Jinkawa wins MRF 1600 race in National Racing Championship

[1]

Greater Noida, Sep 14 (PTI) Japanese driver Yudai Jinkawa clinched his fourth victory of the season when he took the chequered flag ahead of Vikash Anand and Tarun Reddy in the MRF 1600 race of the National Racing Championship, here today.It was an exciting finish to the race as the top three drivers were separated by just three tenths off a second at the finish line at the Buddh International Circuit.In the Indian Touring Car category, N Leelakrishnan held off reigning champion Arjun Balu to win by 3.030seconds from pole position while Ananth Pitawala claimed his first ever win in the Indian Junior Touring Car category.In the Toyota EMR Trophy, Diljith won Race one from pole position while youngster Akhil Rabindra won Race two.Diljith was elated to have driven on an F1 track for the first time in his career."This is a very high speed track. There are a lot of high speed corners and lot of overtaking opportunities. And these cars are also much better," Diljith said.Akhil, who had finished second in race one, also enjoyed the drive."It's different driving here. The corners are wide. The approach to race here is different. It was quite competitive out there."In the ITC race, Leelakrishnan started on pole and had a good start off the line. Arjun started slow but just managed to hold off a charging M Sivaramakrishnan behind him.Leelakrishnan pulled a two second lead in the first two laps and managed to keep the gap for the rest of the race. Arjun went faster as the race went on setting his fastest lap off the race on the second last lap.Sivaramakrishnan had a lonely race in third as he finished 13.317 seconds behind the leader.In the MRF 1600, Yudai, starting on pole, had a great start and went into the lead with Tarun and Vikash right behind him.Tarun and Vikash had a great battle for the first 3 laps with the latter finally getting past in the mid-sector. Vikash then started to reel Yudai in bringing Tarun with him and was right on his tail with three laps to go.Vikash drove brilliantly and tried to pass Yudai several times but could not find a way past. The top three finally finished within a mere 0.307 seconds separating them.Tarun was later given a penalty for jumping the start and ended up in 5th place with Advait Deodhar moving up to the final podium spot. Adavit, Kizuka Hirota and Masaki Fujimura had their own battle trading places throughout the race.In the FMSCI-MMSC Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship India's top two riders Sarath Kumar and K Rajini went wheel-for-wheel in the Honda CBR 250 category.Rajini got past Sarath on the final corner in the final lap to take the win by 0.0157 seconds. At the last round in Chennai both had collided and it looked like it might happen again avoided the crash.Sarath, who started on pole, led off the line followed by Abhishek V and Rajini. Rajini soon passed Abhishek and had a long battle with Sarath. Till the last lap Sarath was leading but Rajini came hard at him and they were side-by-side coming into the fast corner.Rajini dived down the inside of Sarath and made the move stick and crossed the line in first place ahead of Sarath. Abhishek V finished in the third place.In the first race of the day, Mathana Kumar took the honours in the TVS-Apache RTR180 category. He was followed by Ananth P Raj, who finished 5.898 seconds behind.The battle for third went down to the wire with a three-way-battle between Arvind Ganesh, SK Prakash and Alwyn Jebaz. Arvind came out in front to take the final step of the podium.The second race of the day, the Yamaha-Y2F R15, provided some more nail biting action with Shyam Shankar and Vivek Pillai trading placed all through the race. Shyam and Vivek came out of the last corner side-by-side with Shyam just edging ahead as they crossed the finish line 0.083 seconds ahead.In the last race of the day K Jagan took a victory ahead of Harry Sylvester and Deepak in the NRC Experts 165cc race category.