Prashath Tharani gets his first win of the season by winning Race 1 of Round 2 of Polo R Cup 2013

Prashanth Tharani won the 1st race of the weekend after a flawless driving throughout the race. Following him closely for the entire race in 2nd place was Jeffrey Kruger who also held on to his position from start to finish. Rahil Noorani showed excellent comeback after qualifying in 5th, dropping to 6th and eventually managing to finish on podium in 3rd position. The Vento Support Race which ran for the first time saw Shrivatsa Sinha clinching top honours. As the lights went off, all the drivers went gunning down the main straight to make positions with four of them entering the 1stcorner abreast. Pole setter Prashanth Tharani defended his position and that contributed greatly to the victory he took 15 laps later. Jeffrey Kruger kept putting pressure on Prashanth throughout the race but the latter managed to keep his cool and handled the situation well. Rahil Noorani didn’t have the perfect qualifying yesterday and started from 5th. Angad Singh Matharoo overtook him at the start of the race putting him on the 6thspot in the first lap itself.

However, he fought back and by lap 3, he was able to get into the 3rd position, which he held on till the end of the race. Prithviraj Siddappa, Head of Motorsports, said, “The Race 1 today was an extremely exciting one to watch with quite a few overtakes throughout. It was interesting to see the mid-order drivers fighting ambitiously for the complete race and improving lap by lap. As usual, with the reverse grid, Race 2 will be exciting as ever and we expect some interesting results later in the afternoon.” Prashanth Tharani, winner of Race 1, commented, “It was thrilling to take the pole position yesterday and even better to win the race today. My sponsors had surprised me with a lot of branding for me on my way to the track and that definitely contributed to the motivation that I had to win this race! I hope I can carry forward my good form and perform well in Race 2 as well.” JK Tyre Volkswagen Vento Support Race Adding more action to the race weekend, Vento special race kicked off today’s proceedings at the Kari Motor Speedway, which was won by Pune’s Shrivatsa Snha. Pole sitter Siddharth Santosh started on a wrong foot by jumping the start and faced a penalty of 30 seconds.

Shrivatsa Sinha (Polo R Cup 2011 driver), who started second, overtook Siddharth in the first lap and then went on extending lead, lap on lap, winning with a margin of almost 20 seconds. Behind Shrivatsa, Sahil Gahuri and Siddharth had a constant battle going on and eventually Sahil finished behind Shrivatsa. Adithyan Ellan who crossed the checkered flag in 4th position, was declared 3rd since Siddharth had a 30 second penalty which put him at the 7th spot at the end of the race. Jamshed Patel, who started 8th on the grid, gave a tough fight to Adithyan but eventually had to settle at the 4thspot.

Race 1 result:

Pos.	Car No.	Driver Name (City)	Best Lap Time	Total Time	Difference
1	9	Prashant Tharani (Chennai)	1:15.815	19:12.212	–
2	8	Jeffrey Kruger (Johannesburg)	1:15.714	19:13.271	+1.059
3	1	Rahil Noorani (Mumbai)	1:16.263	19:23.552	+11.340
4	2	Angad Singh Matharoo (Chandigarh)	1:16.441	19:25.224	+13.012
5	10	Yatin Magu (New Delhi)	1:16.301	19:28.147	+15.935
6	17	Hanoosh Surapaneni (Hyderabad)	1:16.231	19:32.920	+20.708
7	7	Samarth Jaiswal (Mumbai)	1:16.537	19:33.569	+21.357
8	5	Gowdham Raj (Coimbatore)	1:16.267	19:39.744	+27.532
9	12	Divijraj Thakran (Gurgaon)	1:16.738	19:40.998	+28.786
10	20	Gaurav Mehta (Pune)	1:16.840	19:41.734	+29.521
11	18	Niranjan Todkari (Aurangabad)	1:16.611	19:44.277	+32.065
12	15	Tanmay Ugale (Pune)	1:17.280	19:48.308	+36.096
13	14	Anshul Shah (Nagpur)	1:17.262	19:53.277	+41.065
14	23	Rakesh Ramkunar (Chennai)	1:15.991	19:53.832	+41.620
15	3	Maninder Singh Prince (New Delhi)	1:16.381	19:54.377	+42.165
16	16	Venkatesh Shreyas(Coimbatore)	1:17.559	20:00.748	+48.536
17	11	Shivjeet Malik (Gurgaon)	1:16.227	18:38.121	1 lap
18	4	Kartik Tharani (Chennai)	1:16.118	20:28.559	+1:50.438

19	6	Rahul Gupta (New Delhi)	1:40.469	1:46.468	14 laps
20	21	Adnan Lehry (Chennai)	–	–	–

Vento Race results:

Pos.	Car No.	Driver Name (City)	Best Lap Time	Total Time	Difference
1	6	Shrivatsa Sinha	1:21.435	13:53.551	–
2	2	Sahil Gahuri	1:22.928	14:13.755	+20.204
3	4	Adithyan Ellan	1:22.954	14:17.663	+24.112
4	8	Jamshed Patel	1:22.246	14:18.169	+24.618
5	3	Karan Makhija	1:23.060	14:29.852	+36.301
6	1	Himanshu Makhija	1:24.377	14:39.807	+46.256
7	7	Siddharth Santosh	1:23.035	14:41.839	+48.288
8	5	Ameet Ayare	1:23.590	04:30.781	7 Laps