Coimbatore, June 8: Reigning National champion Jagan Kumar of TVS Racing set the benchmark in the premier Super Sport Indian (165cc, Open) class by topping the time sheets in free practice session as the Rolon Round of the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship commenced at the Kari Motor Speedway, here on Friday.

Jagan, who notched his sixth consecutive National title last year, displayed good form as he clocked a best of one minute, 12.686 seconds, ahead of TVS Racing team-mates Deepak Ravikumar (01:12.959) and KY Ahamed (01:13.449).

Also among the quicker riders of the day was Prabhu Arunagiri of Team Alisha Abdullah who topped the Pro-Stock 301-400cc class practice session with a 01:12.698, while last year’s winner in this category Amarnath Menon (Gusto Racing India) was the fourth (01:13.503) behind team-mate Satyanarayana Raju (01:12.923) and Faraz Shariff (01:13.468), a private entrant from Bengaluru.

In the Pro-Stock (165cc) class, Anup Kumar (Team Alisha Abdullah) was the quickest with a timing of 01:15.959), well ahead of Anish Shetty (Honda Ten10 Racing, 01:17.592) and Kevin Kannan (Rockers Racing, 01:17.825).

Meanwhile, in the girls championship (Stock 165cc), Ann Jennifer clocked 01:25.797 to top the practice session in this category while last year’s first runner-up Ryhana Bee was second fastest in 01:26.353 with Shruthi Nagarajan coming in third at 01:26.873.  

The results (Qualifying only):

National Championship – Stock 165cc (Novice, Batch 1): 1. Akshay V Murali (Apex Racing) (01:21.050); 2. Ashfaq Ahamed (Team 24 Racing) (01:21.140); 3. A S Alexander (Sparks Racing) (01:21.179). Batch 2: 1. Aditya Rao (Sparks Racing) (01:19.674); 2. Varun Sobhan (Speed Up Racing) (01:20.452); 3. M Nethaji (Pvt) (01:20.698).

TVS One-Make Championship – Novice (Batch 1): 1. Karthik Mateti (Hyderabad) (01min, 22.796secs); 2. A S Alexander (Chennai) (01:24.616); 3. Suhail Ahamed (Chennai) (01:25.432). Batch 2: 1. Mohamed Shafin (Kerala) (01:25.075); 2. Kesavan S (Chennai) (01:25.405); 3. Suneeth SR (Bengaluru) (01:25.802).

Castelletto (Italy), June 4: India’s Ruhaan Alva delivered his second consecutive top-10 finish as he ended up eighth in the 100cc category in the fourth round of the Easykart Italia championship here on Sunday.

The 11-year old schoolboy from Bengaluru, supported by Play Factory and Birel Art India, and who had finished ninth in the previous round last month, promised much ahead of the race when he was the quickest in the last practice session that saw 15 drivers separated by just 0.5 seconds.

Starting the pre-final race in sixth spot, just two-tenths off pole position, he qualified seventh on the grid for Sunday’s final. Ruhaan started the final hoping to make places, but lost two positions in the very first lap, but recovered to move back to seventh.

Picking up the pace, Ruhaan managed to join the front-running bunch and was lining up to make few more places when an incident damaged his chassis that slowed him down considerably. As the race progressed, a struggling Ruhaan dropped a couple of spots to eventually finish ninth but was elevated to eighth following a penalty to a driver who was ahead of him.

Ruhaan’s next engagement is the fifth round of the championship to be held at the Pomposa circuit on June 23-24.

Pau, France: Sahara Force India Academy racer, Jehan Daruvala began his 2018 campaign in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship with a podium in Race 3 of the season opener. Jehan created history last year, when he became the first Indian ever, to win a race in the FIA F3 European Championship when he dominated and won at Nuremburg in Germany.

The first round of the 2018 season was held on the famous street circuit of Pau in Southern France. Jehan qualified just 0.29 seconds off the quickest, but the extremely competitive grid meant that Jehan would start seventh. In the next qualifying session, Jehan was supremely quick. He was all set to bag pole position but a slower car in front of him meant Jehan was blocked and he qualified down in seventh and fifth for the remaining races.

The highlight of Jehan’s weekend was when he made a brilliant start from fifth on a completely wet circuit, in Race 3. The Indian teenager climbed two places before corner 1 and thereafter made no mistakes in the treacherous conditions around the tight street circuit. Jehan was comfortable in third, when the race was stopped 13 minutes before schedule due to the un-driveable wet conditions, sealing Jehan’s podium.

Earlier in the weekend, Jehan had a poor start for Race 1 and lost a couple of places before climbing upto seventh. A mechanical failure with the suspension, due to no fault of his own, saw Jehan retire from the race. Race 2 saw Jehan start seventh and ultimately finish sixth after another racer crashed.

Read more: F3 Podium for Jehan in Season Opener at Pau.

Lonato (Italy), May 14: India’s Ruhaan Alva did well to finish ninth (100cc category) in the third round of the Easykart Italian Championship at the famed South Garda karting circuit here on Sunday.

In the 18-lap final, Ruhaan, the 11-year old schoolboy from Bengaluru, supported by Play Factory and Birel Art, started ninth on the 25-kart grid. He made two places to seventh by the end of the second lap, but could not make further progress and eventually finished ninth.

Earlier, starting ninth in the pre-final, Ruhaan, who opted for the more competitive Easykart 100 category after finishing second runner-up in the Cadet class last season, did well to jump four spots to fifth, with sights trained on a possible podium finish. However, a shunt from the back saw him slip to 11th before fighting back to finish ninth.

Ruhaan will next take part in the fourth round of the championship scheduled for June 2-3 at the International Circuit 7 Lakes in Castelletto.

In Part 2 let us look at the Calendar of Events issued by the FMSCI.  If you have missed Part 1 click here.The calendar of events as the name suggests, is the list of motorsporting events that it planned / scheduled to take place.  It typically looks like below

It has the date of event on Column 1, the name of event on Column 2, the status of event on Column 3, the category of event if it 2 or 4 wheelers or both, the city where the event is scheduled to be held and the Organizers contact details for the event.

While the date, name etc. is very easy to understand, the STATUS column is important to know the type of licence that is required for you to compete.  So in this Part 2 we will discuss about the various Status of events, what it means, the minimum licence requirement etc.

It must be noted here that while the FMSCI issues various rules and regulations for various types of motorsporting events, the actual event is organized by various organizers.    Such organizers draw up a SRs (Supplementary Regulations) which contains details of the event that is being run, including the program, the classes allowed, names of officials etc.  The SRs are gone through by the FMSCI, which approves the same.  The FMSCI appoints the various sporting and technical officials to ensure that the event is run in a safe, fair and orderly manner according to the rules and regulations of the FMSCI.

There are various status of events viz.

Read more: Motorsport @ your finger tips - Part 2