ARMAAN EBRAHIM STORMS THE FORMULA 1 SEPANG TRACK: MAKES HISTORY AS FIRST EVER ROOKIE TO TAKE VICTORY

15th May 2005

Fifteen-year-old Indian Formula BMW Junior and Rookie, Armaan Ebrahim (Team E-Rain), astounded the Asian racing fraternity today by taking a brilliant victory in Round 4 of Formula BMW Asia. The youngster made history by becoming the first Rookie ever to achieve this result, in just his fourth outing in the car. He drove the 20-lap race with a maturity way beyond his years. Second was fellow BMW Junior Robert Boughey (THA/Team Meritus), followed by series leader Salman Al Khalifa (BAH/Team E-Rain) in a heart-stopping race.

Said Ebrahim, who has been tipped for a test with India's A1GP Team and who has aspirations to follow in the footsteps of his mentor Narain Karthikeyan: "I never thought I'd win this quickly. I've been getting more experience and have learned from the first three races. Today I put my head down and am much more confident. You can expect more from me, but I have to thank BMW for giving me this opportunity and my sponsors for having faith in me." Not only did Ebrahim credit the comprehensive Formula BMW Education and Coaching Programme with his extraordinary progress, but also some well-chosen words of advice from father Akbar, who was India's first ever Formula 3 driver.

In the qualifying for the race the fastest Rookie was Armaan Ebrahim who, a mere eight minutes before the end of the session, came in for a set up change and returned to the track for a final three laps. The BMW Junior beat Malaysia's Aaron Lim, who is making his racecar debut this weekend, to fourth place literally in the closing seconds of the session.

In the race, Al Khalifa was slow off the start and lost his pole position advantage immediately, with fellow countryman Hamed Al Fardan (Team Meritus), starting from third, seizing the lead almost immediately. Ebrahim was up to second by the end of lap one ahead of Boughey, and began to close the gap on Al Fardan. Mid-way through the race, the Indian made a valiant effort to take the lead, but just couldn't quite pull it off.

Al Khalifa was on a charge to make up the places he lost off the start, setting the fastest lap of the race, and there was almost nothing between the top four. Ebrahim finally managed to grab the race lead on lap 16, while behind him Al Fardan was coming under pressure from a determined Boughey. The two battled it out over the next three laps until disaster struck for Al Fardan on the final lap of the race when the two came together taking him out of the contention and denying him a precious podium finish. That handed third to Al Khalifa, a position he later declared rightfully belonged to an inconsolable Al Fardan.

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