Tough task for Ashwin Sundar

Chennai: Indian racing sensation Ashwin Sundar will have a tough task in hand when he starts at the

the third and final leg of MRF Festival of Speed Challenge 2010 domestic event on Sunday. At the end of two legs, Ashwin, driving for Narain Karthikeyan`s Speed Racing Team, has 36 points with three wins and a third spot. But Premier Racings` Amer Beg of Hyderabad has proved consistent, finishing runner-up in all four races so far with a tally of 32 points. With two more races to be go in the Formula 1600 cc category, Ashwin has to hold on to his tag as favourite if he hopes to win the Championship driver title. But a mix-up like last weekend where he went off the track would mean Amer Beg gains the initiative for the title. The Driver`s title carries a trophy and a cash prize of Rs five lakh. The total prize money on offer in this category is a whopping Rs 14 lakh. In the Super Saloon category (cc to weight), 22-year-old Sailesh Bolisetti, a second year engineering student from Visag, representing Radha Selvaraj Racing team, has won all four races so far and has 40 points to his credit. Bolisetti, on his debut, would be richer by Rs 2.48 lakh if he wins the overall title. He is followed by Coimbatore`s Nithin S Ravindran (32 pts) and Chennai lad Bhuvaraghavan (Rad Racing?16 pts) in second and third spots repectively. However, the Racing Star Cup (cc to weight category) has witnessed a series of protests for using non-homologated parts by about five drivers. In the first leg (two races), four drivers jointly protested against B Balavijay`s car over the "suspension." After Balavijay`s protest against these four cars after the first race in the second leg, organisers impounded the four cars and released them for the second race, after which scrutiny was conducted. Based on scrutiny reports of all six cars involved in the protests for four races, the cars of both Balavijay and Mumbai`s Mohd S Fahad were not found in order and eliminated from the four races and the points were withdrawn. The remaining four cars -- S Sujay, Shravan Reddy, Deepak Paul Chinappa and Prithveen Rajan ?- were found in order with the regulated conformity and cleared. Thus, the revised order of placing after four races are Vignesh (25pts) of Coimbatore, Sujay (22pts) and Prithveen Rajan (19 pts). In the two-wheeler categories, there were no protests and David Jones, with four wins in as many races is hot favourite for the overall title. The prize-money break-up is as follows: Formula 1600: Rs 14 lakh, including Rs five lakh for championship winner. Super saloons and racing star cup (CC to weight class) Rs 2,48,000 each. Bikes: Rs 3.5 lakh (600cc-Foreigners), Rs 2.48 lakh (600cc-Indian bikes); Rs two lakh each for Underbone, Group D (165cc) and Group C (165cc). PTI