Double delight: Chiranth lives the teenage dream on track

CHENNAI: In what turned out to be the race of the weekend, the Chiranth Vishwanath, the nineteen-year-old from Bengaluru, held off his arch-rival and Petronas TVS Racing team-mate, Pune’s Sarthak Chavan, for the second time in two days to complete a superb double in the premier Super Sport 301-400cc Open class as the third round of the MRF Indian National Racing Challenge 2W 2026 concluded at the Madras International Circuit here today.

After a half-an-hour delay, following sharp showers in the afternoon, Chiranth and Sarthak put on a show in the six-lap race, battling it for top spot. Chiranth, winner of Race-1 on Saturday with a record lap time, Sarthak and their younger team-mate Rakshith Dave, took turns to lead the pack. In fact, Rakshith looked set for a win when he led comfortably before almost slipping when negotiating a puddle of water which cost him three spots and he eventually finished fourth.

Up ahead, leader Sarthak and Chiranth were locked in a titanic fight. The decisive moment in the closing stages when Chiranth roared past Sarthak to register his second win of the weekend while Sarthak again had to be content with a P2 finish.

Local challenger Venugopalan S (Motul Sparks Racing) scored his first win in the extremely competitive Stock 301-400cc Novice class. The podium spots were up for grabs until the last lap when Venugopalan surged ahead, with Trichy’s Kavicholaiarasan (Speed Up Racing) and Shyam Sundar (M3 Torque Motorsports) finishing behind him in that order.

The results (Provisional – all 6 laps unless mentioned):

Super Sport 301-400cc Open (Race-2): Chiranth Vishwanath (Bengaluru, Petronas TVS Racing) (11min, 09.613sec); Sarthak Chavan (Pune, Petronas TVS Racing) (11:09.870); Mohamed Mikail (Thiruvallur, MadRabbit Racing) (11:11.383)

Super Stock 301-400cc Open (Race-2): Senthil Kumar (Coimbatore, Team RACR Castrol Power1) (11:28.204); Abdul Basim RS (Chennai, Chandra LGE Racing) (11:28.544); P Sri Harsha (Hyderabad, Motul Gusto Racing) (11:36.386)

Super Stock 165cc Intermediate (Race-2): Anandhu KK (Chennai, Veedol C2 Racing) (12:42.998); Ann Jennifer AS (Chennai, Motul Sparks Racing) (12:43.277); Anand Kumar S (Chennai, Ipone Yakuza Racing) (12:51.912)

Stock 301-400 Novice (Race-2): Venugopalan S (Chennai, Motul Sparks Racing) (12:20.189); Kavicholaiarasan (Trichy, Speed Up Racing) (12:23.133); Shyam Sundar K (Chennai, M3 Torque Motorsports) (12:25.506)