Solid start to the JK Racing Asia Series season for Eurasia drivers

Date posted on April 13, 2011 · Published by Mark Goddard

The first two rounds of the JK Racing Asia Series were held at the Sepang F1 GP in Malaysia. Eurasia’s Aaron Chang bagged enough points for fourth in the championship with a fourth and fifth place whilst Duvashen Padayachee was close with a fifth and seventh place finish in the 18 car field. Natasha Seatter and Pasin Lathouras both demonstrated potential, finishing 7th and 8th respectively in race one.

Chang. Padayachee, Seatter and Lathouras lined up in 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th places respectively for race one. A great start saw Chang slot into third place but despite a strong defence Afiq was able to find a way past on lap two. Chang remained in fourth for the balance of the race with team-mate Duvashen Padayachee in attendance but not close enough to threaten the Malaysian. Padayachee had taken Danial for fifth place on lap four and then steadily pulled away in his chase of his team-mate. The most thrilling dice of the race was held behind between Pasin and Natasha. Pasin slotted into 8th place at the start whilst Natasha had been ‘hung out to dry’ at turn one on the first lap and dropped to 10th. She was soon on the tail of Pasin and squeezed by on lap 7 after a spirited defence by the Thai driver. However Pasin did not give up and they continued to swap places in a great display of racing. This allowed to Jimmy Antunes to close in and the three took the chequered flag almost as one after a hectic last lap.

Round two was held on Sunday before the F1 GP and Chang made another good start to finish the first lap in 4th with Duvashen in 5th whilst Pasin was in 9th and Natasha again lost out in the first corner and dropped to 11th. Chang and Padayachee were closely matched but slowly lost touch with the three leaders whilst Danial and Ilyas were gradually closing the gap to the two Eurasia cars. Lap six saw both force their way past Duvashen and despite his best efforts he could not find a way past again. It was a four car dice for fourth place and with two laps to go Danial made up one more place dropping Aaron to 5th.

Pasin’s race was spoiled after contact with Seibl at turn two on the second lap. “He just turned in on me” reported the Thai. Pasin was awarded a drive through penalty for the incident and he duly dropped to the back of the field. He did well to finish 15th. Natasha meanwhile finished 11th leading a train of four cars after a spirited race.

The second JK Racing Asia Series event will also take place at Sepang in a four race Asian Festival of Speed meeting. “All of our drivers are second year drivers and they have all improved their performance over last year which is satisfying for the team. We now have some more testing before the second event and I am confident we can find in the drivers the half a second they need to be on the podium” reported Eurasia Motorsport’s Mark Goddard. “The first JK Racing Asia Series event was a resounding success, a good size grid of 18 cars and we hear the F1 people were very impressed. We congratulate David Sonenscher, his staff at Motor Sport Asia and Series Manager Mark Turner for putting the series together with the support of JK Tyres. I felt sorry for Pasin getting a drive through penalty. Ironically I had requested in the official test briefing that only incidents that were very clear like overtaking under yellows, overtaking by going outside of the confined of the track and false starts were dealt with by a drive through penalty and incidents involving contact were dealt with after the race. Seems it fell on deaf ears and I sincerely hope the officials will change this unfair policy immediately.”