A1 Team India continued their progression up the rankings of A1GP, with Narain scoring points in the feature race in Taupo, New Zealand. This, despite absolutely no pre-season testing, and only one full racing weekend of experience behind them. The last race at Sepang (Malaysia) was a complete wash-out for the team, as they were unceremoniously taken out of both races on the first lap by other cars.

It was a fairly eventful day of racing for Narain Karthikeyan and A1 Team India. It was a bright sunny day with temperatures in the mid 20s and 40% humidity, which made for a hard days’ work in the cockpit of the A1GP Powered by Ferrari racer.

In the feature race Narain made a great start from 11th on the grid and drove around the A1 Team Lebanon car. Narain settled down into a groove, putting in some consistent lap-times, not making any mistakes. The pit-crew did two excellent tyre-change stops which helped Narain climb up the rankings. The physically demanding nature of the circuit and the bumpiness of the track made consistent performance even more difficult, as a few of the drivers made fatigue-related errors. Narain drove faultlessly to finish in a strong 7th place, adding 4 points to his and the teams tally.

For the Sprint Race Narain had a hairy moment when the lights turned green as the A1 Team Mexico car, which was in front of him on the starting grid, stalled. Narain reacted perfectly, driving around the stricken car. He had a good run down to the first corner, outpacing A1 Team Brazil who had qualified just ahead of him, thus picking up 2 positions on the run up to the first corner. He spent the next few laps closing the gap to A1 Team South Africa. He came in for his mandatory pit-stop at the end of lap 7. The A1 Team India pit-crew did a super-quick stop, getting Narain out on the circuit ahead of A1 Team South Africa, and with Australia retiring from the race with a broken front suspension arm caused by hitting a curb too hard, and Lebanon calling it a day with a mechanical failure, Narain was now in 9th place, a position he was to hold until the end of the race.

Narain Karthikeyan
“It was a very hard days’ work today. The Taupo circuit is very bumpy, with a quick succession of tight corners. I’m very pleased with the performance of the entire team today. The mechanics gave me a very well prepared car & they did three excellent pit-stops, which helped me progress up the leader-board. Since we missed all the pre-season testing, we’re feeling the loss now, with other teams having a large database of information on the new A1GP Powered by Ferrari car. The worldwide financial crunch has also affected us very badly, with budgets being severely curtailed, so much so that we are struggling for spare-parts like gear-ratios, anti-roll bars, and springs, just to name a few but we are confident of finding a solution.