Tarun Reddy notches maiden win

Tarun Reddy, just 15 and in his debut single-seater racing season, clinched his maiden win when he finished first ahead of more experienced campaigners in the MRF Formula 1600 class in the third round of the MMSC-FMSCI National Racing championship, here Sunday.

Reddy finished ahead of Japanese driver Yudai Jinkawa and defending champion Ashwin Sundar in the second race of the MRF 1600 class. However, Sundar finished first in Race 3 ahead of Shinya Michimi and Yudai Jinkawa to further extend his championship lead.

Meanwhile, rally ace Gaurav Gill marked his comeback to the Indian Touring Car championship with convincing victories in both races.

Prashanth K and S Narendran continued their perfect weekend in the LGB Formula Swift and F4 categories respectively with yet another win while Feroze Khan chalked up yet another victory in the Indian Junior Touring Cars series.

The story of the day was Reddy's maiden success in a race that saw him starting second behind Jinkawa and ahead of Sundar. Reddy had a great start and went around the outside of Jinkawa in the first corner to take the lead with Sundar in third.

Sundar then went off track and dropped back to sixth place at the end of the second lap. Reddy pulled away from Jinkawa at an impressive pace at over a half a second a lap. Sundar meanwhile made up three positions to get back into third, but Reddy took the chequered flag to become the youngest winner at the MMRT with Jinkawa second and Sundar third.

Gill won the first race of the Indian Touring Cars while championship leader Arjun Balu struggled in his new Volkswagen Vento and was forced to retire. His title rival N Leelakrishnan finished in second place ahead of Ashish Ramaswamy. Gill led comfortably and was not matched all race long.

In the second race, Gill made it two out of two with another commanding win on a damp track. Neither Balu nor Leelakrishnan could not match his pace and and had to settle for second and third positions.

Feroze Khan finished a perfect weekend when he led from start to finish in Race 3 of the IJTC. Behind him R Rajan came in second ahead of Vidyuth Iyer. There was a great battle for fourth position with five cars involved. Fahad Kutty finally won that battle to finish in fourth place.