[DukeNukem]

Ameya Walavalkar and Mihir Dharkar won the 1st and 2nd races of Round 3 of the Volkswagen Polo R Cup respectively at the Madras Motor Race Track (MMRT) in Chennai yesterday.

After the results of the weekend, the duo also lead the drivers’ championship standings. Ameya now leads having overtaken Mihir’s 1-point lead after Round 2 (See Drivers' Standing below).

Race 1

Ameya completed the first race in a total time of 20:30:378, just ahead of 2010 Polo R Cup champion Sailesh Bolisetti in second (1.640 seconds behind) and Sandeep Kumar in third place (8.881 seconds behind).



Race winner Ameya started on pole and was closely followed by Sandeep and Avdumber Hede. However the race was red-flagged after a collision between Yatin Magu and Alisha Abdullah on the second corner. At the restart, Ameya pulled out quickly again while being followed by guest driver Sailesh and Sandeep. He maintained the lead to win his second race of the season.

Race 2

Meanwhile Mihir Dharkar took victory in the second race after some controversy. Ajay Kini had posted the fastest timings and looked set to win until he was awarded a 20-second penalty after the race. This pushed Mihir (total time: 20:40.432) to first place. Race 1 winner Ameya and guest driver Sailesh finished closely behind, in second and third places, 0.002 seconds and 0.556 seconds behind the leader respectively.

Saurav Bandyopadhay had started on pole for the reverse grid and led until spinning out later in the lap, handing the lead to Donovan. Ajay and Mihir stayed close behind for most of the race before Ajay moved on Donovan with three laps to go. Donovan was suffering from tyre wear and lost the lead to Ajay and slipped further down. Ajay held on to finish just ahead of Mihir and Ameya. However, Ajay was later adjudged to have collided with Donovan and penalised 20 seconds that cost him the race.





Some snapshots from the VW Polo R Cup Round 3...