Thaindian News

Oschersleben (Germany), Sep 6 (IANS) Armaan Ebrahim, the 21-year old from Chennai, managed to pick up one point from an otherwise disastrous weekend in the double-header eighth round of the Formula 2 championship here.

Ebrahim finished a wet first race in 11th spot and did better in his next outing with a 10th place that earned him one point, but more significantly, he was on pace with the front-runners.

Having qualified 11th for the first race that was run in heavy downpour, Ebrahim, to his dismay, found that he was running on old wet tyres, instead of new set.

Lacking in grip over the opening 15 laps, Ebrahim just about kept the car on track that later began to dry up. Ebrahim picked up pace to pass six cars to move from 17th to 11th by the end of the outing.

In the second qualifying session, Ebrahim, until then fifth fastest, was pulled in as his car ran out of fuel with still two more laps of the session remaining and he made it to the 12th position on the start grid for the second race.

Ebrahim stepped up the pace in the second race to pass championship leader Jolyon Palmer and then Benjamin Lariche before settling for 10th position after a wheel-to-wheel dicing with Thomas Engg.

With two more races to be run at Valencia (Sept 17-19), Ebrahim currently occupies 11th position in the championship standings with 57 points.

Looking back at the weekend, Ebrahim said: “All I can say is that the 10th place finish and to pick up some points was very satisfying after the few ordeals that we went through earlier.

“I do not want to comment on the goof ups as these things do happen at times, but it was disappointing to have such situations arising in a level as high as F2.

“For sure, we could have been in the top five, but I guess it is what it is and I just have to focus on Valencia which comes up in two weeks’ time.”