Ameo Cup – round three report
Penultimate round of the Ameo Cup has proved to be a boon for the championship leader, Karminder Singh who managed to win two out of the three races during the weekend.
Qualifying round on Friday saw Saurav Bandyopadhyay from Mumbai on pole, followed by Karminder Singh and Sandeep Kumar from Chennai. The races were held on the Club Circuit, which utilises the short loop as the track was waterlogged on Friday. The drivers decided to race on the short loop, citing safety issues.
In the first race, Saurav managed to sustain his position as Karminder and Sandeep fought for second. It was a chaotic race as the Christmas lights weren’t working and the stewards had to rely on old ways off flagging off the race. The short loop does not allow for overtaking opportunities and hence, Saurav managed to win the race comfortably with a lead of almost eight seconds.
Second race was held on Sunday and was the most exciting race of the Ameo Cup in round 3. The first eight drivers on the grid start in a reverse order, forming the grid as follows: Rohit Goyal, Aditya Pawar, Donovan Vaz, Jeet Jhabakh, Dhruv Mohite, Sandeep Kumar, Karminder Singh and Saurav Bandopadhyay.
Just after first lap, Donovan managed to grab the first position, overtaking two cars while Karminder moved from seventh to third. Karminder kept pressurising Jeet who ended up losing two positions, putting Dhruv on the third position. Donovan could not sustain the pressure and ended up making lots of mistakes to end up at 14th position in the end, while Karminder maintained his lead, going faster than everyone by more than 0.5 seconds.
Race three was a straight forward affair as the drivers were lined up according to their second best lap timing during qualifying. The grid positions were more or less the same as race one. Saurav managed a flying start but made a mistake in the second lap as he could not spot an oil spill on the second corner, running wide. Karminder grabbed the opportunity with both the hands and then led the race comfortably for the rest of the laps. This race saw lots of ongoing battles through out the grid with only the bottom three drivers staying out of action. Sandeep Kumar had issues with his car and did not manage to finish in the end, losing valuable championship points to Karminder.
Final round of the Ameo Cup will be held between September 14-17 at the MMRT again. Karminder leads the championship right now and will expect to win from here with 384 points, followed by Dhruv Mohite at 270 points and Sandeep Kumar (yet to be confirmed).
