Karun seventh in GP2 feature race

MONTE CARLO - Karun Chandhok lost out on a possible victory in the GP2 sprint race here Sunday as his Ocean Technology Racing team car encountered a driveshaft problem when he leading.

Earlier, the Chennai-born Chandhok had finished seventh in the feature race that earned him a front row start for the reversed sprint race grid.

Chandhok had qualified 10th for the feature race that he did not start well, slipping to 15th place in the first lap. But he retrieved the situation with an early pit-stop to rejoin the race in the seventh place that he maintained to the finish.

With the grid for the sprint race reversed (1-8 positions), Chandhok started second and went into the lead at the first corner by passing Pastor Maldonado (ART) and opened up a four-second lead.

However, with just eight laps to go, Chandhok slowed and finally grounded to a halt as the right side driveshaft had snapped and lost all drive as he approached the start-finish straight.

Chandhok said: “You don’t get many chances to win at Monaco and this would have been perfect. It’ll take a couple days to get over it but we have to push forward with the conviction of this weekends race pace.