Sandeep Kumar grabs pole in national racing event

: Local lad Sandeep Kumar grabbed pole position in the MRF F1600 class on the opening day of the third round of the MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Racing Championship at nearby Sriperumbudur today.

24-year old Kumar, who missed a ticket to the Mazda Road To Indy shootout despite finishing first runner-up in the MRF F1600 last year, is determined to go one better this time.

I pushed really hard today, almost to the very limit, he said after posting a best lap of one minute, 39.999 seconds around the 3.716 Kms track to set himself up for this weekends triple-header.

Sharing the front row with Sandeep is another Chennai driver, Nirmal Umashanker (01:40.310) ahead of Goas Keith DSouza (01:40.069).

Championship leader 19-year old Ashwin Datta who had won all the three races in the previous round in Coimbatore, will start eighth on the grid after posting a best of 01:40.685.

Meanwhile, defending champion in the premier Indian Touring Cars class Arjun Narendran (ARKA Motorsports) from Coimbatore posted pole winning time of 01:52.053, edging veteran Arjun Balu (Race Concepts), who had won both the races in the previous round. Narendran had missed the previous rounds.

Pole position winners in other categories were: Nikunj Vagh of Team N1 (Indian Junior Touring Cars) from Mumbai, Varun Anekar of Race Concepts (Super Stock) from Bengaluru and Vinod S of Team N1 (Esteem Cup) from Erode.

Dhruv Mohite from Kolhapur, leader in the Volkswagen Ameo Cup following his double in Coimbatore round last month, took pole position ahead of Thanes Saurav Bandyopadhyay and Anmol Singh Sahil from Ghaziabad.