Thaindian News

Greater Noida, Oct 29 (IANS) Akhil Khushlani did India proud when he finished sixth in his first race in the JK Racing Asia Series at the Buddh International Circuit Saturday.

The Meritus.GP driver completed the nine lap race in 18 minutes, 48. 550 seconds.

Austrian Lucas Auer won the race to claim the Rookie Cup championship after collecting two pole positions. The fifth round of the JK Racing Asia Series is being run as a support event to the inaugural Indian Formula One Grand Prix.

Italian Lucas Camplese of Eurointernational came second after Nabil Jeffri, who fell behind after spinning on the dirty part of the track.

Despite not racing for the past year and a half, Khushlani managed to get back in the groove immediately.

“It went quite well, as planned and I made up a couple of positions,” Khushlani said. “I didn’t qualify well because of a lot of traffic and we didn’t get our setups right to a certain extent but we got the race right at least. We made consistent progress in positions and finished where we had to.”

“I was little rusty as I did not race in the last one and a half years. I had done some practice but not race practice. I think tomorrow should be better but my second fastest lap wasn’t very good so I am starting 13th and hope to get a top five tomorrow,” he added.

Visnu Prasad also impressed the grid when he completed a hard race in eighth after starting at the 14th place. “It was my first race and my main aim was to finish in the top ten or the top eight and I managed to do that,” he said.

Auer made an impressive start and immediately opened up a gap in the action-filled race. The mid-pack changed positions numerous times that kept the spectators on their toes.

“I think my start was not too bad but at the first couple of laps I did not have such a good pace,” said Auer.