Malagamuwa breaks new ground in practice

Sri Lankan driving ace Dilantha Malagamuwa continued with his dream form this season as he posted his best ever position in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia (PCCA) in the free practice session two here at the Sentul International Circuit yesterday.

The Japan based driver who has never finished above the fifth place in a race, qualifying or free practice in four years of competing in the highly competitive championship, showed signs of improvement and a possible podium finish for the first time in Sunday's race as he finished third in yesterday's afternoon session.

Malagamuwa clocked a best time of 1:32.357 in his ninth lap and was third behind Germany's Christian Menzel and Australia's Christian Jones. Sri Lankan's timing was just 0.431 seconds behind leader Menzel who clocked 1:31.926. Jones timed 1:32.289.

"Ít was highly satisfying and a great relief. It was pretty frustrating to finish out of the podium always, because I knew I was capable of doing it. Finally everything fell into place today and I am confident I am going to keep this form for the Sunday's races" promised the champion driver.

However he humbly attributed his sudden improvement to his brilliant engineer Steve Waudby from England who assisting Malagamuwa from this season.

"Steve is also a former champion driver. He is coming down from England specially for all my races. He is doing a marvelous job and he is the best. He knows my strengths and weaknesses and reads the car inside-out. So, he fixes it perfectly to suit my style and I am sure that I am going to conquer new territory with his help. This is just the sign of things to come. I am positive we would be able to send a signal about us to the rest at this race" said a hopeful Malagamuwa with a twinkling in his eyes yesterday.

In the first free practice in the morning however Malagamuwa finished in his familiar zone in the championship posting only the sixth best time. He clocked 1:33.905, 1.162 seconds adrift of best finisher Tim Sugden of Great Britain who clocked 1:31.483. Sugden was only fourth in the second free practice.