Finishing race in Melbourne will not be easy: Karun

New Delhi: Lack of time and a hydraulic problem conspired to deny Karun Chandhok even a single lap in the free practice sessions in Bahrain and the Hispania driver now wants to get at least 40 laps under his belt before he hits the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne for Sunday`s Australian Grand Prix.

"The idea is to get at least 20 laps in each practice sessions and collect as much information as possible and learn the circuit where I have not raced before," Karun told reporters. Karun`s was a dramatic F1 debut with his team miraculously overcoming a finance crunch and a nerve-jangling race against time to eventually put two cars on the grid. Karun sat out both the free practice sessions since his car was not up and running and even his race ended prematurely inside two laps after a bump on the circuit caught him unaware.Looking at Melbourne, Karun said finishing the race itself would require a special effort but expressed hopes that things would gradually become easy. "I would love to finish the race in Melbourne but I`m expecting it to be difficult. We have such a short time for improvement. By (the fourth leg in Shanghai), we hope to get to a position where we can have better results," said the driver from Chennai. It was, however, not all doom and gloom, insisted the youngster."It`s a little early to judge the potential of the car. We didn`t do testing, did not have much in the race either. But the baseline did show some potential," he said. "Dallara built a car for us which is little on the conservative side. It was a late project and Dallara chose a safe, conservative option while designing. We need to improve reliability but it is not without potentials," Karun said. PTI