Coimbatore JK Tyre: Prasad fends off Reddy to win season opener

Prasad made a blistering getaway from fourth on the grid, jumping from fourth to second before the field headed down the opening sequence of corners.

On the second lap, the Chennai-born driver dived down the inside of polesitter Nayan Chatterjee to take over lead of the race.

Chatterjee, meanwhile started coming under pressure from Reddy, who had recovered from a poor start to pull himself back up to third.

A few laps later, the Mumbaikar went wide at the final turn, allowing Reddy to easily snatch second position.

After getting ahead, he initially bided his time before launching a late attack on Prasad, who appeared to be in a comfortable position three quarters into the race.

The Hyderabad-based driver managed to close the gap to half a tenth, but simply ran out of laps as Prasad took the chequered flag.

Chatterjee held onto his third position to claim the final spot on the podium, with Italy's Paolo Ippolito and Ricky Donison completing the top five.

Akash Gowda was next up in seventh, while Vikash Anand was classified seventh on his racing return.

Manav Sharma, Ashwin Datta and Mira Erda completed the top 10. Erda was forced to start the race from the pitlane on her Euro JK debut, consigning her to the back of the pack.

Karting graduate Nirmal Uma Shankar and Australian Ricky Capo crashed out of the race on lap 1.