Zakir and Chandima top drivers at Pannala

AMRC CHAMPIONSHIP 2012- Round 4

The fourth edition of the Asian Motor Racing Club Championship 2012 saw the few changes to the standings when Chandima Guneratne collected eighteen points to take the lead in the standings. Chandima driving his Formula McLarens 1300cc won the day’s second event for this class.

Earlier in the day he was placed second behind Zakir Wahab in race one which gave him a total of eighteen points from these two events. With these he has accumulated 47 and tops the list.

Chandima was in fine fettle on this day and also became the star overtaking the leader Tharindu Gamage who held the lead up to three stages with 45 points. Tharindu did not have luck on this day and was never in contention even for a podium finish when he was way behind the leaders in race one.

 The first race was completely dominated by the winner Zakir Wahab who got off to a fine start with all other drivers chasing him throughout the race. Chandima and Sabry was  seen chasing the leader Zakir but could not get past him until Zakir received the chequered flag first. Rumesh Rajakulendram who was on top five up to third stage also failed during this event and could not be among the top five.

 The second race of the same category saw the failures in race one come strongly to challenge the winner of race one and their attempts brought better results with Chandima, Sabry and Clement doing well to be on top with winner in raceone Zakir  facing technical problems and failing to finish along with others.

With these results the Asian Motor Racing Club Championship is wide open and anything can happen in the coming rounds as the all drivers’ positions are separated by smaller margins of points. The future stages will be of much interest for all drivers and as well for the spectators. The ford Formula 1600cc Post 85 class saw anther interesting affair with the leader for the Championship Ashan silva battling out with experienced Dinesh Jayawardene. Dinesh and Ashan were off to a perfect start and for almost half of the race  it was Dinesh who was in front with Ashan hanging on closely to the leader of the race.

Ashan who has come up strongly in the past few years used all his experience and intelligence and waited for the opportunity for him to go past Dinesh. Once overtaking Dinesh kept on moving steadily to control the race and ended as the winner to maintain his top position for a further period. Dinesh holds on his second slot.

Ford Formula 1600cc Pre 85 class the most experienced driver Rohan de Silva pitted agains a host young drivers. Viren Boteju, S.A. Harsha and Kaushalya Samarasinghe are the top contenders for the AMRC Championship this year. The veteran De Silva had to pull out of the race as his machine failed give him the best while the other drivers continued the battle.

The man really troubled the Kaushalya Samarasinghe was none other than young Harsha. Kaushal who was lying second behind Viren Boteju in the rankings made good use of the opportunity to take full control of the race and went on to win it. This victory which brought him ten points puts him right on top of the standings pushing the leader Viren Boteju second slot. Boteju failed to live up to expectations and he will have to fight a strong battle in the next round to come. The event for the driver in the McLarens Alto K10 Class too was evenly contested by all drivers in both racers. Yanik Lawrence and Sanjaya Ransinghe were the two winners in race one and two respectively. Yanik had better star in race one and moved swiftly to until the end to win the race. But the second race was not that good for him as he had content with the second place with the winner being Sanjaya Ransinghe.

Kushan Peiris and Sanjaya Ransinghe were the runners up in race one while the race two saw Yanik Lawrence and Zulfi Sulaiman take second and third positions respectively.

Though the track had wet condition due to rains that in between did not trouble the organizers as the drivers drove their vehicles in decent manner to evade serious incidents. The Organizers too conducted the events perfectly to suit the occasion.