Zhuhai, China ; 19th October 2006 : Karun Chandhok head’s to Zhuhai in China this weekend with an 8 point lead in the Championship over Indonesian Ananda Mikola, with Bahraini Hammad Al Fardan 18 points behind and New Zealand’s Matt Halliday down in 4th place, 28 points behind Karun.

Due to a cancellation of a previous round, the teams and drivers will be facing a hard weekend with 4 races instead of just 2 which will mean double the effort and double the pressure in this Championship decider. There will be two races held on Saturday and two on Sunday to end this inaugural season of the Asian Formula Renault V6 series.

Speaking about the challenges of the weekend ahead, Karun said, “This will be the first time since my Formula Maruti days that I’ve done 4 races in a weekend ! It’ll be a tough weekend for the cars and without doubt, everyone is going to have reliability concerns so luck will also play a part. I have had two mechanical problems already this year, which my rivals haven’t so hopefully we’ve finished our bad luck for the season !”

Thus far, out of the 8 races, Karun has won 4 and started from pole position 5 times. This included a double victory last time out here in Zhuhai, but he’s not taking anything for granted in the build up to this crucial weekend, “We had a good run last time here in Zhuhai to take a double victory but that was ten weeks ago and in those ten weeks both Ananda and Halliday have been competing and running at the front in A1 Grand Prix so they have been race active whereas I’ve had a long period out of a competitive race car. Still, I’m quite confident that we have the pace to fight for victory and this is really going to be a very interesting weekend because there are 5 drivers who I can honestly say have a capability to win the races and at least 4 of us who can probably win the Championship.”

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