Asian Formula 2000

PRESS RELEASE                            23-10-2001

On his first visit to Macau, 17 year old Karun Chandhok, the newly crowned Asian Formula 2000 Champion, stormed his way from 7th on the grid to finish 3rd and thereby become the first ever Indian to be on the podium at the Macau Grand Prix.

Karun had qualified 7th after getting less than 30 mins of practise time to learn the very tricky Guia Circuit at Macau with a time of 2:35.6 seconds.

The Macau Grand Prix is the most prestigious weekend of racing in the whole of Asia and is the only car race outside of formula 1 to be awarded Grand Prix status. Previous winners of the Formula 2000 race include new Jordan F1 star Takuma Sato.

In the absence of his driver coach Akbar Ebrahim, who could not make it to Macau due to his father's illness, KArun was fortunate to get crucial tips from his future F3 team Carlin Motorsport driver Anthony Davidson (presently BAR's F1 Test Driver) & encouragement from Jordan F1 Driver & former Macau winner Takuma Sato.

Karun got off to the best start of his season and stormed into 3rd into the famous tight LISBOA right hand corner in a daring manouvuere past four cars.

At this point, Sonenscher, the boss of Asian Festival of Speed, screamed "Unbelievable, this move is the best I've seen in Macau in AF2000."

Karun got down to lapping at 2:32.1 on the 6.3 k.m. Guia Circuit & the history of Macau has been carved with his name as the first Indian on the podium. India's formula 1 driver Narain Karthikeyan has driven in Macau three times and was unfortunate to crash out while leading last year in the F3.

The most impressive part of the entire weekend which caught the eye of all the teams was the fact that Karun had an incident free practise, qualifying & race around this tight Guia Circuit which is known to eat up cars driven by some of the best drivers in the world. The terrifying proximity of the walls & the barriers has attracted many a car to be written off and this performance of Karun will undoubtedly be a part of the Macau history.

Karun said "To finish 3rd overall and as the TOP ROOKIE (1st timer) feels fantastic. I knew that beating Philippe DesCombes and Jim Kato here would be impossible since they have been here a number of times. The best i dreamt off was 3rd and having achieved is a good end to my AF2000 career. My thanks to my race engineer Patrick Roberts and the team at Sonenscher Motor Racing for everything as well as my Dad and lucky mascot Deepak."

He added "My principal sponsors JK Tyres were absolutely thrilled this morning when sanjay Sharma,head of motorsports, called and screamed "INCREDIBLE".My thanks especially them as well as my additional sponsors ICSA Logistics, TRAXX, Kingfisher,UCAL and PARX."