Podium finish for Tarun Reddy at Donnington Park

Tarun Reddy, the 16-year old from Chennai, driving for MGR Motorsport team, finished the weekend of Protyre Formula Renault championship with a podium finish in the second race here.

Tarun won a close battle for third place in the second race of the weekend Sunday. Combined with seventh and ninth positions in the other two races, Tarun, in his debut season, is placed sixth on the championship points table.

Tarun's performance was all the more heartening considering that he could not get to do any test runs due to wet weather conditions and his first outing on the challenging Donnington Park track was in the qualifying stage.

Tarun qualified fourth for race two, and sixth for the other two outings. In the first race, his car lacked on pace and he eventually finished seventh.

Race two saw Tarun battling with title contender and race winner Matteo Ferrer. Tarun moved up to third by passing Canadian Patrick Dussault, but then came under attack from Ferrer who got by into the first corner.

Tarun then repassed the Italian with a brave move into the Old Hairpin, the fastest corner on the track, and Ferrer went off the track at the next corner. Tarun then held off a renewed attack from Dussault for his maiden podium in the UK.

A terrific first lap got Tarun up to fourth place in the final race, but he overshot the chicane and dropped to last, before recovering to claim more points in ninth.

Tarun said: "Considering I didn't get a single dry lap before going into qualifying, to come away with a podium on my second weekend in Formula Renault is a good start.

"I didn't get the best of starts, and I lost a little part of my front nose while passing Dussault early in the race, but it didn't affect the car much. I fought my way back up and managed to hold them off, so I'm really happy.

"We struggled with race pace in the first race, and I had to do a lot of defending, while in the last race I generally did have the pace to fight for a front position, but I locked up at the last corner. I'm quite gutted about it, because it could have been so much better, but I think I did a good job overall and it's an improvement from round one at Rockingham."

Tarun's manager and Formula MRF 2000 champion Rupert Svendsen-Cook, said: "Tarun made a big step forward from Rockingham which is all you can ask for.

"It was his best qualifying so far, and his best race finish and to finish on the podium is a massive achievement. He drove a very hard race, but very fair as well, and that's great at such an early stage in his career."