Karthikeyan, Chandhok win Race of Champions Asia

Bangkok, Dec 14 (IANS) India’s best known drivers Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandhok Friday won the Race of Champions (ROC) Asia, beating Japan in the finals. The victory also helped the duo qualify for the ROC Nations Cup.

Team India, making its ROC debut, won the final 2-0 after leading the group stage with four wins out of six races. Both Karthikeyan and Chandhok won three out of their four races en route to victory.

In the ROC Nations Cup Saturday, they will be in the same group as defending champions Germany, comprising multiple times Formula One World Champions Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher.

Karthikeyan, who drove for HRT in the 2012 F1 season, was thrilled to win on his first visit to the ROC.

“It is an incredible feeling to be a part of Team India’s success in only on our first visit. It has been really tough with limited track time but at the end of the day we pulled it off. Every race in a different car was a challenge and it feels good to win in identical machinery. Tomorrow is a whole new day and we will give it our best to do our country proud,” he said.

World Endurance Championship driver Chandhok said: “I am really happy for Narain and myself as we did a fantastic job to win ROC Asia. The competition was really strong and we were pushed harder than we thought. It’s very special to create history as the first ever ROC Asia Champions against the top Asian racing nations.”

The end-of-season contest, which is being staged for the 25th consecutive year, brings together the world’s greatest drivers from motorsport’s main disciplines – including Formula 1, world rally, touring cars, Le Mans, MotoGP, Indycar and the X-Games – and sets them free to battle head-to-head in identical machinery.

IANS 2012-12-14 22:34:09