By IANS
Chennai : The third JK Tyre Junior Racing Cup, commencing at the weekend, has attracted a full grid of 16 cars and the championship will be run over 10 rounds at the MMST track in neighbouring Sriperumbudur.
The championship will be run along the same lines as in the past with participation restricted to first-timers and those who have not won a race in the past two years.
The Junior Cup will kick-start the new racing season that will commence in January instead of April. The 2008 championship will be split into two phases with a summer break of about three months in view of the extreme hot weather conditions in Chennai during May-July period.
In the Junior Cup, the competitors will be driving Formula Maruti fitted with the 800cc engine. FISSME for short, the machine is the base model and is far cheaper to run and hire than the next level of Indian Formula cars that are run on Suzuki Swift, Hyundai and Chevrolet engines.
Announcing the details of the Junior Cup on behalf of JK Tyre, Vicky Chandhok, the former Federation of Motor Sports Club Of India (FMSCI) president, said the championship consists of two rounds to be run over two weekends, Dec 1-2 and Dec 23-24. Each round will comprise five races.
In an innovative move, there will be only one qualifying round for each of the two rounds to determine grid positions for the opening race. Thereafter, the grid for the top six would be reversed as in the GP2 series. In other words, the driver finishing first would start from sixth position and vice-versa.
The overall winner of the championship will be decided on the basis of best eight results of 10 rounds and the champion will be eligible for a free drive in the senior series.