16-year old Tarun Reddy put on a brilliant display to beat title contenders Vikash Anand and Advait Deodhar in the MRF FF1600 race at Round 3 of the 2014 MMSC-FMSCI National Racing Championship (NRC) at the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore.
Anand also had a great outing which included a win and a second place in the FF1600 races, while other winners included Ashish Ramaswamy in Indian Touring Cars, Varun Anekar and Advait Deodhar in the Toyota EMR, VJ Senthil in the Indian Junior Touring Cars, Balavijay in the Superstock and S Narendran in the Formula Swift 1300.
The first of the MRF FF1600 races saw Goutam Parekh on reverse grid pole position, but the race was red-flagged after lap one due to heavy rain hitting the circuit. The drivers were forced to change to wet tyres.
At the restart Vikash Anand got the jump on Goutam to go into the lead. Behind him Advait jumped Goutam, who was busy battling with championship leader Tarun Reddy. On lap 4, Tarun tried an audacious move on Goutam into the first corner, which resulted in both of them going off and causing a red flag for the second time. At the second restart Advait had a great start and beat Vikash into the first corner. However Vikash wasted no time and overtook Advait before the end of the lap to take the lead and go on to win in dominant fashion. Advait finished second with Lee Keshav in third place. Tarun Reddy was handed a five-place grid penalty for an avoidable accident and causing a red flag.
Final race of the weekend saw Advait Deodhar on pole (after Reddy’s five second grid penalty) with Goutam Parekh in second and Vikash Anand in third. Reddy made a swift start and was upto fourth by the end of the first lap. The next four laps were a brilliant three-way battle between Advait, Vikash and Tarun for the lead. Tarun pulled off a great move on Vikash on lap two to move into second and went around the outside of Advait into the first corner to take the lead. Vikash, who was right behind Tarun followed the latter’s lead and steamed past Advait and the trio finished in the same order. Tarun Reddy now leads Advait Deodhar by 6 points in the championship with Vikash back in contention as well.
MMSC-FMSCI National Racing Championship, Round 3
Kari Motor Speedway, Coimbatore
LGB Formula 1300 - Race 3
1. S Narendran
2. Goutam Parekh
3. Ajay Kini
Indian Junior Touring Cars - Race 2
1. Dr. Senthil
2. Siddharth B
3. Feroze Khan
Toyota EMR - Race 3
1. Varun Anekar
2. Dean Mascarenhas
3. Hashim
Superstock - Race 2
1. Balavijay
2. Joel Joseph
3. Deepak Chinnappa
Indian Touring Cars - Race 2
1. Ashish Ramaswamy
2. Raja Ram
3. Arjun Narendran
Toyota EMR - Race 4
1. Advait Deodhar
2. Dean Mascarenhas
3. Vidyuth Iyer
MRF FF 1600 - Race 2
1. Vikash Anand
2. Advait Deodhar
3. Lee Keshav Gupta
MRF FF 1600 - Race 3
1. Tarun Reddy
2. Vikash Anand
3. Advait Deodhar