Heartbreak for Malagamuwa as car breaks down

Dilantha Malagamuwa's strong hopes for his first ever podium finish in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, were shattered yesterday at the Sentul International Track here in Indonesia when his car broke down after just one lap in round eight.

Defending champion Tim Sugden of Great Britain drove a magnificent race overtaking pole position holder Darryl O'Young in the third lap with a powerful performance and held on to win round eight and storm into the third place of the championships with just three rounds to go.

However, the 2006 champion and this year's championship leader O'Young made sure that he won the same number of points as Sugden, finishing second in round eight having earlier clinched the round seven in the morning.

O'Young maintained his lead at the top of the championship table with a total of 138 points while 11 points behind him in second place is Australia's Christian Jones who has a tally of 127 after finishing third in round eight despite a poor fifth place in the morning's round seven. Malagamuwa remained joint eighth at 45 points despite missing two of the eight rounds as he had to take part in another championship which clashed with it.

"It is thoroughly disappointing to say the least. Everything was falling into place after Saturday's practice and I was just starting to feel that I was threatening the leaders. My instincts told me I was going to finish here higher than ever, but felt everything sinking as the car refused to move midway in the second lap. But that is racing for you," said the country's only international racer before adding: "I will be back to prove who I am. I know I have all what it takes to get on the podium and I will prove it somehow this year", he said determinedly.

In the Round Seven held earlier in the morning, Malagamuwa who started off in the eighth position in the grid was blocked by Hong Kong's Alain Li who started off as the seventh and it was finally in the sixth lap that Malagamuwa was able to break free and shake off the slow driver on the narrow track.

But unfortunately the leading drivers were far off to be caught within the remaining nine laps and the race leader Darryl O'Young was a massive 10.49 seconds ahead of him on the 3.965 km track.

Malagamuwa closed in on former champion Matthew Marsh who was running sixth but failed to overtake him and finished seventh in an overall timing of 23:24.718, a difference of 20.412 behind winner Young.

Sugden who was hounding second placed German Christian Menzel all the way, finally overtook him to finish second while Menzel was third.