Nabil Jeffri of Petronas Mofaz Racing won the JK Racing Asia series here on Saturday. Clocking 22:12.292 seconds, Jeffri delighted his home crowd. Close behind him was Afiq Yazid of Meritus GP, giving Malaysia a 1-2.
EuroInternational's Lucas Auer, who started on pole, finished third.
India's Bharat Raj, who is making his debut in the cauldron of this high-octane sport, did well within himself, finishing 16. In all 18 drivers competed, covering 55.430 km over 10 laps.
Bharat, the National karting champion, who had stated before the start of the series that it would be more of a learning curve for him, gave a good account of himself having a good sixth lap. He finished about 37 seconds adrift of the winner.
“I had a really good start. I wasn't really on pace but it was a good race,” Jeffri said.
“The car was harder to handle in the last three laps as it was getting slippery and my tyres were going off a lot. My engineers miscalculated the tyre and the pressure so there was major understeer, but I managed to pull it thorough,” a delighted Jeffri added.
Yazid, though, was slightly disappointed finishing second as he was gunning for a win. “Nabil had a really good start and at the first corner,” he said.
For Austrian Auer, the race was one that he will learn from. “I feel okay. We were pretty quick. I did not manage a good start, and then I made a mistake.
“For the first race maybe it was okay. We had a good speed but I made two mistakes. And that cost me,” he said.
Later, Karun Chandhok, who is a mentor for the young racers, gave a few tips to the aspiring young racers in an interactive session. He said the series was a platform for the youngsters to go on to bigger things. He told them to make an effort to learn as much as they could and set their sights high.
