Hyderabad’s Anindith Reddy won both his races on the first day of the third and penultimate round of the 19th JK Tyre-FMSCI national racing championship at the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore on Saturday.
The 26-year-old exhibited pace, skill and determination all through the day, jumping to number three in the tussle for the Euro JK 16 crown.
He has 58 points now and two more races to go through on Sunday to set himself up for striking gold in the final round at the Buddh International Circuit at Greater Noida next month.
He began on the wrong foot in the qualifying rounds, though, beaten to the pole by Mohammed Nalwalla. But he was quick to assert his supremacy, romping home in 15:47.319 minutes in the opening race.
Anindith was equally sublime in the second race, picking up the maximum points once again to add 20 points to his kitty to make up for a disastrous second round.
"I decided to play it safe in the first lap after what happened in the last round. It was just a question of being consistent in the rest of the race," Anindith said.
Ananth Shanmugam of Bengaluru and Nalwalla of Mumbai grabbed the second and third positions in both the races.
Ananth held on to his number two position, at 64 points, while Nalwalla remained way behind at 29. Dhruv Mohite is at fourth with 44 points.
In the LGB Formula 4 category, Chennai's Vishnu Prasad took one step closer towards the title by winning his race comfortably.
He started at P2 after being upstaged by Saran Tmars in the qualifying rounds. But that did not deter him and he stormed into the lead in the fourth lap, clocking the fastest lap of the day: 1:11.824 minutes.
He finished the 15 laps in 19:58.273 minutes to take his total to 46 points.