Sri Lanka’s Dinesh Deheragoda who represented team EZY Racing has placed Sri Lanka on the map internationally, bringing unparalleled glory, by being ranked number two in Asia at the prestigious Asia Cup Rally at this year’s Asia Pacific Rally Championship conducted by the FIA, the World Motor Racing governing body.
This remarkably was Deheragoda’s first ever complete season in a FIA Championship. The regional event is the next most important event after the FIA’s World Rally Championships (WRC) in international stature. Deheragoda won 57 points in the 3 Rally events in which he participated, in the Asian circuit this year in Malaysia, Japan and China. Deheragoda was partnered for the season by Shafraz Junaid, a top Sri Lankan rally driver. Junaid won the runner-up position by just one point over China’s Jun Xu.
FIA’s head of Motorsport for Asia Niroshan Pereira who is also the president of Sri Lanka’s official FIA affiliated motor sport body the Ceylon Motor Sports Club (CMSC), has confirmed the final standings of Asia Cup 2014, that Dinesh is officially ranked 2nd in Asia.
Deheragoda was thrilled with his team’s performance in the debut season. “I am delighted with the result, despite the cancellation of the final round. It is rather an anti-climax and was the not the way we expected it to finish. However, I am happy with our feat and wish to pay a tribute to my entire team for the achievement,” said Deheragoda.
EZY Racing’s team principal Shafraz Hamzadeen, was astounded with the finish and attributed this phenomenal success to the hard work on and off the track coupled with their plan to stick to the basics, that ultimately paid rich dividends. “Experts always say when you focus on the basics, results will come on their own. I believe that’s what we’ve done. In that context, I am very happy,” he said. Hamzadeen was quite frank about the expectations they had at first. “It was not at all expected. When I was leaving after the China Rally, a lot of emotions were running through me. I was trying to keep my composure and keep things in perspective. Finishing second was unbelievable. Our objective was to just finish the rally,” he said. “The advice we received when we entered APRC was that “to finish first, first finish”. We’ve gone by the basics. We had a lot of challenges as far as our pace is concerned. We’ve achieved what we wanted to achieve. We finished!” said Hamzadeen. “No achievement can be made through a single hand. As a team we’ve stood by each other and tackled the challenges. We don’t want to get drunk on the result. It is journey. There is a long way more to go,” said Hamzadeen.
The Ezy Team finished sixth and last in Malaysia where they encountered some issues with the car but were even more seriously hampered by mechanical issues in the second race in Japan where their only focus was to finish the rally. “The Team has tackled the obstacles in a systematic approach. When we came to China we had made remarkable progress in terms of overall reliability of the car and in the aspect of the crew getting organized.” “Indeed, it is a very pleasing result for the team. ER88 has improved to meet different demands of the terrains. Malaysia was full of very tight stages, Japan was very fast and had lot of uphill runs, China was muddy, dangerous and demanding with a lot of lethal downhills,” said Deheragoda.
Hamzadeen expressing his views with the ThePapare.com said “We are together for the next four years. What matters is not how we started. What matters is how we will end the fourth year,”
Dehragoda`s co-driver Shafarz Junaid sharing his thoughts exclusively with ThePapare.com said “I am over the moon actually. We were competing with many more International racing teams which carry bigger budgets and hold vast experience with in them but we coming out of the minimum resources have done the gone beyond par. This just a start and we are hoping to raise the rank from one more next year”.
This is indeed a historic achievement and has given the racing fraternity of Sri Lanka much to celebrate.
