Dejan de Zoysa 2nd to India's Patel

By Srian Obeysekere

Sri Lanka's Dejan de Zoysa was placed second to India's star driver Aditya Patel in a 15-lap race in the Indo-Lanka race meet held last week at Coimbatore, India.

Patel, known for dominating the Indian circuit and who is making a mark in international racing, won the race competed by 16 drivers, 8 from each country. Sri Lanka's Romani de Silva, another fine Formula driver, finished third.

"It was some achievement coming second despite a late start"," said 20-year-old Dejan who added that it was a fine learning experience.

Sri Lanka's participation in such a meet, the first of its kind to be staged in India was the result of the tiring efforts of well-known local driver Rohan de Silva.

"Rohan has put everything possible behind the effort to ensure that Sri Lankan drivers get more international exposure" said Bri Ponnambalam another distinguished figure in the field.

"It is commendable of young Dejan and Romani who competed on a track which had 15 corners with the minimum of just one practice session to acclimatise. In Sri Lanka where Katukurunda is the fastest track, the maximum speed at taking corners is about 80 kmph while in India it is a much higher achieving speed of as much as 140 kmph"," commented Bri Ponnambalam who said that a pleasing factor of the Sri Lankan team was their high discipline and team spirit despite each competing against each other. It had in fact won the praise of the Indians. In the second race, Niroshan Pereira and Rizvi Farouk finished a creditable fourth and fifth respectively with the first three places going to the Indians.

The next Indo-Lanka meet will be held in June.

The Lankan contingent was selected by the Sri Lanka Automobile Sports (SLAS) selection committee.
