Photo: Indian F4
Japanese Formula 4 points leader Itsuki Sato won twice on his Indian F4 debut in round three at Kari Motor Speedway last weekend.
Races one and three were won by Sato, Shane Chandaria claimed race two victory and Ishaan Madesh won race four.
Sato started off strongly by picking up pole position from the first qualifying session, as Chandaria went fastest but had to serve a five-place grid penalty for race one.
Having led the field away when the lights went out, Sato produced a dominant display to convert pole into victory, leading home Ghazi Motlekar by 20.361 seconds. It was still an impressive drive by the Mozambique driver, since he started 12th.
Saishiva Sankaran rounded out the podium and Luviwe Sambudla was fourth, just 0.344s behind Motlekar at the finish.
In race two Sato rose from sixth on the grid to third, while there was redemption for Chandaria as he won with a 10.443s gap to Sambulda.
After jumping ahead of Sato and Chandaria at the start, Rotge led through much of race three but his victory hopes came undone in the closing stages.
He was fractionally ahead of Chandaria, who had taken pole after topping Q2, and when the Kenyan attempted a move around the outside at turn nine the pair locked up and collided. They had already made contact the day before in race one.
Sato came through to win, leading home Sambulda and Madesh. While Chandaria continued to finish fifth, Rotge retired after finding the barriers.
Madesh was victorious in race four, his third win of the season, after fighting his way up from fourth on the grid. The 16-year-old finished 5.602s clear of Sankaran, who had lined up on pole, with Chandaria a further 1.382s back.
It was somewhat of a redemption drive for Madesh, who had started second in race two but crashed out on lap one. He is now second in the standings, with Chandaria moving into the championship lead by 12 points and Rotge dropping from first to third in the points table after a weekend in which he only had one top-five finish.
Ahead of the races at Kari, the location of the fifth and final round of the season was announced.
The new Mumbai Street Circuit will host the finale in December, with the exact date yet to be determined, and the races will take place at night.
The 14-turn, anticlockwise 2.33-mile track will utilise lake-side roads in the south of Navi Mumbai, a city within the wider Mumbai Metropolitan Region.
Additional reporting by Ida Wood
Results round-up
Race 1 (24 laps)
1 Itsuki Sato 27m10.989s
2 Ghazi Motlekar +20.361s
3 Saishiva Sankaran +20.480s
4 Luviwe Sambudla +20.705s
5 Ishaan Madesh +21.987s
6 Shane Chandaria +22.451s
7 Sachel Rotge +22.722s
8 Annabel Kennedy +26.945s
9 Ethan Joy +28.789s
10 Ntiyiso Mabunda +29.513s
Pole: Sato, 1m06.798s
Fastest lap: Sato, 1m07.136s
Race 2 (22 laps)
1 Chandaria 26m50.864s
2 Sambudla +10.443s
3 Sato +12.960s
4 Rotge +16.979s
5 Sankaran +17.479s
6 Veer Sheth +19.169s
7 Motlekar +21.679s
8 Paige Raddatz +30.905s
9 Wian Boshoff +31.397s
10 Mabunda +31.615s
FL: Chandaria 1m06.702s
Race 3 (23 laps)
1 Sato 26m16.084s
2 Sambudla +0.525s
3 Madesh +1.324s
4 Mabunda +7.098s
5 Chandaria +9.252s
6 Sankaran +12.919s
7 Boshoff +16.359s
8 Clara Stiebleichinger +29.447s
9 Joy +37.136s
10 Mahlori Motlhabani +39.738s
P: Chandaria, 1m06.570s
FL: Chandaria, 1m07.078s
Race 4 (24 laps)
1 Madesh 27m13.558s
2 Sankaran +5.602s
3 Chandaria +6.984s
4 Motlekar +14.354s
5 Sheth +15.973s
6 Joy +17.551s
7 Sato +18.500s
8 Rotge +23.937s
9 Sambudla +24.424s
10 Raddatz +25.727s
FL: Motlekar, 1m06.997s
Championship standings
1 Chandaria 107 2 Madesh 95 3 Rotge 93 4 Motlekar 79 5 Sankaran 76 6 Sambudla 66 7 Sato 63 8 Vasileios Apostolidis 36 9 Boshoff 36 10 Mabunda 35