Bengaluru’s Ashish Ramaswamy of Red Rooster Performance team today won the premier Indian Touring Cars class race in the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Racing Championship at the Kari Motor Speedway here.

Running second behind fellow-Bengalurean Deepak Paul Chinnappa (Race Concepts) until two of the 15 laps to go, 25-year-old Ramaswamy passed the leader who was struggling with loss of two gears, and emerged the winner. The duo finished well ahead of third placed C Rajaram (Prime Racing).

In the Volkswagen Ameo Cup, Delhi’s Karminder Singh, last year’s Vento Cup winner, grabbed the pole position after being quickest in both the free practice sessions before topping the qualifying time sheets.

Chennai’s Sandeep Kumar was second ahead of Kolhapur’s Dhruv Mohite.

Chinnappa started on pole after defending champion and original pole-sitter Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster Performance) missed the race due to engine problems, but dropped to last after failing to engage the clutch when the lights went off.

However, he fought his way back and eventually passed front-runner Ramaswamy to open up what seemed to be a winning lead. But with two laps to go, Chinnappa lost two gears and Ramaswamy seized the opportunity to regain the lead to win.

Narendran was the quickest in both the free practice sessions.

However, in the second practice outing, he went in hard at Turn-1, locked up the brakes and slammed into the kerb causing damage to chassis and the engine block which subsequently developed a crack.

In the qualifying session later in the afternoon, Narendran was again the quickest, but towards close the engine expired in a billow of smoke. Following inspection in the garage, the team decided to change the engine while opting to sit out the race.

The results (Provisional): Indian Touring Cars – Race 1 (15 laps): 1. Ashish Ramaswamy (Red Rooster Performance) (17mins, 57.944secs); 2. Deepak Paul Chinnappa (Race Concepts) (17:58.457); 3. C Rajaram (Prime Racing) (18:27.020).

Qualifying – Indian Touring Cars: 1. Arjun Narendran (Red Rooster Performance) (01:09.658); 2. Deepak Paul Chinnappa (Race Concepts (01:09.715); 3. Ashish Ramaswamy (Red Rooster Performance) (01:09.833).

Volkswagen Ameo Cup: 1. Karminder Singh (Delhi) (01:09.368); 2. A Sandeep Kumar (Chennai) (01:09.794); 3. Dhruv Mohite (Kolhapur) (01:10.141).