Sport | Motorsport
Chandhok fastest on penultimate day of testing
India's iSport driver Karun Chandhok gave a hint of his intentions for the GP2 Asia season, as he set the fastest lap time of 1 minute, 21.894 seconds in the afternoon pre-season test session at the Dubai Autodrome on Tuesday.
- Staff Report
- Published: 00:41 January 23, 2008
Dubai: India's iSport driver Karun Chandhok gave a hint of his intentions for the GP2 Asia season, as he set the fastest lap time of 1 minute, 21.894 seconds in the afternoon pre-season test session at the Dubai Autodrome on Tuesday.
However, with 30 minutes to go, the Chennai-born lad made a small mistake and crashed.
Meanwhile, ART Grand Prix driver Romain Grosjean, who was quickest in the morning session and on Monday, spent the afternoon running in race configuration as well as practicing pit-stops.
FMS driver Adrian Valles was again second fastest followed by the iSport International driver Bruno Senna, the nephew of the legendary Ayrton Senna.
Time sheet
Chandhok's performance is likely to cause a stir among the large Indian expatriate community in Dubai who are known to be partisan when it comes to their sporting heroes.
With India becoming a force in global motorsport, most recently with the formation of the Force India Formula One outfit performances of their young up and coming drivers who are aiming for the pinnacle of the sport is likely to spur interest among locally based fans.
Grosjean topped the time sheet the morning session with a lap time of 1:21.595 seconds, followed by Valles. Luca Filippi driving for the only Asian team, Qi-Meritus.Mahara, set the third fastest time with Durango driver Davide Valsecchi featuring in the top five for the first time since testing began last Saturday.
Today will mark the last day of testing before the first races of the GP2 Asia Series which takes place on Friday and Saturday.
This will constitute a part of the Grand Racing event also featuring Speedcar Series and support races of Lumina CSV Middle East Championship and Gulf Radical Cup.
Rewards: Two cars
Dubai Autodrome has teamed up with Al Habtoor Motors to raffle off two Mitsubishi Galant 3.8 V6 cars during each day of the Grand Racing on January 25 and 26.
Saeed Khalfan, Chairman of Dubai Autodrome, said that two lucky fans stand the chance of winning the cars in each of the day after a raffle draw. The lucky numbers which can be found on the ticket stub, will be drawn and the winner will be announced during the race on each of the two days. "We want people to come and attend this weekend. This is a world-class series and we need fans from the UAE to come and take in the excitement," Khalfan noted.
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