao Karwal tried challenging for the lead but ended up losing second place to Nirmal Uma Shankar.

Karthik and Nayan, having started in seventh and eighth, respectively, put on another display of sublime racing as they made their way up the grid. With battles brewing from top to bottom, Tharani stole another position on the top step of the podium for himself as Nirmal finished second with Chatterjee coming in third.

Results (Provisional)

Euro JK 18:

Race One: 1. Ashwin Datta (15:38.306); 2. Karthik Tharani (15:42.598); 3. Brayan Perera (15:42.829)

Race Two: 1. Karthik Tharani; 2. Nirmal Uma Shankar; 3. Nayan Chatterjee

LGB 4:

1. Rohit Khanna (Dark Don Racing; 23:28.307); 2. Sandeep Kumar (Dark Don; 23:28.592); Raghul Rangasamy (MSport; 23:29.337)

Gixxer Cup:

1. Joseph Mathew (12:36.577); 2. Malsawmdawngliana (12:41.202); 3. Sachin Chaudhary (12:44.210)

This result might change, investigation is going on

JK Tyre Novice Cup:

1. Hasim EKP (19:09.525); 2. Kunal Maini (19:14.166); 3. Tijil Rao (19:26.560)