Racing against race: Indians abroad have eventful weekend

From the race circuits at Shanghai, Sakhir and Sepang, to the dusty weather-beaten off-roads on the Pacific Island of New Caledonia...

From the race circuits at Shanghai, Sakhir and Sepang, to the dusty weather-beaten off-roads on the Pacific Island of New Caledonia, India 8212; in a first of sorts 8212; had the present and future motorsport stars of the country crash, pull-out and top time sheets to sign off an eventful weekend.

While results on the Asian continent 8212; going by the performances put in by Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandok on Saturday 8212; proved a dampener, it was Naren Kumar who brought in the best result in Round One of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship in New Caledonia.

Driving for Team India Rally, the Coimbatore based Naren co-driver N Ram was rewarded for his consistency by driving home his Mitsubishi Evo9 to a third place on Sunday to finish sixth overall.

On the other hand, Gaurav Gill, who till date has scorched the Indian rally scene, found himself with a DNF did not finish to his name. A crash and a misjudgment 8212; going straight instead of taking a right turn on Special Stage 3 on Saturday did him in. Gaurav incidentally shared third spot with his Indian rival after Day 1.

Williams F1 tester Narain Karthikeyan relived the ghosts of 2005, when his stint with Jordan in Formula One ended with a crash. Sunday, in the penultimate round of the A1 GP, Narain crashed into the wall owing to rear suspension problems on the last turn of the home straight, after he seemed assured of a 17th place.

Qualifying fifth 8212; Team India8217;s best in 40 starts 8212; Narain8217;s day began with the kind of start not many expected. In the 8216;short8217; Sprint race, Narain finished seventh after Sebastian Buemi Switzerland and Alex Yoong Malaysia displaced him during the race.

In an incident-filled Feature race, Narain found the hairpin at Turn 12 8216;tricky8217;. While most drivers used the turn to overtake while capatalising on the heavy braking needed, Narain lost places to Italy, Indonesia and France.

Story continues below this ad

Karun Chandhok had a mixed weekend in his first-ever drive in Bahrain. A ninth place in Race 1 of the GP2 series on Saturday was phenomenal by all standards, considering that 26 made up the field and 18 finished. Karun was 43.505s behind winner Luca Filippi.

Ensuring that his Italian-based team Durango finished in the Top-10 8212; teammate Borja Garcia claimed the last point with an eighth place finish 8212; Karun called it quits on Lap 7 in Race 2 today.

With the big guns firing on all cylinders, Armaan Ebrahim, who is gearing up for the Formula V6 Asia series that begins on May 6 topped a pre-season test for his Malaysian-based TARA-DTM team with a 1 min 00.75s effort in Malaysia.