The Hindu : Sport / Racing : Motor : Mixed luck for Karun Chandhok

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 24, 2006

Sport

Sport - Racing : Motor

Mixed luck for Karun Chandhok

Jakarta: India's Karun Chandhok scored his second victory of the Formula Asia Renault V6 series by winning the fifth round at the Sentul racetrack here on Sunday. Karun finished the 15-lap race ahead of local hero Ananda Mikola. Bahrain's Hammad Al Fardan took the third spot.

New Zealand's Matt Halliday qualified on pole position with Karun in second after a closely fought qualifying round.

In round six, Karun, who is backed by JK Tyre, Scottish and Newcastle and Amaron Batteries, was gearing up for an end of race battle with Halliday, Mikola and Lin when driving behind the safety car he lost hydraulic pressure and had to retire.

Frustrating

Afterwards he said, "There was definitely a podium finish there for the taking and it's really frustrating to have a second mechanical non-finish this season because that's more free points we have given away. I was just driving around behind the safety car in second gear and suddenly I lost the hydraulic pressure which means that the gearbox and clutch stop working."

Overall, the championship battle is now really heating up. Al Fardan and Mikola are now tied on 56, with Karun on 53, Seth Ingham on 42 and Halliday with 36 points.

The championship now moves to China in three weeks' time for rounds seven and eight.

The results: Fifth round: 1. Karun Chandhok 20m 53.907s; 2. Ananda Mikola +1.346s; 3. Hammad Al Fardan +11.497s.

Sixth round: 1. Ananda Mikola 56m 11.745s; 2. Matt Halliday +.850s; 3. Hans Lin +14.047s.

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