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Wins Best Driver, Car Team Champion and Motorbike Team Champion awards at 2016 CEAT-SLADA Awards
The CEAT Racing Team was officially crowned the supreme force in Sri Lanka’s motor racing fraternity on Friday 2 December, taking three of the four top awards in the 2016 CEAT-SLADA Championship at the gala awards night hosted by the Sri Lanka Auto-Sports Drivers Association.
Team CEAT’s Ushan Perera received the Best Driver award and together with teammate Malika Kuruvitarachchi annexed the Car Team Championship, while CEAT riders Evon B. Gurusinghe and Deshan Solanki claimed the Motorcycle Team Championship in an unprecedented show of dominance by a single team.
The CEAT Racing Team’s award winners with dignitaries and Senior Management and Executives of CEAT Kelani Holdings at the 2016 CEAT-SLADA Awards
The only main award not won by CEAT at the 2016 championship went to ace rider Ishan Dasanayake of Team TVS who won the Best Rider award.
This is the third year in a row that the CEAT Racing Team won the Car Team Championship.
Defence Ministry Secretary Karunasena Hettiarachchi, the former commanders and senior officers of the army and air force, representatives of the sport’s regulatory bodies and senior management of CEAT Kelani Holdings, the Title Sponsor of the championship were among the large gathering of dignitaries that graced the event.
This is the seventh successive year that the country’s premier motor racing championship was supported with title sponsorship by CEAT, the highest-selling single tyre brand in the local market.
Commenting on the CEAT Racing Team’s stellar performance in 2016, CEAT Kelani Holdings Managing Director Vijay Gambhire said: “We are naturally elated that our team, which represents a brand so closely linked with motoring performance, has emphatically affirmed its supremacy on the track. CEAT has been credited with being a catalyst in the renaissance of motor sports in Sri Lanka, and we look forward to playing a key role in the growth of the sport in the years ahead.”
The performances of drivers and riders at six races conducted by SLADA in 2016 were considered in the crowning of the Champion Driver, Champion Rider, Car Team Champions and Motorbike Team Champions at the CEAT – SLADA Championship. The six races were the Foxhill Supercross, Gunner Supercross, Gajaba Supercross, Sigiriya Rallycross, Rotherham Circuit Meet-Race 1 and Rotherham Circuit Meet-Race 2.
Besides its sponsorship of the CEAT-SLADA Championship, CEAT supports the race meets conducted by the Sri Lanka Army and the Sri Lanka Air Force, as well as the sport’s governing body Sri Lanka Automobile Sports (SLAS). As part of its partnership with SLAS, CEAT Kelani Holdings is the principal sponsor of all Ford Laser/Mazda 1300cc and 1500cc ‘one-make’ racing events conducted during the year, at which all competing drivers race on CEAT radial tyres.
