Karun Chandhok sets
fastest lap time
Shobha Warrier
Karun Chandhok, India's teenage motor racing sensation, is back on the Formula 3 tracks in England after taking a short break in Chennai.
According to the young man, he had an "eventful" weekend [August 31 and September 1] at the Snettorton circuit in Norfolk, England.
"With three races to be held over Saturday and Sunday, I am looking to score some good points as the season draws to a close with just four more races to go," he said.
During the Friday test session, Karun was in an encouraging third position, with a time of 63.8 seconds, just 0.3 slower than first-placed Robert Dahlgren, who recorded a 63.5 seconds lap time.
In Saturday’s two qualifying sessions, Karun qualified fourth and fifth, and looked to be in strong contention for a podium finish.
On Saturday evening, the race -- which cancelled earlier on in the year at Croft due to bad weather -- was re-run. Karun started fifth on the grid and moved up to fourth.
"The tyres were taking a longer time to get up to working temperature than normal and I made a mistake of pushing too hard too soon before the tyres came up to the right temperature. So, I was dropped down to the tail end of the field," he said, from Snettorton.
In his effort to make up for the lost ground, he set a string of laps much faster than the other scholarship class cars in front of him, and on lap 13, set the fastest lap of the race with a time of 62.793 seconds!
The first race on Sunday, September 1, saw another strong performance from the reigning Asian Formula 2000 champion, where starting from fifth on the grid, he made some aggressive moves on the first lap to move up to the fourth place. With overtaking very difficult around the 1.7 mile circuit, he stayed for the rest of the race in fourth place and scored some valuable points.
The final race of the weekend saw Karun make a fantastic start to move up from fourth on the grid to second place by the third corner. On lap 13 out of 20, he moved into the lead when Robert Dahlgren dropped out. It looked Karun would score the first F3 win of his career, when, on the very last lap, Stephen Colbert went on to the grass on the inside of the first corner and hit Karun at over 180 kmh, sending him up into the air and backwards into the tyre wall.
A very angry Karun said: "I just couldn't believe it when Colbert came down the inside there. That isn't a place where you try and pass and what he tried was really dangerous because that is the fastest corner on the circuit. The win was there for the taking and I'm really disappointed not only for me but for the whole team who have worked so hard all weekend.
"Our time to take the top step can't be far away. We showed our potential by setting fastest lap in race 1 and by leading convincingly in this race. I'm now really fired up for the last four races of the year."
Karun’s next two races are at the Thruxton circuit on September 15.
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'My target, like all racing drivers, is Formula 1'
