Second AutoGP World Series win for Narain Karthikeyan at Mugello

- Posted his second consecutive pole of the season on Saturday.

- Finished third in race one after starting from the pitlane.

Mugello (Italy): Narain Karthikeyan scored his second win of the 2013 AutoGP World Series season in race two of round five of the championship held at the Tuscan venue.

The second race of the weekend saw Narain starting fifth as per reversed grid, after having finished third in race one on Saturday. After a dramatic, action–packed 16 laps, the Indian crossed the line in a close second and was promoted to the top spot a little later when stewards penalised race winner Kevin Giovesi since he went off the track to pass other cars on the opening lap.

“From taking pole, then starting race one from the pitlane to winning now, it has been quite a roller–coaster of a weekend”, said an elated Narain.

“I had a good start in the race two, and passed a couple of cars but got bottled up behind Kuroda for first two laps, which allow Giovesi to get away at the front. We easily had the pace to challenge for win on the road”, said Narain.

With Kuroda out of the way, Narain was nearly 2.5 seconds down the road from Giovesi, a gap which he trimmed down to just half a second by the time the pair crossed the line, with Narain posting the fastest lap of the race in the process.

Saturday struggles

Earlier on Saturday, Narain had secured pole position for the opening race of the weekend, but all the work came to naught when a broken throttle cable on the out lap forced the Indian to start from the pitlane for the first race later in the day.

“It was quite frustrating and hard to believe – but it happens sometimes and there’s not much you can do but put your head down and push”, said Narain.

Starting from the pitlane, Narain had a lot of work ahead in a bid to limit the damage and inevitable points loss.

The race turned out to be an eventful affair, with several cars involved in incidents and the safety car being deployed. Narain on his part managed to stay out of trouble and pass a few cars despite a layout that doesn’t encourage overtaking.

“Overtaking here is extremely difficult as the circuit is quite flowing with fast corners, and it is difficult to follow another car very closely.

“The minute you are in the wake of another car here, you lose front–end bite and it is almost impossible to pass”, he clarified.

At the end of the impressive recovery drive, Narain managed to finish third, an acceptable result after the misfortune that could have caused far more damage.

“If the throttle cable had snapped on the opening lap instead of the out lap, we would have been done for good.

“So while starting from pole and finishing third isn’t great otherwise, I was happy that we were still able to collect solid points”, he admitted.

Coupled with his win in race two and an additional point earned for posting the fastest lap in the same race, meant that Narain came away with maximum points of any driver throughout the weekend.

“We are still 42 points behind the leader in the standings as we are still compensating for the DNFs from the first few outings. But hopefully with Super Nova we will be able to push right to the end for the championship”, stated Narain.

“I know the next three tracks, Nurburgring, Donington and Brno, well so that should help as well”, he concluded.

The next round of the AutoGP World Series is scheduled at Nurburgring, Germany on 17–18 August.