New Delhi, Aug 18: India's fastest teenager Karun Chandhok scored a pair of third places in rounds 17 and 18 of the British Formula 3 championship (scholarship class) races held at the Thruxton circuit in Hampshire (England).
According to the information received here, this result puts Karun Chandhok in second place of the drivers championship standings with another six races to go.
The super fast nature of the Thruxton circuit lays a greater importance on car set-up than at most other venues on the calendar.
Karun and the t-sport team came to Thruxton on a high having won 5 out of the last 8 races and were looking forward to extending their championship lead.
Friday's test sessions though showed that the team and driver were in for a tough weekend when various problems and mishaps meant that they never were able to quite get a good indication as to how competitive the package was.

At the end of the two qualifying sessions on Saturday, the Chennai born driver secured a 3rd and 2nd starting position respectively for the two races on Sunday, just 2 tenths of a second away from pole in both sessions.

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At the start of race 1, Chandhok made a good move into the inside of the complex of corners after turn one but his luck was about to turn when he was shoved wide onto the grass rejoining down the order in third place.

The 19 year old then made a bold move around the outside of Can Artam into the Chicane but lost out to Ernesto Viso a lap later.

He was pulling up alongside one of the championship class cars when viso shoved him off to the side almost onto the grass which forced the Indian to lift off in the middle of the straight. This allowed Viso to just drive straight past in a straight line.

Thereafter, the top three contenders Steven Kane, Viso and Chandhok ran close together keeping each other under pressure so that at the flag just 1.3 seconds covered all three of them.

Race 2 promised to be better. Chandhok again made a good start and was running just behind Viso at the front with Kane a few seconds behind. The leading 2 were setting an impressive pace for the opening few laps but slowly the t-sport driver started dropping back.

Steven Kane passed his limping teammate a few laps from home to leave the Indian a frustrated in a 3rd place.

Bureau Report