Karun Chandhok's maiden race in the inaugural Formula Asia Renault V6 series ended in unfortunate circumstances when his car stalled while leading by 10 seconds with three laps to go in Round two at the Sepang F1 circuit on Sunday.
It was a sad finish to an otherwise brilliant weekend for the Indian driver and his Korean team E-Racing who dominated the qualifying sessions yesterday as well as the first race today when Chandhok and his team-mate Hanss Lin made it a 1-2 finish.
"The DNFs (Did not Finish) will catch up ultimately, and Ananda (Mikola, the winner) is my nearest competition and he will now have some advantage," said Chandhok after the day's performance.
There was no doubt about the package put together by Chandhok's team headed by seasoned engineer Anthony Hieatt as he weathered two restarts to surge ahead.
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Indonesian Mikola of Team Eurasia (run by Narain Karthikeyan's former manager Piers Hunnisett) was followed by Bahrain's Hamad Al Fardan of Team Meritus and Seth Ingham of the US for CT Motorsport on the podium.
There was no sign of the nightmare in store for Chandhok at the start of the day when he clinched the 12-lap sprint race comfortably after starting from pole.
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