'So close, yet so far' as Parekh ends second best

Heading into the final weekend, Parekh was leading Karthik Tharani by 12 points, a handy margin but not a safe one.

Parekh started the first race on Sunday alongside Tharani and took the race lead going into the first corner. He led the race until the final lap incident which costed him the race as well as the coveted title.

"Championship was in my hands and feels 'really really' bad to be losing it like this," Parekh told Motorsport.com.

While defending from Tharani, both touched each other and Parekh ended up in the gravels. "After the incident on the last lap of the first race, the championship was over for me," he added.

"Having a DNF in the last round in a championship-deciding race is really disappointing."

However, he took the disappointment sportingly and competed in the final race strongly. Not only that, Parekh won the final race of the weekend ahead of Tharani.

"It's all part of the sport. I kept my calm and made my way up in the final race starting from last. I gave it my all and went on to win the race," the Chennai-based driver said.

Reflecting back at the season, Parekh was happy to end the championship with no major incidents even though they had some close racing all through.

"Arjun [Narendran], Karthik [Tharani] and me had some good wheel to wheel racing all year long. We had no mishaps even in a close finish in the wet race in Coimbatore."

With the FF1600 season completed, Parekh hopes to compete in the MRF Challenge series against some of the international drivers at international circuits in the coming months.