National 4W Racing: Double for Bengaluru teenager Ishaan Madesh; triple delight for Ritesh Rai; Deepak Ravikumar

Chennai, Sep 21 (IANS) Ishaan Madesh, the 16-year-old from Bengaluru, more than made up for a disappointing outing on the first day by winning both the races on Sunday in the premier Formula 2000 category to finish the second round of the MMSC fmsci Indian National Car Racing Championship 2025 on a high at the Madras International Circuit, here.

The big story of the weekend was scripted by local ace Ritesh Rai (Buzzing Hornet) who, driving a Volkswagen Polo, walked away with a triple crown, winning all three races in the top-end Indian Touring Cars (ITC) category, displaying impressive pace and nerves to hold off a strong challenge from Coimbatore veteran Arjun Balu (Race Concepts) in a misfiring Honda V-tec. Balu returned to the championship after a year’s break. Defending champion Biren Pithawalla (N1 Racing) from Mumbai, struggling with a turbo issue in his VW Polo, had a P2 and a retirement.

With a speed limiter affecting his start on Saturday when he finished third in Race-1, Ishaan Madesh pulled out all stops today to win both the outings quite comfortably to move within two points of championship leader Arjun Chheda from Pune. Chheda, winner of Race-1, finished second behind Madesh in both races today, with Bengaluru’s Tarun MB completing the podium. Race 3 was affected by a Safety Car period following a three-car pile-up before it was resumed.

Pune’s Sai Shiva Makesh Sankaran and Zahan Commissariat from Mumbai won a race apiece in the MRF Formula 1600 category, with the former thus moving to the top of the leaderboard in this class, just four ahead of Saturday’s Race-1 winner, Arjun Nair (Bengaluru). The MRF F1600 was clubbed with the F2000 for a combined grid.

Chennai’s Deepak Ravikumar (Team Performance Racing) was the other highlight of the weekend as he marked his return to racing after recovering from a massive Superbike crash at the Buddh International Circuit last year that was followed by a 10-month recovery and rehabilitation. Ravikumar won twice in the Indian Junior Touring Cars class today, as did Thrissur’s Diljith TS (DTS Racing) in the Super Stock category.

Navi Mumbai’s Aditya Patnaik (Momentum Motorsports) and Vinith Kumar (DTS Racing) from Tirupur shared the top spot in the two Formula LGB 1300 races, which witnessed some of the closest battles this weekend.

Ojas Surve, also from Navi Mumbai, and Noida’s Aman Nagdev bagged a win each in the Volkswagen Polo Cup that was run on a combined grid with Saloons, where Coimbatore’s Akshay Muralidharan won both races on Sunday.

The results (Provisional – all 10 laps unless mentioned):

F2000 (Race-2): 1. Ishaan Madesh (Bengaluru) (16mins, 12.454secs); 2. Arjun Chheda (Pune) (16:27.955); 3. Tarun MB (Bengaluru) (16:46.254). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Ishaan Madesh (18:24.837); 2. Arjun Chheda (18:43.416); 3. Tarun MB (18:43.653).

F1600 (Race-2): 1. Zahan Commissariat (Mumbai) (17:47.271); 2. Sai Shiva Makesh Sankaran (Pune) (17:54.772); 3. Nigel Abraham Thomas (Bengaluru) (17:57.811). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Sai Shiva Makesh Sankaran (19:07.963); 2. Arjun S Nair (Bengaluru) (19:09.784); 3. Gyan S (Chennai) (19:26.454).

Indian Touring Cars (Race-2): 1. Ritesh Rai (Chennai, Buzzing Hornets) (19:07.412); 2. Biren Pithawalla (Mumbai, Team N1 Racing) (19:12.580); 3. Arjun Balu (Coimbatore, Race Concepts) (19:47.483). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Ritesh Rai (15:15.368); 2. Arjun Balu (15:15:857); 3. Ananth Pithawalla (Mumbai, Team N1 Racing) (15:35.559)

ITC 1625 (Race-2): 1. Vidyaprakash Damodaran (Coimbatore, Team Performance Racing) (19:49.245); 2. Mohammed Fahad Kutty (Mumbai, Team GameOver) (20:13.234); 3. Nikanth Rambalu (Coimbatore, Team Performance Racing) (20:57.035). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Nikanth Rambalu (15:59.539); 2. Vidyaprakash Damodaran (16:09.724); 3. Mohammad Fahad Kutty (16:21.657),

Indian Junior Touring Cars (Race-2): 1. Deepak Ravikumar (Chennai, Team Performance Racing) (19:52.992); 2. Viswas Vijayaraj (Nellore, Team Performance Racing) (19:56.348); 3. Rithvik Thomas (Bengaluru, Race Concepts) (20:22.308). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Deepak Ravikumar (15:51.755); 2. Hattim Shabir (Chennai, Team Performance Racing) (15:51.986); 3. Viswas Vijayaraj (16:08.827).

Super Stock (Race-2): 1. Diljith TS (Thrissur, DTS Racing) (20:50.848); 2. Kesara Godage (Sri Lanka, Red Line Racing) (19:12.044+1 lap); 3. Balaprasath (Coimbatore, DTS Racing) (19:13.327+1 lap). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Diiljith TS (16:43.953); 2. Kesara Godage (17:04.575); 3. Balaprasath (17:06.509);

Formula LGB 1300 (Race-2, Open): 1. Aditya Patnaik (Navi Mumbai, Momentum Motorsports) (20:52.069); 2. Mehul Agarwal (Kolkata, Delta Speeds) (20:53.826); 3. Neythan McPherson (Pune, Momentum Motorsports) (20:54.088). Junior: 1. Aditya Patnaik (Navi Mumbai, Momentum Motorsports) (20:52.069); 2. Neythan McPherson (Pune, Momentum Motorsports) (20:54.088); 3. Vinith Kumar (Tirupur, DTS Racing) (20:54.270). Race-3 (8 laps – Open and Junior): :1. Vinith Kumar (15:11.731); 2. Neythan McPherson (15:29.024); 3. Bhuvan Bonu (Bengaluru, MSPORT) (15:29.485).

Volkswagen Polo Cup (Race-2): 1. Ojas Surve (Navi Mumbai) (15:49.297); 2. Aman Nagdev (Noida) (19:50.069); 3. Aditya Patnaik (Navi Mumbai) (19:50.381). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Aman Nagdev (15:43.639); 2. Aditya Patnaik (15:44.035); 3. Ojas Surve (15:46.227).

MRF Saloons (Race-2): 1. Akshay Muralidharan (Coimbatore) (21:41.170); 2. Tarushi Vikram (Chikkamagaluru) (21:41.531); 3. Siddhanth Koundinya (Bengaluru) (21:55.203). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Akshay Muralidharan (Coimbatore) (17:27.655); 2. Mohammed Arfath (Chennai) (17:29.533); 3. Tarushi Vikram (Chikkamagaluru) (17:29.950).

--IANS

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