Coimbatore JK Tyre: Chatterjee wins Race 1 as Prasad retires
Nayan Chatterjee inherited victory in the opening Euro JK race of the second round at Coimbatore after runaway leader Vishnu Prasad retired with technical problems on the final lap.
Nayan Chatterjee
JK Tyre Racing
Prasad had dominated the first three quarters of the race from pole position and was able to perfectly execute the safety car restart to stay in the lead.
However, on the very final tour, the three-time champion parked his car after the second chicane due to a suspected technical issue, leaving the fight open for victory.
Just before Prasad retired from the race, Nayan Chatterjee, Anindith Reddy and Vikash Anand went three-abreast at the first corner, with Anand running wide onto the gravel trap.
Australia’s Ricky Capo took full advantage of their battle to briefly take the lead, only for Chatterjee to snatch it back and win the race by just 0.091s.
Reddy, however, wasn’t as lucky; an off-track excursion at the first chicane left him in third place, four tenths adrift of Capo.
Italy’s Paolo Ippolito started on the front row of the grid but lost ground to rivals in the first half of the race, eventually crossing the line in fourth place.
Brayan Perera and Nirmal Uma Shankar were next up in fifth and sixth positions respectively, while Anand had to settle for seventh after the final lap melee.
Ashwin Datta and Manav Sharma finished eighth and ninth respectively while Mira Erda was the last of the classified finisher in 10th.
Apart from Prasad, Sandeep Kumar was the only other retiree, the Chennai-born driver responsible for the sole SC intervention.
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