Coimbatore: Delhi’s Sai Sanjay stole the show in the IRL Driver B Race at the Kari Motor Speedway in wet conditions on Sunday. The weekend was filled with action, where the drivers were tested to the hilt in challenging conditions.
The day belonged to Sai Sanjay as he emerged from the chaos to triumph in Race 2 even as the early hint was Aksahy Bohra and Neel Jani would be sewing it up.
Sai Sanjay later: “I think we had the pace all weekend. We were quickest on Friday, just unfortunate in qualifying where I messed up a bit and we ended up P3. But I knew we had the pace, big time. The team did an amazing job with the car. The team are now focused on the next round going to Chennai“ The next weekend will witness more action at the refurbished facility near Sriperumbudur on the outskirts of Chennai.
At the start of the race, a 3rd place finish would not have been ideal for Jani. But after his power failure on lap 1, his P3 finish was an impressive comeback from the Swiss driver. With all this drama happening behind him, Sai Sanjay cruised on to take victory in Race 2 of Round 1 at the Kari Motor Speedway.
In the FIA Certified Formula 4 battle, the menu was two races for the day. Race 1 saw Vasilis Apostolidis from Greece, representing the Hyderabad Black Birds convert his pole position start to a race win. Wian Boshoff had a challenging Race 1. He had a strong qualifying session that placed him to start P3 in the race, but was not able to capitalise on it.
Said Vasilis Apostolidis : “The race was very good. I was stressed a lot, raining all the way. It was a hard race, I was on the wet, but it was drying at the end, and I was faster than I wanted to be.”
Race 2 brought a better result for Kolkata Royal Tigers’ Ishaan Madesh, who got a mega launch off the start from P4 to P1. While he was able to keep the lead for the rest of the race, the drivers behind him didn’t give him any room to make mistakes. He ended up finishing just 1 second ahead of French driver, Sachel Rotge. Vasilis Apostolidis finished 3rd in Race 2 after fighting from P5 on the grid.