The Hindu : Sport / Racing : Motor : Narain finishes for points

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 26, 2007
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Sport - Racing : Motor

Narain finishes for points

Rayan Rozario

Durban: India's Narain Karthikeyan delivered just about everything that could have been expected of him, given the car at his disposal, to finish ninth in the 70-minute feature race in the eighth round of the A1 Grand Prix at the Durban Street Circuit on Sunday.

Starting 15th on the grid, Narain got into trouble in the first corner but managed to wriggle out of it mainly due to his experience. Once out of danger, he decided immediately to take it to the finish line, which he struggled towards the end due to a broken drive shaft.

However, he still pushed himself up the points table with a better-lap finish.

Deserves appreciation

One should appreciate the 30-year-old for having almost brought a difficult car home into the points.

Narain, however, wasn't convinced. "Two points is no consolation. We need to get our act together to collect more in the races to come. I would have done that had my car been quicker on the straights. I had gearbox problems by lap 30 and it was getting worse with each passing lap. But, we get to learn all these from the gaps that we have had in this car," said Narain.

A1 Team India also had to transfer the entire set-up of the car into the spare car available. And, that put the Indian into a deep-end at the start of the race as well.

Earlier in the day, Narain, starting from the 11th row of the grid, finished 15th in the 20-minute Sprint race.

Narain was totally focused on his mission — aggressive, determined and with no interest in anybody else's speed. It was against his nature but it was what he was obliged to do.

The team also came up with a clever strategy of starting from the pit-lane instead of the regular rolling start and it paid rich dividends.

The results: 1. Nico Hulkenberg (Germany) 1:10:35.582, 2. Robbie Kerr (GB)1:10:45.138, 3. Matt Halliday (New Zealand) 1:10:46.101.

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