Lankan drivers for new national racing championship

Chennai, Feb 15 (UNI) Ten drivers from Sri Lanka will be vying for honours with seasoned Indian drivers in the first Asian level racing under the aegis of Meco Motorsports and Kari Motor Speedway, Coimbatore on February 17th and 18.

The first two races will be two 10 lap sprints in the Formula LGB-Esteem single seater racing cars. This will be followed by a two hour endurance race. The endurance race will be held in Formula LGB-Esteem class and Formula LGB-Hyundai class, according to a press release by Madras Motor Sports Clubs (MMSC).

Each team will have two drivers, each of whom would be allowed a maximum of 30 minutes driving time after which a compulsory driver change has to be made. Refuelling and tyre changing would be permitted during the pit stops. The chequered flag will be shown to the leading car at the end of the 120th minute.

The Lankan drivers in fray include Romani De Silva, Dinesh Jayawardene, Rohan De Silva, Susantha Gunawardane, Rikaz Khalid, Dilan Seneviratne, Shehara Jayawardene, Bri Ponnambalam, Nalin Gunasekara, Buddhika De Silva, Reyaz Farouk and Devinda De Silva representing the Sri Lankan team.

The Indian drivers for the Sprint race include Gaurav Dalal, Anand Prasad, G R Shankar Narayanan, Sudanand Daniel, and Karner Christian.

Indian driver teams for the Endurance Race will include Akkineni Anand Prasad &Aditya Akkineni for Team Gemini-Meco Racing, Ashwin Sundar and Gaurav Dalal-for Team Gemini-Meco Racing, G R Shankar Naraynan and Sudanand Daniel for Meco Racing, Karner Christian and Ayub Khan for Meco Racing, Karan Goenka and Anand Phillar for Meco Racing, B Vijaykumar and Sanjay Balu for Prime Racing, Sivakumar and Fazal Khan for Prime Racing.

The qualifying format is also a new concept with both the drivers of each team having to do a 1 lap of qualifying run. The aggregate time of both the drivers times will be taken as the qualifying time of the team for the grid position of the two- hour endurance race.

UNI