First win at Sigiriya after starting third from the grid

EZY Racer Sajaad Zuhair entertained over 20,000 fans when he drove EZY Racing to their third victory in as many races in the 2012 season by driving the wheels off his EZY Honda ER6 in the Sigiriya Supercross conducted by SLARDAR.

Sri Lanka’s foremost motor racing team who are powered by renowned brands such as crocodile, EZY Computers, AOC and many more, participated for the first time in Sigiriya with their star studded line up of drivers lead by Sajaad Zuhair and Pasindu Pieris.

The Black and Red team, which has become an iconic team in the paddocks and on the track had a great Saturday when Gravel King Pasindu Pieris qualified on pole position in the SLGT upto 3500cc and SLH 1600cc categories in his EZY Mitsubishi ER9 and EZY Honda ER4. Team mates Rizvi Farouk driving his EZY Mitsubishi ER8 and Sajaad Zuhair in his EZY Honda ER6 qualified fourth and third on the grid to give the Black and Red EZY Racing team a very strong position on Saturday.

With Pasindu Pieris experiencing a mixture of misfortunes which deprived him of transforming his pole positions into victories, team mate Sajaad Zuhair who has been the ace performer in tarmac events, was forced to put his very best efforts forward to compete very strongly in the gravel, a terrain that has been an unfamiliar and uncomfortable one for him.

Sajaad who started third on the grid managed to get off to a decent start but couldn’t gain any position from second placed Sashika Lakmal and race leader Ashan Silva. A detetmined Sajaad who knew the importance of winning the race for EZY Racing, hung onto the tail of Lakmal before pulling off a stunning and near impossible move on the dust filled gravel in lap three  to second place in the race. Once Sajaad had a clear vision of race leader Silva, he drove a few stunning laps to close the gap and put pressure on Silva who slightly erred while coming out of the last corner onto the main straight.

This provided  racing fans the most exciting moment of the race when Sajaad and Silva raced down the straight, side by side with Silva slightly ahead of Sajaad. However, going into corner one, Sajaad who held the inner line, managed to outbreak Silva when he braked very late, to take the corner ahead of Silva. There onwards it was a race to victory for Sajaad, who won his first ever race in Sigiriya.

“It is a great feeling to have won our very first race in Sigiriya. I have always preferred driving on tarmac as opposed to gravel. However, the team decided that in 2012 we will participate in every gravel race. This gave me the opportunity to further my skills and todays race was the outcome of it. The fact that I was able to overtake on gravel, demostrates how competitive we were this weekend,” said an elated Sajaad.

EZY Racing’s CEO and team principal Shafraz Hamzadeen said that Sajaad’s achievements were a phenomenal achievement and due to a lot of hard work put in by the driver and the team. We were all aware that Sajaad’s strengths primarily lay on harder surfaces. That’s why he is our best 1600c driver on the tarmac. When it comes to loose gravel, a driver needs to make many adjustments to his driving style as gravel racing is all about momentum. Sajaad proved that he has worked hard and adapted to this. These are very encouraging signs for the team” said Hamzadeen.Hamzadeen further stated that his team was quite unfortunate in not being able to bag a few more victories in Sigiriya. “We were very strongly positioned on Saturday and we felt we could have won in both SLGT and SLH. However, we do understand that when competing at this level, it’s the little things that can snatch fortune away from you. We understand the ups and down of the sport and hope to manage those situations much better in the future.” EZY Racing who recently topped 13,000 fans, plan on announcing a few more new partnerships with world renowned brands in the near future.