Silverstone, June 21, 2009: Karun Chandhok put on a stunning display at the GP2 race at Silverstone to finish on the podium for Ocean Racing Technology. Chandhok's 3rd place means that this is the first ever podium for the Portugese team in the GP2 series. The Chennai born driver drove a strong race to finish ahead of series leader Romain Grosjean. Chandhok had earlier finished 6th in the feature race.

A delighted Chandhok said, "I am very very pleased for the team, being the first podium for them. I was as quick as the guys in front early on but started to struggle with traction later on in the slower corners so I decided to just make sure I looked after the car till the end. It feels really good to be on the podium again at Silverstone. It's a good present for my dad on father's day and also a great day for Tiago and the boys at ORT."

Chandhok got his weekend off to a perfect start by finishing third in the first practice. He was looking good going into qualifying but got caught out in traffic which ruined his qualifying. Chandhok ended up qualifying 11th on a circuit where he felt he should have been in the top 5. "I really got messed up in qualifying with traffic. Nunes (Diego) blocked me twice and Valssechi (David) once on my best laps when I was on course for fourth place. After qualifying, they both got penalised but it didn't really help me." commented Chandhok.

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Coimbatore : June 21, 2009

The Rally of Coimbatore sponsored by MAK Lubricants from Bharat Petroleum was flagged off today at 0800 hrs from the Kethanur Service Park, Coimbatore. Twenty Seven (27) rally riders took the start and 24 riders finished the same. The first bike finished the rally at 1:24 pm as scheduled. The first round of the MAK FMSCI Indian National Rally Championship for 2 wheelers, promoted by IMG Sports & Pro Sports Promotion, ran like a clockwork from start to the end. The Prize Distribution Ceremony was held in the evening. The event was organized by Coimbatore Auto Sports Club.

The total distance of the rally was 115.23 kms with 85.78 kms of special stages.

Pramod Joshua of TVS Racing astride his TVS Apache RTR was declared the overall winner of the MAK Rally of Coimbatore. Infact it was TVS Racing who stole the show by winning the first 5 places overall. Pramod Joshua clocked the fastest stage timings in all the 6 stages and won the rally with a total penalty of 01:22:49. The second place was won by his team-mate Aravind K.P. (TVS Apache RTR) with 01:24:25, followed by Natraj R (TVS Apache RTR) with a penalty of 01:26:24.

Pramod Joshua said "I am very happy that I had won the first rally of the year, the terrain was excellent. I must say that I had excellent grip from stage 1. If you look at my timings, I was doing all stages in 13+ mins while everyone else were doing 14+. The handling of RTR was excellent and my timings goes to prove that. I am really happy and look forward to the next event in Bangalore"

In the unmodified class (Group D) four stroke upto 130 cc, it was Venu Ramesh Kumar astride his Yamaha YBX, who won with a total penalty of 01:38:53, followed by another Yamaha YBX rider SS Varun with 01:51:03.

In the modified class (Group B) for four strokes upto 130 cc, it was Sunil Kumar P astride his Yamaha YBX, followed by Sachin Singh on his TVS Victor Edge who finished 1st and 2nd respectively.

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