JKNRC 2018 Round 2: Jerome Vanlalrengpuia Books His Ticket To Spain

Round 2 of JK Tyre National Racing Championship (JKNRC) 2018 just came to an end and it was a thrilling one. Apart from the EuroJK, LGB Formula 4, Suzuki Gixxer Cup and Redbull Road To Rookies, this round also saw an introduction of a new class, the JK Tyre Novice cup, which the organisers believe will serve as a bridge between karting and formula categories. So, without further ado let’s see what happened over the weekend.

Day 1:

Qualifiers:

The day started with a qualifying sessions for Euro JK 2018, Suzuki Gixxer Cup and LGB Formula 4. In Euro JK, Nayan S Chatterjee took the pole position with a lap time of 1:00.514. He was followed by Chetan Korada (1:00.849) and Karthik Tharani S (1:00.859) in second and third places, respectively. 

In the Suzuki Gixxer Cup qualifying, Malsawmdawngliana took the pole position with a lap time of 1:23.209, followed by Sayed Muzamil Ali (1:23.891) and Joseph Matthew (1:24.110) in second and third place respectively. Although the riders from Red Bull Rookie Cup were racing alongside the Gixxer Cup racers, they had a separate classification. In the Red Bull Rookie Cup qualifier, Jerome Vanlalrengpuia took the pole (1:25.494) followed by PC Andy (1:26.625) and Eshan Shankar (1:28.056).

The effective positions of the top three qualifiers on the starting grid were 10th, 14th and 17th, respectively.

Meanwhile, in the LGB Formula 4 qualifiers, Vishnu Prasad took the top spot with a time of 1:11.052. He was followed by Chittesh Mandody(1:11.276) and Sohil Shah (1:11.326).

Race

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Euro JK 2018: Post the qualifiers, the races got underway starting with the Euro JK 18 (15 laps), the fastest cars on the track. In race 1, Nayan S Chatterjee continued his dominating run and led the race to the finish line. He took 15:32.208 minutes to complete it, 4.831 seconds and 8.331 seconds less than Kartik Tharani S and Brayan Perera, who finished the race in second and third places respectively. In race 2 also, the result was similar, Nayan and Kartik taking the first and second places respectively. However, it was Ashwin Datta who took the third place after finishing fourth in the first race.

JK Novice Cup: After a qualifying session on friday, Hashim EKP and Vishwas Vijayraj of DTS Racing started the race in first and second place respectively, while Ashwin Nair from Prudent Motorsports started third. However, at the end of the race, it was Vishwas from DTS Racing who won the race followed by Siddharth from Momentum Motorsports and his team mate Hashin EKP. Out of the total 22 entries, only 14 were able to complete the race.

LGB Formula 4:  In race 1, championship leader Vishnu Prasad continued his domination and finished the race in first place. Rohit Khanna and Raghul Rangasamy took second and third places to maintain their primacy on the points table.

JK Tyre Suzuki Gixxer Cup: Joseph Mathew continued his winning streak from round 1 and won the race after starting from third place. It was a thrilling finish, as Joseph and Syed Muzamil Ali went neck and neck in the final stretch. Sachin Chaudhary finished in third, more than 7 seconds behind the race leaders.

Red Bull Rookies Cup: Jerome Vanlalrengpuia not only won the race, starting from the pole(among the Rookies Cup participants), but also took the championship lead. He was closely followed by PC Andy in second place, who was just 1.2 seconds behind him. Eshan Shankar, the third man on the podium, finished 26.466 seconds behind the race leaders.  

Day 2:

Euro JK 2018: The Euro JK races were the most exciting ones of all, as Ashwin Datta, Nayan Chatterjee and Karthik Tharani went all out for the top position on the championship leaderboard.

Level on 43 points each before the weekend’s final race, Ashwin won the morning race (race 3) and claimed the second place in the afternoon (race 4) to take a lead of one point, with 50 points in his kitty. Nayan Chatterjee surged to the second place by collecting 29 points over the weekend. He managed to finish second in race 3 and third in race 4. He now has 49 points after his two victories on Day 1. Karthik Tharani is right on their tail with 48 points.

JK Novice Cup: The starting grid for race 2 was decided as per the finishing of the race 1. That meant Vishwas from DTS Racing took first position followed by Siddharth from Momentum Motorsports and his team mate Hashin EKP.

The race saw a thrilling finish, with the safety car ruining Vishwas Vijayaraj’s (DTS racing) attempt for a double win. As the cars regrouped (due to safety car) and the safety car was called off, Ashwin Nair (who finished fourth in the last race) and Tijil Rao (sixth in last race) sandwiched Vishwas, and left him in their trail.

However, Ashwin was slapped a 10-second penalty for avoidable collision, which saw him tumbling down to eighth place.This made Tijli, the 14-year old, clinch his first win ever. He was followed by Huzaifa Tinwala (Prudent Motorsports) and Yokeshwaran  Krishnavelu (MSport) in second and third places, respectively.

LGB Formula 4: In the second race Vishnu (MSport), winner of race 1, gave yet another commendable performance in the LGB 4 on Sunday. Starting from P7, thanks to the reverse grid, he quickly made his way past the traffic to clinch Race 2 with 5.9 seconds to spare.

However, in the third race, Vishnu was left behind as his teammate Raghul Rangasamy and Rohit Khanna (Dark Don Racing) went past him early on in the race. Vishnu went for the kill in the final lap and dislodged Rohit but couldn’t deny Raghul Rangasamy the victory. Rohit took the third place in both the races.

Gixxer Cup: Joseph Mathew continued his winning streak in the Gixxer Cup, winning his fourth race(including both round 1 and 2). Syed Muzammil Ali and Malasawmdawnglama took the other two places on the podium.

Red Bull Rookies Cup: PC Andy won race 2 of round 2 and matched Jerome Vanlalrengpuia in the points table at the top with 32 points. However, it was Jerome Vanlalrengpuia who booked his trip to Spain for the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup qualifiers next month, by posting the fastest timing in the qualifiers over the two rounds of Red Bull Road to Rookies.