Ashish Ramaswamy shines; Drugovich wins MRF Challenge title

Bengaluru's Ashish Ramaswamy (Arka Motorsports) today dominated in the saloon car race to launch his campaign in the MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Racing Championship 2018 in style at the MMRT circuit in Sriperumbudur near here.
Meanwhile in the MRF Challenge, the championship leader, 17-year old Felipe Drugovich of Brazil finished third and sixth in the double-header. However, it was enough to seal the 2017 title with two more races to be run on Sunday.
While Drugovich sealed the championship, Rinus van Kalmthout of the Netherlands and Indonesia's Presley Martono won the first and second race respectively.
The results took Drugovich's tally to 283, well ahead of Martono (219) and Kalmthout (212).

The saloon car race was a one-horse affair as pole-sitter Ashish Ramaswamy never looked back after a flying start and finished some 30 seconds ahead of veteran B Vijaya Kumar (Prime Racing) and V Nikanth Ram (Arka Motorsports).
Prabhu AS (Arka Motorsports), RP Rajarajan and Raghul Rangasamy, both Performance Racing, took the honours in the Indian Junior Touring Cars, Super Stock and Esteem categories, respectively, of the saloon car race.

Results (Provisional): MRF Challenge Race 1 (20 laps): 1. Rinus van Kalmthout (30m, 22.676secs); 2. Presley Martono (30:29.174); 3. Felipe Drugovich (30:31.552);
Race 2 (15 laps): 1. Presley Martono (22:50.733); 2. Rinus Van Kalmthout (22:52.713); 3. Danial Frost (Singapore) (22:54.318);

National Championship (Saloon cars, 12 laps): Indian Touring Cars 1. Ashish Ramaswamy (23:18.381); 2. B Vijaya Kumar (23:48.765); 3. V Nikanth Ram (23:56.477);
Indian Junior Touring Cars: 1. Prabhu AS (23:48.082); 2. Kamlesh Parmar (Team N1) (24:08.005); 3. Nikunj D Vagh (Team 1) (24:48.633);
Super Stock: 1. RP Rajarajan (25:04.844); 2. Srinivas Teja K (Performance Racing) (23:23.023 +1 lap); 3. Swajit Acharaker (Team N1) (23:42.600 +1 lap);
Esteem Cup: 1. Raghul Rangasamy (Performance Racing) (24:46.448); 2. Vinod S (Team N1) (24:58.109).