Narain Karthikeyan takes third straight Auto GP pole

Narain Karthikeyan

Nurburgring (Germany), Aug 16 (IANS) India’s Narain Karthikeyan clinched his third consecutive pole position of the Auto GP World Series at the Nurburgring here Friday.

Following two poles and two wins at Silverstone and Mugello at the previous rounds, the Indian was on the pace from the outset.

As the chequered flag fell to signal the end of qualifying, Karthikeyan had secured pole with a lap time of 1:18.330, with his Italian teammate Vittereo Ghirelli two-tenths behind, locking out the front row for Super Nova.

In the sole 45-minute practice session preceding qualifying, Karthikeyan and his team worked on sorting the balance on both medium and soft Kumho compounds allocated for the weekend.

“We were the first cars out on the track in practice and the circuit was extremely green. But even as the session went on, we weren’t quite able to nail the balance on the medium compound”, said Karthikeyan, recounting the proceedings of the morning practice session.

“I think we were off by about half a second or so, but once we put the soft tyre on in qualifying the car just came alive.”

A crowd of over 100,000 spectators is expected Saturday and Sunday as the venue plays host to DTM – the German Touring Car championship and a host of other junior series.

“Our aim is to collect the maximum points through the weekend, as we are 42 points behind in the championship and quickly running out of races”, said Karthikeyan referring to two rounds at Donington and Brno that remain after this weekend.