Chennai, 5th Dec 2009 :On a day of fluctuating fortunes and protests, the title for the driver champion is up for grab by the Chennai based Wallace Sports driver Vikash Anand, the mid-way leader of the points table last week, has maintained his status in the 5th JK Tyre FMSCI Junior Cup 2009 at the MMST’s international standard track in Irunkattogottai near suburban Sriperumbudur here today.

At end of the penultimate leg of the season ender as per the provisional results officially announced, Wallace Sports with 9 out of 15 cars in fray on the grid continued to rule the roost and Vikash Anand despite his third and second finishes today on the podium managed to sustain, leading the field with a tally of 58 points, with three more races to go for deciding the Driver title.

With majority of first timers compared to the little experienced drivers showing their skills in great measure, this weekend racing turned out to be more exhilarating compared to the earlier five of the ten races format of the cup.

Today, it was question of added skills than the machines with ‘sealed engines’ and Vikash Anand, who has been driving in this category for the third year in succession finally set himself in line for the title and also the benefit of getting a free run for the next year’s JK Tyre FMSCI National Racing Championship, offered as a scholarship by JK Tyre, the event sponsors.

Taking to the weekend racing with a ten point cushion at the end of five earlier races, Vikash Anand was fourth on the pole behind his team mate and pole leader, K.Vinoth, also of Wallace Sports, Karthik Krishna (Ram’s Racing), Steve Hodges (Wallace) but stood up to the grinding, managing to push himself to third spot. With Vinoth and Karthik Krishna challenging each other for the top two spots and well ahead, Vikash Anand kept his cool to come on the podium behind the two leaders.

In the second race, Karthik Krishna of Rams Racing, who had finished second in the first race, finished top amongst the 12 drivers with a timing of 08:58.202 seconds followed by Vikash Anand (8:59.324 sec) and Sandeep Kumar (9:09.160 secs) for second and third places respectively. In the second race, Mumbai’s Utkarsh Shetty, who drove for six laps with a time of 09:29.23 seconds was excluded for having taken outside help.

However, there was a protest by Vikash Anand against Karthik Krishna for “weaving and blocking” in the first race. In the second and last race of the day, there was yet another protest against the winner, Karthik Krishna by Vinoth, who (spun on three occasions in the race including twice in C-2) finished tenth, the former had a ‘contact’ on C-2. Incidentally Vinoth spun on three occasions in the race including twice in C-2.

However, the protestors themselves withdrew their protests afterwards. This resulted in Karthik Krishna surviving with his two strong finishes for a tally of 45 points behind the leader Vikash Anand, who is sitting pretty safe with 58 points. Mumbai’s Steve Hodges (Wallace Sports) was in third spot with 41 points followed by Vinoth with 40 in the fourth.

Results

Race I - 8 laps: 1. K.Vinoth 10:16:174............2. Karthik Krishna 10:19:896........... 3. Vikash Anand 10:18:065
Race 2 - 7 laps: 1. Karthik Krishna 08:58:202........ 2. Vikash Anand 08:59:324 ........ 3. Sandeep Kumar 09:09:160

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