Sailesh Bolisetti finishes ninth at Brands Hatch

09June, Kent (UK): Indian driver Sailesh Bolisetti recorded his first top–ten finish of the season at round three of Euro Racecar championship held at the iconic Brands Hatch circuit here on Saturday.

Having known the 1.9–kilometre layout well from his British GT outing last year, Sailesh was able to get up to pace straightaway.

“This is the first time this season that we’re on a track that I’ve driven before, and it makes a huge difference to the weekend as you’re not wasting time figuring out the lines and the layout”, remarked Sailesh.

“Instead we were able to jump in and work on the setup to improve the car which is important”, he added.

Throughout practice, the 24–year old was posting top–five times and was hoping to carry his form into qualifying but a late setup change elected by his teammate put paid to those chances.

“It was a last minute change which I was made aware of only after I had gone out and come after finishing quali. It caught me by surprise as the front end was stiffer and the rear was softer than what we were running in practice so the car was completely different”, he revealed.

Eventually, Sailesh ended up qualifying 13^th with 50.702s lap, which was far slower than the 50.3s time he had posted earlier in free practice.

Going into race one, he ensured that the team reverted to the setup from practice to help him come through the pack.As the green flag dropped, he passed two cars on the opening lap but his efforts were thwarted due to the safety car being deployed. The Brands Hatch Indy layout isn’t suited for overtaking, but the Indian managed to make his way past another couple of cars and eventually finish ninth.

“It was a tough race, again we had issues we could have avoided but I’m quite used to it now. So far, this has been the strongest weekend of the season and knowing the track definitely helped.

“So I’m hoping to maximise the opportunity and hopefully post another strong result for race two to round off the weekend”, he concluded.