Tarun Reddy held his own in a race full of crashes and confusion to win the second race of Round 3 in the MRF Challenge 2015 at the Dubai Autodrome on Friday.
The Indian National Anthem played for the first time this season as the young Indian beat woman racer Tatiana Calderon of Colombia on calculations based on combined time of the race before the red flag and the last five laps of the race after that.
The race was red-flagged on Lap 3 when Guiliano Alesi of France crashed. Calderon crossed the finish line in first place, after overtaking Tarun in the penultimate lap, but the Indian driver was adjudged the winner on calculations that showed him to be faster by 0.260 secs. Russian driver Nikita Troitckii got his second podium of the day with a third place finish in the second race.
The second race started with Max Fewtrell of Great Britain on reverse grid pole, alongside Tarun. The Indian got the jump on the former and moved to first place on the first corner. He was followed by Fewtrell, Troitckii, Calderon and Alessio Picariello of Belgium.
Alesi crashed at the end of Lap 1 and that brought out the safety car. The race was finally red-flagged on Lap 3 to clear the car and fix the barrier. The race had to be restarted and was made a five-lap encounter in the end.
Picariello, who suffered a steering problem, was forced to the pit and start from there for the restart. It ended his dream run of winning three successive races.
Earlier in the day, Picariello continued his great form to win the first race after a three-way battle with Pietro Fittipaldi of Brazil and Troitckii, who claimed the second and third places respectively.
(Amitabha Das Sharma is in Dubai at the invitation of MRF Ltd.)
