India’s Karun Chandhok had his strongest showing in this year’s GP2 series at the Istanbul park circuit in Turkey last week end (25-26 Aug), finishing in the points in 8th place in the feature race and leading confidently through the sprint race on Sunday until he was taken out by the Williams F1 test driver Kazuki Nakajima with 9 laps to go.

During the Friday qualifying session, Karun and his Durango team didn’t have a very good time, ending up 21st on the grid. Later a suspected problem with tyre pressures offered an explanation and the team’s engineers did a good job of correcting this for the race. Speaking afterwards, Karun said “I was struggling for grip but unfortunately as it’s my first time at the circuit, it was difficult for me to identify exactly why the car wasn’t great. We really need to have some better luck in qualifying – it’s the 3rd weekend in a row I’m starting near the back when we have the speed to be around the top 10.”

With track temperatures soaring over 50 degrees centigrade and the high speed anti-clockwise corners around the circuit producing high G-loads, it was going to be a very physical race for the drivers. At the start, Karun nearly got pulled into an accident with Andy Soucek and Mike Conway but escaped with just a light tap on the rear wheel. After making 5 places on lap 1, he had to que behind team-mate Borja Garcia as the drivers all made their pit-stop under the safety car. This cost him 3 places but from there on the Indian was on a charge passing Bruno Senna, Vitaly Petrov, Jason Tahinci, Ho-Pin Tung, and Kohei Hirate before setting off on a charge to ensure that he made enough track position to get ahead of the drivers who were yet to make their mandatory pitstops. Once the whole race shook out, the 23 year old was up into 8th place, his best finish of the year and giving him pole position for Sunday’s sprint race.

At the start Karun stormed away from fellow front row starter Xandi Negrao who initially dropped behind Nakajima and was then passed by the championship leader Timo Glock. Chandhok looked comfortable at the front, managing the gap back to Nakajima who in turn had Glock chasing him, and the trio set an impressive pace that allowed them to open a gap of nearly 10 seconds over Negrao in 4th. Nakajima was never close enough to try to pass Karun and all the top 3 were pushing hard in a tense and closely packed battle for the win. With 9 laps to go, Nakajima tried an over-opportunistic move into the final corner and went into Chandhok’s rear wheel, breaking the wheel rim and ending the Indian’s race.

The Japanese driver was called in for a drive-through penalty soon after by the officials but it was no consolation to Karun, “Last night the team were quite nervous I think but people in Europe don’t realize that I’ve led, and won enough races in Asia last year to know how to do it. I knew we had good race pace in the Saturday race where our fastest laps were as good as people like Pantano and Carroll who were on the podium. The start was good and after that I felt comfortable at the front. I was quicker than Kazuki for the first half of the lap and he was quicker in the second half so I was managing the gap to him by pulling away where we were strong and then he would catch up especially in the last 3 corners because I had some problem with the brakes. I have no idea what he was thinking by trying to pass there because there’s no way you can get 2 cars through that corner. He wasn’t even alongside me – he hit my rear wheel ! It really is disappointing because I think we had the pace for the win but even otherwise, at least a podium was 100%. It was really amazing how many people in the GP2 and the F1 paddock afterwards said they were sorry to see what happened and would have liked for me to have had that first win ! It’s the third time this year that Kazuki’s taken someone off and been penalized but by then it’s too late for the guy he’s taken out.”

The series moves to Monza in Italy next, to be held on the 8th and 9th of September. It is the fastest circuit on the calendar where the GP2 cars will reach speeds of 315kmh down the long straights. It’s a home race for Karun’s Durango racing squad who are backed this year by Red Bull, JK Tyre, Amaron and ICSA Logistics and the team and driver will be looking to add to their points tally.

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