Loeb comes out on top at Finland

He is regarded as one of the greatest drivers of all time the World Rally Championship has seen so far. Frenchmen Sebastien Loeb’s hunger for winning rallies and extending his supremacy in the sport just seems to be increasing by the day. Loeb won the recently concluded Neste Oil Rally of Finland. The result has ensured that he is now 27 points clear of his nearest rival Mikko Hirvonen along with the fact that this victory was the 66th of his career. Thus he has also become the first non-Nordic driver to win this event twice.

Loeb started the final day with a 1.5 second lead over his team-mate Sebastien Ogier. Having to start first on the final day’s proceedings, Loeb was at a disadvantage as he would have to clear the stage for the rest of the field. Fortunately, overnight rain lead to the cancellation of the first stage and therefore the Citroen DS3 driver was able to extend his lead after a solid performance in stages 12 and 13. The afternoon session was trickier as it had stages that were badly rutted; the first competitor to fall prey to the conditions was Ogier who unfortunately picked up a puncture on stage 17.

Having started 2.6 seconds behind the leader in third place, Jari-Matti Latvala was not able to progress as he faced traction issues at the rear end of his car. However minor adjustments made to the rear differential during midday service saw the Fin snatch second position from Ogier at the end of stage 18. Mikko Hirvonen who was placed sixth before Saturday’s 11 stages rose to fourth position courtesy Petter Solberg who encountered differential problems. In fact the Ford Fiesta driver was one minute behind Petter only to perform better and snatch the position from the Norwegian.

Fellow countrymen Mads Ostberg finished sixth followed by team-mates Henning Solberg and Matthew Wilson who finished seventh and eighth respectively. Ex-Formula One World Champion, Kimi Raikkonen ended the rally in ninth place having sustained some damage on the front end of his ICE1 Racing Citroen during stage 17.

Repsol Honda dominaties at Brno & Laguna Seca

The most recent MotoGP race which took place at the Cardion ab Grand Prix in Brno Czech Republic, once again saw a Repsol Honda 1-2 finish. Australian rider Casey Stoner seized control of the race finishing first, while his Italian teammate, Dovizioso finshed in second. This was Stoner’s sixth win of the season and he now stretches his championship lead to 32 points over Yamaha Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo. Lorenzo had a tough time as he was struggling to hold on to his position before he was overtaken by Dovizioso and Simoncelli of the San Carlo Honda Gresini Team who came in third and captured his first podium finish in his MotoGP career. Lorenzo managed to finish in fourth and was followed closely by his teammate Ben Spies while Rossi finished in sixth place.

The outstanding performance from Repsol Honda Riders was also seen earlier at the Red Bull U.S. GP in Laguna Seca, where Casey Stoner grabbed the win. The Australian rider started from second on the grid, fell back into third and then launched an attack on his teammate Pedrosa and chased down Lorenzo for the win. Pedrosa was suffering from fatigue but performed remarkably well to finish in third position, while Lorenzo held onto second.

With the Honda riders’ dominant performance in the last two races Casey stoner now leads the Championship standings with 218 points. Jorge Lorenzo is in second with 186 points, Dovizioso is in third with 163 points and Rossi is in fourth with 118 points.

Ikhwan dominates Sentul

It was 19 year old Afiq Ikhwan who dominated rounds 7 to 10 of the JK Racing Asia Series held at the Sentul International Circuit recently. By winning all four rounds, Afiq has now risen to second spot in the Driver’s Standings with just 34 points separating him and the current leader Auer who came second in all four rounds this weekend.

The final race (round 10) on Sunday saw Afiq take the lead followed by Lucas who was mounting pressure on him all through. Both these drivers fought from start to finish, and they were followed by Malaysian driver Akash Nandy who completed the podium. This result was Nandy’s second third place finish for the weekend. Meanwhile both Duvashen Padayachee and Hiqmar Danial were locked in a battle for fourth place but eventually it was Padayachee who went past on lap eight to claim fourth position. Freddie Ang finished sixth ahead of Aaron Chang who was placed seventh followed by Pasin Lathouras in eighth.

