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Tuesday, 14 October 2014 10:42 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
A fortnight after EZY Racing finished fifth in the Japanese Rally of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship, their local motor racing team stamped their class yet again in the local arena when they accumulated six wins to stamp their dominance at Katukurunda, competing in the final race of the year.
The black and red team who have become the cynosure in the motor racing circuit launched their 2015 car design during the race weekend by introducing a touch of white back to the car.
EZY Racing’s local duo Sajaad Zuhair and Dilan Seneviratne who together have provided the team with more than 25 podium finishes in the six races they competed in 2014, were joined by child prodigies Aaron and Jaden Gunawardane for the first time in 2014 to complete a strong lineup for the most looked forward to race of the year.
Zuhair, who has been in prime form throughout 2014, occupying pole position in 14 of the 15 races he competed in this year, had a rare glitch where he conceded pole position in his pet event, the SLH 1600 cc event, to Irfan Fuard.
However a determined Zuhair was able to engage in a close tussle with Fuard, before taking Fuard on the inside while entering the gooseneck in the third lap of the SLH 1600cc race 1.
“I had a peculiar problem on qualifying day where my gear refused to engage. The team did a great job in turning the car around overnight. Irfan is a good driver. Fortunately for me, I was able to apply pressure on him and gain from a slight mistake he made while entering the gooseneck,” Zuhair said after the SLH 1600 cc race 1.
Zuhair, who is yet to be beaten competitively in the SLS 1500 event for two seasons, comfortably converted his pole position to a race win with Madushan Manapperuma closely following him into second place.
Zuhair, who had two previous hat-tricks of wins on a race weekend this year, comfortably achieved his third hat-trick when he won the SLH 1600 race 2, finishing a fair distance from Damith Weerasinghe.
“It’s a great privilege to be able to provide these results to EZY Racing. As a team we have worked very hard to develop consistency and success. I believe this year has been about displaying that. Six wins on a weekend was phenomenal for the team. It was very unfortunate that my teammate Dilan Seneviratne had to retire from a possible podium position in the SLGT class,” said Zuhair after the race.
With Aaron and Jaden respectively winning their bike classes, adding three more wins to EZY Racing’s bag of awards, Team EZY Racing were able to hold their heads high and look beyond the unfortunate retirement of Seneviratne.
“Today was yet again a perfect weekend for us. We are grateful and privileged to have the most complete driver lineup. We started this new project two years back with a revamped outlook to our race team and I am very glad that we have exceeded our expectations. This shows the tremendous commitment and efforts our drivers and our partners put in, which includes Auto Force, Tuned I Chips and Dynamic Racing, who together have put in that extra effort to develop our cars so that we could perform consistently,” said Team Principal and Founder CEO Shafraz Hamzadeen.
With the local races coming to an end, EZY Racing will be next seen racing Internationally in China on 7 and 8 November .
