Blown engine ends Sailesh NASCAR Euro season

14 October, Le Mans (France): Indian driver Sailesh Bolisetti’s NASCAR Whelen Euro Series season came to a disappointing end after a blown engine in race two prevented him from finish the last race of his season.

Earlier on Saturday, Sailesh had qualified 14^th due to mixed weather conditions and an incident which had left him stuck in the wet gravel run–offat the season finale hosted at the iconic Bugatti Le Mans circuit.

Having shown top ten pace in practice sessions, Sailesh was hoping to make solid progress in the races but his hopes came to naught as he was shunted out of the first race on the opening lap.

“The weekend just kept getting bad to worse, I was hoping for some good races to make up for the poor qualifying but it just didn’t happen”, said a disappointed Sailesh.

“The sun was shining, everything was perfect for the races but we ran out of luck”, he remarked.

Race one saw Sailesh start 14^th on the grid and make some progress before being hit by another car, which was trying to avoid a third stranded car which had suddenly stopped due to a punctureat the Dunlop curve.

“I was way off the line, in fact I was almost off track as I had anticipated that guy moving across, but he still managed to wipe me out!”, exclaimed Sailesh.

The impact broke the left–front tie–rod and fender, ending Sailesh’s race instantly.

With grid for race two being determined by the fastest lap from race one, Sailesh was sent to the back of the pack for start.

He managed to pass a few cars during the rolling start and proceeded to slowly make his way up the grid. With some incidents and picking off slower cars ahead judiciously, Sailesh had made his way up to 12^th place by end of the fourth lap.

But disaster struck once again as he was suddenly left with no drive – the legacy of a blown oil seal which allowed engine oil into the clutch assembly.

“I couldn’t believe it! The entire weekend turned out to be a washout, which is a shame because we went well at the previous round in Monza and was hoping to repeat and improve the result at the season finale”, he said.

“We had no issues in practice but when it counted, we just couldn’t catch a break”, he signed off.