By Bernard Perera
Sri Lanka’s Eshan Pieris did his country proud by winning the final race in the inaugural Asian Winter Series (AWS) held over the weekend at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia.
The win was even more impressive given that this was Eshan’s first season in the F3 category.
Driving for Absolute Racing, Eshan got off to a great start qualifying second for the first race of the weekend. He kept up this great run by posting the fifth best time in the second qualifying session.
Saturday morning’s opening race unfortunately, saw Eshan taken out of the race after an aggressive overtaking attempt by an opponent while running in sixth. Later in the day Race Eight saw him starting from sixth on the grid and went on to avoid all kinds of hazards to finish fifth overall, equaling his best result in the series and being the best-placed Asian based driver in this race.
The last race of the season, saw Eshan make a good start from fifth on the grid to move up to second, but lost this position to teammate Ye Yifei in the second lap. Ye Yifei and Australian Jack Doohan then battled for supremacy when in lap 11 the two cars collided and Ye was forced to retire.
Following the leaders closely all the way, Eshan capitalized from their collision to take his maiden win in the series. He crossed the line more than two seconds clear of the second placed driver.
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