The JK Tyre Racing Championship 2015 concluded at BIC with Anindith Reddy, Vishnu Prasad and Ajay Kini crowned champions in their respective categories
The Grand finale of the 18th JK Tyre Racing championship met its conclusion at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida last weekend after another season of hard-fought wheel-to-wheel racing in the premiere categories like the inaugural tin-top one-make Volkswagen Vento Cup, open-wheel single seater JK Racing India series and Formula LGB4.
JK VW Vento Cup 2015
The inaugural edition of the Volkswagen Vento Cup that replaces the Polo R Cup for 2015 got off to a fabulous start at the first two rounds held in Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore. The Vento Cup racers are powered by 1.4-litre petrol engine producing 180PS of power mated to a six-speed DSG automatic gearbox. The engine and gearbox have been carried over from the Polo race cars that ran between 2012 and 2014. With the first-ever Polo R Cup champion, in 2010, Sailesh Bolisetti returning to racing in India after spending a satisfactory professional racing career overseas at the Volkswagen Scirocco Cup in Germany, Euro NASCAR and British GT championships, added an extra flair to the one-make series.
His successful racing career in Europe has been the epitome to the fact that Volkswagen Vento Cup could be used as a launch pad for any aspiring Indian racer casting an eye on putting the foot down in the fiercely competitive championships across the globe. Sailesh’s return was an instant success as he fended off one of the main rivals Anindith Reddy in the closing laps to mark a remarkable comeback win in the opening round before Karminder Singh took the honours on Sunday.
However, as the Vishakhapatnam driver’s championship challenge faded off in the next rounds, the consistent Anindith Reddy, Karminder Pal Singh and Ishan Dodhiwala went into the grand finale with only 50 points separating each other. The legendary sportscar racer Hans-Joachim Stuck mentored the tussling pack of drivers ahead of the final round and we were there to cover all the action unfolded over the deciding race weekend.
Having taken pole position by just 0.050 seconds for the first race, Sailesh Bolisetti took a lights-to-flag victory with a winning margin of seven seconds over title contenders Anindith Reddy from Hyderabad and Karminder Singh. The latter stormed through the pack and set the fastest ever lap record of 2:26.644s by a racing-prepped Vento and took the chequered flag ahead of Ishaan Dodhiwala and Anindith Reddy in the second race.
Although Bolisetti held off the charging Dodhiwala to take his second win of the weekend, it proved to be too little too late for the movie star as the consistent Anindith Reddy did just enough to clinch the title by finishing third.
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JK Racing India Series FB02
The impressive defending champ Vishnu Prasad won twice over the BIC race weekend to be crowned as the consecutive triple-time JK Racing champion in a field consisting of BRDC F4 driver Akhil Rabindra.
The Kolhapur-based raising Indian starlet inherited first race victory after Karthik Tharani was given a two-place grid penalty for overtaking under yellow flags and demoted to third behind polesitter Costantino Peroni. The FB02 open-wheelers are powered by 1.2-litre BMW superbike engines built on Italian race specialist Mygale’s chassis.
The Italian racer Peroni was competing his first season in India and had seen off the initial challenge from Vishnu to hold the lead in the second race to taste champagne on the top step of the podium ahead of Mahadik and Chatterjee. Vishnu Prasad emerged victorious in a three-way battle with Ananth Shanmugam and Akhil Rabindra on the ten-lap final race to claim the championship in style and accumulate 100 points in total.
He’s a charismatic person off the track and always had time for a good racing chatter. Since the Chennai-based driver is my personal favourite, I was so buoyed to see him up there on the same podium where Sebastian Vettel celebrated winning his fourth consecutive F1 title in 2013.
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Stunt Show
The stunt show was organised by multiple-record-holding stunt expert David Grant. The four TSI petrol powered race-tuned Polo hatchbacks weaved through the cones kept at equal distance in unison on the pit straight and enthralled an impressive number of spectators gathered on the main grandstand.
The stunt drivers displayed meticulous driving abilities with precise hand brake turns and parallel parking stunts. They performed a breathtaking side-wheelie driving down the main straight as a grid girl waved to the crowd standing up from inside the car whilst moving before on-two-wheels snaking through the other three Polos on their way back.
JK Formula LGB 4
The returning Ajay Kini led the championship from Raghul Rangaswamy of Meco Racing going into the final round decider. But as the weekend unravelled, Dark Don Racing’s chennai-based 26-year-old driver Ajay Kini needed only a fourth-place finish in the final race to triumph as the title winner.
FB02 champions Vishnu Prasad and Raghul Rangasamy finished second and third in the title race as Ajay’s experienced driving brought home the championship – making his comeback to the racing cockpit a phenomenal success.
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JK Super Bike Cup
The JK Super Bike Cup was first introduced in 2014 but only debuted at the third round of JK Tyre Racing championship this season. The grid consisted of a total of 35 riders competing on 1000cc sport bikes like BMW S1000, Kawasaki Ninja ZX10R, Yamaha R1, Honda 1000RR and Ducati 899 whilst the 600cc category uses a monopoly of Triumph bikes.
Bhupinder Singh took home the victory in the 1000cc category on his Yamaha R1 and Vijay Singh crossed the finish line first in 600cc class early on in October at BIC.
Juzar Motiwala pipped eventual champion Vijay Singh from Rajasthan by just over 1.5 seconds in the 600CC on Sunday as Gurvinder Singh Mantharu rounded off the podium with third. The 1000CC category saw nip-and-tuck battle between championship contenders Simranjeet Singh and Bhupinder Singh.
With a victory margin of 2.7 seconds, Simranjeet won the race ahead of Deepak Ravi Kumar and Sandesh Prasanna in the closing stages and went on to become champion in his class.
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