CHALLENGING START TO SAILESH BOLISETTI’S DIJON WEEKEND

10May, Dijon–Prenois, France: Indian racing driver Sailesh Bolisetti’s second round of the his 2013 Euro Race Car campaign at the historic Dijon circuit kicked off on a difficult note after a spate of issues saw him qualify 19^thon the grid.

Chronic mechanical issues left Sailesh’steam Scorpus Racing struggling with the Chevrolet Camaro SS during both the practice sessions and as a result the Indian driver got his first hard laps of the 3.8–kilometer circuit only in qualifying.

With just 15 minutes allocated to each driver to set a time, Sailesh was left with an uphill task trying to come to terms with the track while trying to muscle the still ill–handling car at the same time.

“It has been a really disappointing weekend”, summed up Sailesh.

“We’ve had some issues, a gearbox which was damaged in the last race was replaced only yesterday which meant we lost the entire first session, and that was only the starting point”, he said, recapping the weekend.

“Then during this morning’s practice the team realised that there were some issues with its mounting, so we lost more track time and had just enough time left to do a couple of laps.”

“Even during qualifying we were stuck in the garage for a few minutes which gave me just four timed laps amidst a couple of yellow and red flags and so on. Basically, it just wasn’t our day, and worst of all it had nothing to do with external conditions”, he exclaimed.

The 24–year old from Vizag who has been supported for this round by Hon’ble Minister for Endowments for Andhra Pradesh, Shri C Ramachandraiah, had been hoping for a better result this weekend on the back of his strong performance at his debut round at Nogaro last monthwhere he finished 13th.

“I just hope that the race will be better than what it has been like so far, because there isn’t much left to go wrong”, remarked Sailesh.

“At Nogaro we had torrential rains, cyclones, hail storms, freezing temperatures and some mechanical issues too, but we still managed to get track time which came in handy during the races.

“Here the sun has been shining, not a drop of rain but everything else has gone wrong. Hopefully the worst is done and we’d be able to make some progress and post some good finishes to end on a good note”, he concluded.