MRF F1600: Sandeep Kumar dominates

Sandeep Kumar took a comfortable lead in the first of the three MRF F1600 races of the weekend.

The expected intense battle in the two premium classes did not materialize as Sandeep Kumar raced to a comfortable victory in the MRF F1600 category in the fourth round of the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Racing Championship at the Madras Motor Race Track.

The race turned out to be disappointing especially after pole-sitter and championship leader Anindith Reddy from Hyderabad pitted at the end of Lap 1 to repair a damaged nose cone following a contact with Chennai’s Sandeep Kumar at the start of the race.

Reddy, on rejoining the race, finished a lap down in fifth while Sandeep won untroubled leaving Chennai’s Chetan Korada and Kolkata schoolboy Arya Singh to scrap for the podium spot. After 6 laps, Sandeep was at an advantage of 4.8 seconds. Towards the end, he manage to extend that time to 8.8 seconds.

The MRF F1600’s fate on August 19 wasn’t much different from that of the Volkswagen Ameo Cup - as post a heavy downpour on August 18, the races were reduced to the short loop of the circuit owing to waterlogging on a part of the long loop of the Madras Motor Racetrack.

Consequently, the number of laps were increased from 8 to 15. Under these conditions, it was a partially new track layout that all the drivers were faced with.

MRF F1600 Race 1 (19/08/2017)

Sandeep Kumar - 15 Laps

Chetan Korada - +8.831

Arya Singh - +9.829