Young Yash Aradhya claims his first international F4 podium finish

Yash Aradhya, who had recently debuted in the FIA Formula-4 South East Asia, claimed his first podium in the Round 5 of the championship held on 13th and 14th July at the Madras Motorsports Race Track, Chennai. Yash qualified 2nd with 1:38:881 second and started Race-1 from P2. Yash had a good start and held his position intact though he had pressure from the Ireland driver Lucca Allen who keep putting pressure, Yash with his good defensive skill and a clean drive finished 2nd in the race covering 13 laps in 21:40:799. Further in Race-2, which was a reverse grid of the Race-1 Yash, started from 8th and with a fantastic start by the end of 1st lap Yash had moved to 3rd position and pulled himself away from the rest of the grid to catch the leaders in the front, the safety car lap brought all the cars closer, where Yash saw an opportunity to attach the front runners after the safety car lap, but the Malaysian driver Muizz Musyaffia put pressure for behind on Yash and Yash had to play it safe by defending his position which he continued to hold for rest of the race and finished 3rd covering 11 laps in 19:01:220. In Race-3, which was the reverse grid of Race-2, Yash started 5th as against 6th since Ireland driver Lucca had a penalty and moved down. With a great start, Yash made 2 positions by corner 1 and finished the race at 3rd, Yash was later imposed a 20 second penalty for a racing incident with the Indian driver Sneha Sharma. Yash moved to 7th position. Race-4 the line up of the grid was based on the 2nd best qualifying lap and Yash started 3rd and in an overtaking maneuver, Yash had an racing incident at Corner-3 and he lost control of the car, thus had to be contended with a 7th finish.

Speaking on this occasion, Yash said, “The races were very good for me, as planned we were able to make best use of the Indian round to move up the ladder in championship points table. I am also very excited, as this is my 1st international trophy, which came exactly at the time of my mom’s birthday. The next round is very important for me as I am looking at finishing top-3 in the championship.”

Previous to this round Yash had participated in 2 rounds of the FIA Formula-4 South East Asia held at Buriram Thailand. The recently concluded round was round 5 and the next round 6 is also scheduled to be held at MMRT, Chennai on 120th-21st July. The championship consists of 10 rounds with 4 races in each round totaling to 40 races will be held across Malaysia, Thailand, India and Philippines. Out of the 10 rounds, the points of 8 rounds are calculated to the Championship. Yash has missed first 2 rounds due to his exams and resource planning.