Whereas in round 9, it was once again Afiq Ikhwan and Lucas Auer who got off to a flyer as they began to open up the gap with Afiq leading the race followed by Lucas. Meanwhile Freddie Ang, Duvashen Padayachee and Nabil Jeffri, were all battling it out for third place until lap 3 wherein Jeffri went past Padayachee to claim fourth place. After having made up one position, Jeffri began his assault by hunting down Ang but for his misfortune, the race had to be red flagged due a power failure on the Indonesian racing circuit. This was probably the first time that an incident of such kind had occurred, which resulted in a total wipe-out. In fact the race was suspended after 7 laps due to safety issues and could not be started due to an indefinite power cut. This meant that the rest of the race had to be completed behind a safety car. The final set of finisher’s included Akash Nandy who came in sixth followed by Hiqmar Danial in seventh and Irfan Ilyas eight place.

The previous day of the weekend had Afiq Ikhwan once again take the win in round 8. During this race the young rookie broke the record of setting the fastest time which was earlier held by Rio Haryanto who had set it during the year 2009. He led the race from pole to finish, despite Auer’s attempt to salvage his advantage. Behind both these drivers, it was Akash Nandy who finished the race in third place as he was followed by Hiqmar Danial and Nabil Jeffri completing top five finishes.

Being the first round of the weekend, it was here that the young 19 year old www.Meritus.GP driver won his first race of the season. In fact he was able to defend the almighty Lucas Auer who had till now been the dominating force in the Championship. While Nabil Jeffri crossed the line in third place.

Gaurav Gill triumphed at the recently concluded Rally of Coimbatore. He started the final day 29 seconds ahead of his nearest rivals and won the rally despite having to go slow on the last few stages due to rough conditions. Arjun Balu finished second despite having lost time due to wrong selection of tyres on the previous day, while Karna Kadur who took the final position on the podium as he was also the winner in the 2000cc category.

In the 1600cc category there were no changes on the final day as the overnight leader – C.G. Balram finished first despite incurring a 10 sec penalty. He was followed by Prakhyat Shirole and Siddhartha Rangnekar who finished second and third respectively. While the 1400 cc Category – aka Star Cup – saw A.M. Karan take the top honors with Vikram Rao finishing second and Vineeth Vincent Tom taking third place. The Gypsy category saw Sanjay Agarwal demonstrate his domination as he won the class followed by Shafeeq-ur-Rehman and John K Philip in second and third positions respectively.

Indian Motorsport doesn’t get better than this. At the recently held 3rd Round of the National Racing Championship held at the Irungattukottai race track in Sriperumbudur, we saw some fantastic and thrilling races. Starting off with the Polo R Cup, both the races were held on Sunday. In Race 1 it was Chennai’s very own Vishnu Prasad who finished first after a fast paced and very close race. Vishnu was followed in second by Ajay Kini from Bengaluru and Rahil Noorani from Mumbai came in third. In Race 2 however, Vishnu had to retire after he had a collision during the 8th lap. Goan driver Avdumber Hede managed to grab his first ever victory in the Polo Cup with an outstanding total time of 2:03.799, while Prateek Dalal from Delhi grabbed second place and was followed by Oshan Kothadiya from Pune.

Meanwhile in the most exciting race category, the ITC races were spectacular with a superb performance from autoX contributor Vir Raina. Facing major technical difficulties Vir managed to qualify in 16th, however in Race 1 he still managed to finish 8th. The race was won by V Rajvirdhan (Prime Racing) followed by N Leelakrishnan (Rad Racing) in second and Siddharth Kishore (Performance Racing) in third. In Race 2 Vir Raina was forced to start from the pit lane but he drove beautifully and managed to finish in 7th. Race 2 was won by TR Radha Selvarajan (Rad Racing) followed by N Leela Krishnan (Rad Racing) and Siddharth Kishore (Performance Racing).

In the Formula LGB Swift, Race 1 was won by Ameya Walawakar (Mars Racing) followed by R Deepak (Mars Racing) and S Narendran (TVS Girling), while Race 2 was won by three TVS Girling drivers - Karthik Krishna followed by S Narendran and A Sandeep Kumar.

Check out www.youtube.com/autoXTv to get a quick glimpse of the NRC event in Chennai.