Volkswagen Polo thrills Colombo at the night races

Volkswagen's new racing car Race Polo added colour to the Colombo Night Races which concluded in a grand scale last Saturday.

There were 11 Volkswagen Polo cars in action at the night race, seven of which were driven by the top ten drivers of the Polo R Cup India 2011 season and four slots had been allotted to Sri Lankan guest drivers.

India's Polo R Cup 2011 drivers, Munjal Savla and Mihir Dharkar were placed first and second in race one and two respectively. The extravaganza had many other car series participating with a crowd of over fifty thousand enjoying the race and music throughout the night. In a line-up of eleven cars, eight drivers were from India and three guest drivers from Sri Lanka.

The first race started with Munjal at the pole and leading from start to finish. Munjal had a lead of 10 seconds by the end of the race. The fight was bumper-to-bumper for the second and third positions among Mihir Dharkar (Mumbai, India), Romani Di Silva (Sri Lanka) and Aditya Patel (India; Scirocco R-cup 2011 driver). Mihir defended his position very well to finish second while Aditya finished fourth starting from the last position. Romani, the Sri Lankan driver, showed good driving skills but had to settle behind Mihir for the third position.

Race Two began with a reverse grid for the first four finishes of Race One. Aditya Patel began on the pole while Munjal started fourth on the grid. During the race Munjal fell back one place to fifth and tried hard to overtake Rahil in front of him. In an effort to overtake Rahil, his manoeuvre resulted in an under-steer and scrapped the barriers which resulted in a pile-up of all the cars behind him. Five cars had to be taken off the grid and the race resumed after a 10 minutes break to remove the debris from the track. At the restart, Mihir took the lead to win the race. Aditya put up a tough fight with Mihir and finished second. Avdumber Hede who finished third, put up a good fight with Rahil and Romani which proved to a good spectacle for the audience present to watch the race.

Commenting on the races, Prithviraj Siddappa, Head of Volkswagen Motorsport India said, "It was a great experience for Volkswagen Motorsport to participate in this special exhibition street race. It was great to see the enthusiasm and zest of the people in this country. The love for Motorsport here is comparable to any other country and we will definitely explore other opportunities like these for our Polo R Cup 2012 drivers." Motor sports enthusiasts interested in getting further information can log on to the website, www.polocup.in. This website displays information about Polo R Cup format, race updates and driver profiles.