Narain Karthikeyan qualifies for Malaysian Grand Prix

Sepang, Malaysia: Building upon his encouraging form from Friday practice sessions, Indian F1 driver Narain Karthikeyan has managed to put the HRT F112 on the grid for the Malaysian Grand Prix, round two of the FIA Formula 1 championship.

Although the team has been through a steep learning curve since the season-opener in Australia last weekend, it has made significant strides in areas of performance and reliability with the Indian driver continuing to accumulate crucial miles on the car in the final free practice session before afternoon’s qualifying.

“The team worked until late last night to resolve the cooling issues especially along with other small niggles and the result was apparent in the morning. Even though the grip was lower than yesterday (due to the morning rain shower), the car felt significantly better.”

A trouble-free showing in qualifying ensured that the team was well within the 107 per cent of the best time in the session, thereby having both cars start the race in 22nd and 23rd position respectively.

“Qualifying went reasonably well, although the setup wasn’t exactly where we wanted it to be – the brake balance in particular.

“Getting it right is critical given the number of hard braking zones here where you haul the car down all the way from seventh gear, many times over a lap. Getting it wrong can result in lost time, which unfortunately was the case during my final qualifying lap where I had a massive lockup into the final corner.

“We also need to find some more performance out of the option (medium compound) tyre as well. If we set this right, we should be able to find some more time in terms of absolute pace.”

While more speed from the car is always welcome, Karthikeyan knows well that it won’t make Sunday’s 56-lap race any easier. The high ambient temperatures will challenge the cars mechanically, considering the cooling issues team has been trying to eradicate throughout the weekend.

“I think some rain may actually help us as it’ll help keep the temperatures down, but irrespective our aim is to improve and overcome these issues to finish the race.”

“I am yet to do more than three continuous flying laps, so race is still a huge unknown. Everyone in the team though has worked incredibly hard to get us to this level – we are closer to our immediate rivals, at least on single-lap pace.

So that is one box ticked and now we have to extract more out of a race situation and sort out the reliability as well”, he quipped.