Sport - Racing : Motor   

Karun Chandok closes in on third place

Northamptonshire July 22. Karun Chandok continued his fine form of the past few race meetings at the Rockingham Speedway on Sunday. The Chennai lad is now close within two points of Stephen Clobert in the third place for the championship.

In testing on Friday, Karun was impressive and was in second place, just two tenths of a second behind first placed Adam Carrol despite having only three hours to learn the track. He was very happy with the balance in the car and was confident of challenging for the top slot. In the first qualifying on Saturday, Karun, caught in a drying track, was the first to finish but the benefit of the dried up track went to those who followed him. Eventually, Karun placed sixth.

In the second qualifier Karun went wide at the 180 kmh first chicane and knocked down six cones by the side of the circuit-breaking not only the front wing but this also bent the suspension causing the car's alignment to change. Still, he went back out with just three minutes to go and on the very last lap of the session put in a blinder to take the third place.

In race one, Karun had moved up from sixth to second in the first lap. But in the fourth lap Billy Asaro moved ahead but two laps later Asarao across and hit Karun's machine, causing damage to the alignment. After a safety-car period of four laps, Karun charged past Robert Dahlgren, Gavin Smith and Stephen Colbert up to the second place before dropping a place to Dahlgren. He stayed in third place till the flag to score 12 precious points.

In race two, Karun had a splendid start into the first corner. But going into the final hairpin Chandkok was T-boned by Dahlgren who tried an over ambitious move down the inside. This dropped Chandok down in the order and he finished sixth.

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