Eshan makes his mark in local Karting
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Eshan Pieris made Sri Lanka proud by securing the second place at the Rotax Max Challenge Asia – Round 2 held at the Elite Plus Speedway Circuit in Malaysia. Eshan, a former student of S. Thomas’ College Mat. Lavinia, finished behind Senna Sulaiman Noor by a whisker as he went on to display his potential on the race track. The win comes on the heels of another excellent performance, earlier in March, when he was a podium finisher, placing fifth in the Senior Category at Round 1 of X30 Challenge Singapore 2016, which is Singapore’s biggest internationally sanctioned race.
Driving for RL Karting Team Malaysia, Eshan in a new Birel Art showed his pace with a second in the Time Trials and a third in Heat 1. In Heat 2, Eshan’s engine shut down in the warm-up lap which resulted in an 11th starting position for the pre-finals. But he fought back to take a decisive third place, giving him a good place to start the finals where he went on to fin ish second. He also recorded the fastest lap in both pre-final and finals. “Eshan drove brilliantly against a field of extremely experienced champions from around Asia.
He was hot on the wheels of the ultimate winner, Senna Sulaiman Noor who was a mere 0.133 seconds ahead, while Weiron Tan, who came in third, trailed Eshan by 3.847 seconds,” Richaryd Rabot, Head of Operations of Sri Lanka Karting Circuit in Bandaragama (SLKC), who witnessed Eshan’s epic performance said. He went on to explain that the current 800-metre racing track at SLKC, the largest in the country, is being expanded further to over 1,100 metres which will allow Sri Lanka to host regional and internationally accredited races. If that materialises, young drivers like Eshan gets the opportunity to showpiece their talent against top global contenders in front of the local supporters.
According to Rabot discussions are already underway to conduct one leg of the X30 Championship in Sri Lanka. Most Formula1 drivers have started off as Go-kart Champions, including Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. Schumacher was just six when he won his first karting championship. Hamilton began karting at the age of eight and quickly began winning races and Cadet class championships. Button also started karting at eight, and at nine, came first in the British Super Prix and went on to win all 34 races of the 1991 British Cadet Kart Championship. The rest, as they say, is history.