Vaidyanathan Takes Maiden Podium in EuroFormula Open

Carlin’s Ameya Vaidyanathan claimed his first podium in the EuroFormula Open Series today, in the opening race of the 2017 season.  The young Indian driver started from third and took second in the opening stages, staying with eventful winner Harrison Scott to the flag.  Team mates Devlin DeFrancesco and Tarun Reddy endured a difficult outing, both retiring in an incident filled race.

All three Carlin cars started in the top eight, with DeFrancesco lining up third and DeFrancesco and Reddy sixth and eighth respectively in their first EuroFormula Open race.  As the lights went out, Vaidyanathan made a strong start and was challenging for the lead with Scott and Nikita Troitskiy.  Almost pushed on to the grass in the run down to turn one, Vaidyanathan backed out to hold P3.  Behind him, Reddy and DeFrancesco were running line astern in seventh and eighth respectively.

The safety car was needed to clear away stranded cars in the early part of the race which briefly bunched the field back up again.  At the restart Vaidyanathan stayed with leaders Trioitskiy and Scott, while behind him team mates Reddy and DeFrancesco traded places, with the young Canadian moving up into seventh place.

A lap later, Vaidyanathan took second from Troitiskiy as Scott took the lead.  The Carlin man and leader Scott started to pull away from the rest of the field, with the pair looking dominant for the duration of the race.  DeFrancesco and Reddy were well in the racing action, the duo were in a long train of cars behind Troitskiy in the battle for third.

Sensing the possibility to get past the struggling Troitskiy, DeFrancesco was on the attack, but tagged Karkosik, putting both cars off track.  While DeFrancesco was able to recover, the Carlin driver pitted needing a new rear left tyre.  Reddy, who had to take avoiding action for the incident was running in sixth, as DeFrancesco emerged from the pits.

Reddy’s race was unfortunately about to come to a premature end, the series rookie was hit from behind at turn one which put him down to 11th and while pushing hard trying to recover ran wide into the gravel at the last corner, ending his race.  A few laps later Reddy was joined in retirement by DeFrancesco who pitted for the final time with suspension damage following his earlier incident.

At the front, Vaidyanathan and leader Scott had pulled a huge gap on the rest of the field, running clear by 10 seconds in the final stages of the race.  At the chequered flag Vaidyanathan took a close second and also claimed the fastest lap of the race.

Speaking about his race, a delighted Vaidyanathan said, “I thought I had a pretty good start into turn one; I got ahead of Scott, I’m not sure about Troitskiy, but they had the inside line so it was difficult to get them in the run to turn two.  I was in p3 during the safety car and I had a good restart, but again was in a similar position and couldn’t make the most of it, and was side by side with Scott again but couldn’t make it stick. After I took second we were able to break away.  I think considering the gap in qualifying to Scott it’s good to see we were able to stay with him and close that gap and also get fastest lap.  The aim is to close that gap completely now for qualifying tomorrow.”

The EuroFormula drivers will take part in second qualifying tomorrow at 09.00 local time with race two at 12.15.