Raj Bharath pulled off two stunning overtaking moves en route to winning his first race in the 2014 MRF Challenge at the Losail International Circuit here.
Raj finished ahead of Kyle Mitchell and Toby Sowery in Race 3 Saturday night to make it two consecutive wins for Indian drivers after Tarun Reddy won Race 2 Friday. Raj almost made it two wins in a day but just missed out by 0.212 seconds to Toby in Race 4.
Fans were treated to great racing under floodlights with both races providing plenty of overtaking and close racing in what is probably the closest MRF Challenge grid.
The main feature race started with Toby on pole position with Raj alongside him. Raj had a great start and went into the lead with Toby falling to third position behind Ryan Cullen.
Cullen passed Raj at the end of the first lap to take the lead with Kyle Mitchell also squeezing through. Toby ran wide and slipped back into sixth.
Raj spent the next few laps trying to find a way past Kyle as Cullen failed to take advantage of his lead. Raj pulled off a great move to get past Kyle and within a lap he was right behind Cullen. Raj overtook Cullen on the next lap to take the lead of the race.
Raj crossed the finish line to take the win with Kyle managing to hold off Toby to take second place. Cullen finished in fourth position with Pedro Cardoso in fifth.
Raj, who also won the Mercedes Young Star Driver programme earlier this year, was ecstatic after scoring the most points of the day.
"It was an amazing day after all the issues we had yesterday. Starting on the front row, the start wasn't the best and I fell back to fourth. All the drivers I ended up fighting with were far more experienced. So it was an incredibly close and tough dice and I'm really happy to have come out on top," said Raj.
