Sailesh Bolisetti set for round two of Euro Racecar championship at Dijon

7 May, Visakhapatnam: Indian racing driver Sailesh Bolisetti is all set to continue his 2013 Euro Race Car campaign at the historic Dijon circuit in France on the coming weekend.

The 24–year old from Vizag who is set to leave for France today said, “First of all, I am grateful to be supported by ‘my friend’, Hon’ble Minister for Endowments for Andhra Pradesh, Shri C Ramachandraiah garu. He has been following my racing career closely and has come forward to support me for this particular round of the Euro Racecar championship.

Despite a promising international career progression including podiums and wins in the British GT championship last season, finding sponsors has been an uphill task for Sailesh, but hopefully this development will help him secure the necessary backing.

“Motorsport has always been sponsored by major corporations and now with this development we are looking forward for support from the Indian industry giants to extend support for the remainder of the season”, he revealed.

Last month, Sailesh had finished a credible 13^th on his maiden outing for Scorpus Racing at the season opener at Circuit Paul Armagnac.

The first Indian to compete in the Europe–based stock car championship, conditions were difficult for Sailesh as he had to battle torrential downpour, cyclones, hail storms and extremely low temperatures along with some mechanical issues on his first outing, but still managed to show promising pace.

“The first round was quite trying, it wasn’t just the new car and track layout but all around conditions were really difficult too. We had some mechanical issues as well, but managed to hold on and finish both races”, said Sailesh, recalling his debut outing.

Euro Racecar is the only series in the world to be sanctioned by the FIA as well as NASCAR, also being an official feeder series for the latter.

Notably, the Indian is the only completely novice driver in the series, with the grid being made up of 24 pro drivers who have prior experience of the cars and circuits.

Dijon is a former F1 venue which will play host to the second round of the championship which has some exceptionally historic tracks including Brands Hatch, Monza and Le Mans on its calendar.

It will be a starkly different challenge to Nogaro given the multitude of high–speed corners and elevation changes – it is a proper roller–coaster ride compared to the technical layout of Circuit Paul Armagnac.

“I’ve seen some videos online and it looks amazing! There are parts where you don’t see the track, just the sky and then there are some really fast downhill sections and corners with massive amount of camber.

“I understand that the track has changed somewhat from those days but I can’t get wait to get there”, he added.

Weather forecast is clear for the weekend except for intermittent showers on Saturday, which Sailesh thinks will help him learn more about the car.

“At this point we need a lot of running in stable conditions, which will let us work on the setup and find more pace. Hopefully the weekend will be dry so we’ll get a chance to try different things instead of just being busy coping with external conditions”, he added.

Qualifying at Dijon is scheduled on Friday May 10, with one race each on Saturday and Sunday.