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Karun’s big weekend
Indian leads standings as Asian Formula Renault V6
heads to China for the finale.

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.”

One of Karun’s sponsors, Scottish and Newcastle, the international partners of the Vijay Mallaya headed UB Group are lending their support this weekend with a large contingent of Chinese dealers, distributors and contest winners making their way to Zhuhai to support their driver. S&N and Amaron along with Karun’s long term primary sponsor JK Tyre have been instrumental in the 22 year old’s campaign this season.

In conclusion, the Madras born driver said, “To win the Championship this weekend will be a real honour for me as it’s the first ever Formula Renault V6 Championship in Asia. I really didn’t have a very good year on and off the track with all the politics in 2005 but this season we’ve had a good team, good sponsors and a great battle with some top quality drivers. It’s been very difficult to fight back after the mechanical failures early on in this season which cost us an additional 25 points and I just hope that we don’t regret those problems on Sunday evening.”

Championship standings :

1. Karun Chandhok ( India ) – 84 points
2. Ananda Mikola ( Indonesia ) – 76 points
3. Hammad Al Fardan ( Bahrain ) – 66 points
4. Matt Halliday ( New Zealand ) – 56 points

Schedule (in local time – IST + 2:30 , GMT +8:00) :

Friday, 20th October :

Qualifying 1 – 1310 – 1350
Qualifying 2 – 1610 – 1650

Saturday, 21st October

Round 9 – 1120 – 1150
Round 10 – 1440 - 1520

Sunday 22nd October

Round 11 – 0950 – 1020
Round 12 – 1340 – 1420

** END **