Karun Chandok scores points double on F3 debut

Karun Chandhok, the 18-year-old motor racing prodigy, proved his credentials by finishing sixth and fifth respectively on his debut in the opening races of the British Formula 3 2002.

Karun brilliantly negotiated the sloping corners, scoring 14 valuable points. The young Indian made his first appearance in the Scholarship class of British Formula 3 championship with "T-SPORT the Junior Carlin Team".

Karun's performance is remarkable considering that he has not particpated in the Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit - considered one of the most difficult racing circuits in the world.

Karun qualified for the British F3 after dominating the Asian Formula Championship 2000, driving for team India JK Tyre, where he won the first five races in his debut year.

Karun won the coveted title of 'Asian Rookie of the Year' for the year 2001.

On Saturday, Karun was seventh and fifth in the two qualifying sessions held after the three hour test session on Friday. He then made significant improvement over the weekend, ending Friday's test session with a respectable time of 1:21.73 seconds. He improved to a timing of 1:21.23 after the first qualifying and dropped to 1:20.53 at the end of the second qualifying session.

At the start of the first race, Karun lost two places after having to avoid a stalled car ahead of him. He then kept the pressure on Italian Diego Romanini for the rest of the race but could not find a way past.

While others collided or crashed around him, Karun finished the race on Romanini's tail to score a top six finish on his F3 debut.

In the second race held on Monday, Karun made a good start to pass Stefano Fabi ahead of him before being forced wide at the first corner and losing a place. He then chased Sherwood all the way to the flag whilst keeping Fabi at bay thus scoring a fifth place and another eight points.

At the end of the weekend, Karun said, ''It feels good to have had a solid start to the season with some good points on the board. I learned an incredible amount this weekend and I'm really looking forward to Donington Park in two weeks time.

"Donington is a circuit where I have tested before unlike here at Brands, so I expect to be further up the grid in qualifying and hopefully have a good two races. I would like to thank my sponsors JK Tyre, ICSA Logistics, TRAXX, UCAL, Amaron and Castrol for all their support as well as the team who gave me a very good car this weekend.''

Karun's race engineer, the highly experienced Alan Woodhead said, ''I could see Karun was very nervous about the first race. We had a few bad test sessions in between but in the last two weeks we have been working really hard about developing his driving style and so under the circumstances I think he did a good job.

"I'm confident that as the season goes on, we can make progress together and hopefully come on strong in the second half in the year.''