Budapest, July 26, 2009: Karun Chandhok finished a
creditable 10th position at the GP2 race at the Hungarian Grand Prix
for Ocean Racing Technology. Chandhok fought his way
from 17th on the grid on a circuit where overtaking is very tough for
most drivers. Chandhok had earlier retired from the
feature race with tyre problems.
The
Indian GP2 ace was suffering from lack of grip the whole weekend but
took solace from the fact that he was able to get past many cars in
both races.
Chandhok
had a disappointing start to the weekend by qualifying 20th
for the feature race struggling with a lack of front end grip. However
he worked his way up in the race to 13th overtaking cars with some daring
moves. As he was looking to make up more places his rear tyres started
to give way and he was forced to retire from the race.
Chandhok
said, "It has been a
really frustrating weekend as I struggled to find grip. It's extra frustrating
because I normally like this circuit and was strong here last year when
I qualified 5th and finished 4th.
Practice
and qualifying was a real struggle and when you are starting at the
back at Budapest you know that you are going to get stuck behind slower
cars the whole race as overtaking is really tough here. Moving up to
13th place was really encouraging as I made some overtaking moves I
don’t think I could have ever thought was possible. By pushing
hard early on to make those places my rear tyres were totally destroyed
and it also ultimately meant the end of my race.”
Starting
17th in the sprint race Chandhok knew he had a tough
afternoon ahead of him. Determined to get a good result out of this
weekend he gave it all and was at it again, overtaking cars with some
stunning moves. He finished the race in 10th position. Chandhok
said, "I worked with
the engineers until late last night going over everything we had done
this weekend. We brought things back a bit to our base setup and that
worked a lot better than yesterday. I was able to make good progress
in the early laps up to 10th place and even towards the end the pace
we had was a lot more competitive than yesterday. ”
Chandhok is looking forward to the summer break as
heads back to India for the next couple of weeks. A visibly frustrated
Chandhok said "This is definitely
not the position we want to be in and we will work hard to make sure
we are looking good for the rest of the season. Now I will return to
India and re-charge my batteries before I head back for the rest of
the season.”
Karun
paid tribute to his partners Punj Lloyd, JK Tyre and
Amaron "I thank my partners for
supporting me through the first half of the season. We will continue
to do our best for the rest of the season."
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