Fighting drives from Karun
May 2, 2005

India’s 21-year-old racing star Karun Chandhok, came up with a pair of gritty performances at the Zolder circuit in Belgium at the first two rounds of the ‘World Series’ making up for a difficult qualifying day on Saturday. The RC Motorsport driver finished 12th and 11th in the two races held in front of a record breaking 52,000 spectators!

During the Saturday qualifying sessions, Karun was on course for a top six qualifying lap when a bump at the 135 Kmh chicane unsettled the car and sent him spearing into the wall. “My first timed lap was reasonable but on the next one I had the best first sector time and was half a second up on my previous lap after just three corners. The car felt really good and I tried to carry a bit more speed through the chicane but the bump really threw the car out of line. I’m really disappointed with that because for sure our pace was there.”; he said later. This left him down in 22nd place on the grid.

At the start, Karun blasted around the outside into turn one passing three cars. On lap two he overtook another two cars on the exit of the 150 Kmh second corner and then bided his time, picking his way past the Czech driver Tomas Kotska in the process and settled into 13th place. As the race progressed, Karun caught up with the Team Eurointernational driver Matteo Meneghello and started to pile on the pressure all the way around the narrow and twisty circuit. Finally on the last lap, Karun lunged down the inside forcing the Italian wide and leaving the Indian driver to finish 12th – 10 places up from his starting position!

At the start of the warm up lap in race two, an electronic problem with the new Formula 1 spec gearbox meant that Karun couldn’t select gear and had to start at the back of the grid in 25th place. A stunning start and some calculated moves around the first lap meant that Karun was up five places. By lap two, he had disposed of Pastor Maldonado and Milos Pavlovic and was chasing after the Italian Damien Pasini. A risky strategy planned before the race by Karun and the RC Motorsport team meant that he stayed out for longer than most of the other drivers, before the mandatory pitstop. The plan called for some fast laps in the middle of the race in order to make up places and after pressurizing Pasini into a mistake and passing him, Karun set about getting into a fast and consistent rhythm which allowed him to move up two more places after his pit-stop.

His impressive progress was cut-short though when a spectacular crash involving his RC team-mate Giovanni Tedeschi and Meneghello forced the officials to stop the race early, with Karun in 11th place, just one outside the points. Reflecting on the race, Karun said “ To finish 11th after starting at the back is about as good as you can expect really. I passed more cars than anyone else and quite enjoyed the races. It’s a shame about qualifying because otherwise we could’ve had some points. Still, atleast the speed has been encouraging and it shows that we’re in the right direction.”

RC Motorsport team manager Francesco Rivera, who ran compatriot Narain Karthikeyan in 2002 and 2004 in the World Series, spoke about the work ahead “It’s always good to get the first race of the year out of the way. The next one in Monaco will be a bit of a lottery because of the nature of the street circuit but from Valencia onwards we can look forward to being regulars in the points and perhaps some podiums as the season goes on. The kid is only 21 years old and I think that the people in India, sitting 8,000 km away, are now starting to understand that instant race wins don’t happen in a highly competitive sport at this level and Karun needs a good solid 2 year program and perhaps even 3 like with Narain, but certainly the signs are very positive and I’m looking forward to the rest of the year.”

Karun who is backed by JK Tyre, the Tata Group, UCAL and Parx has his next race at the prestigious Monaco Grand Prix weekend on the same Sunday as the Formula 1 race.