Karun Chandhok

The GP2 Series teams have concluded their first testing session at Paul Ricard this week, with the best time of the day going to new Super Nova driver Javier Villa. Trying on the brand new engine provided by Renault for the 2009 season – it was the very debut for the new power plant in the off-season testing – the Spaniard set the fastest time of 1:11.930. Super Nova and DAMS (Kamui Kobayashi) were the only 2 teams at Paul Ricard to put both their cars into the Top 10 in the Wednesday time charts. On the other hand, yesterday’s back-runners were Trident Racing, Ocean Technology of Karun Chandhok and David Price Racing.

1. Javier Villa (Super Nova) 1:11.930
2. Lucas di Grassi (Racing Engineering) 1:12.079
3. Kamui Kobayashi (DAMS) 1:12.140
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18. Giedo van der Garde (iSport) 1:13.221
19. Karun Chandhok (Ocean) 1:13.356
20 Davide Rigon (Trident) 1:13.362
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25. Giacomo Ricci (DPR) 1:14.961
26. Alvaro Parente (Ocean)

Karun Chandhok has admitted that he was ‘disappointed’ to have been overlooked for a Formula 1 role in 2009, but insists that he remains fully focussed on his ‘dream’ of being on the starting grid for the first-ever Indian Grand Prix in two years’ time. Given his family’s close links with Force India F1 chairman and managing director Vijay Mallya, and two promising seasons in the GP2 Series feeder category, many assumed that Chandhok would be a shoe-in for either a race seat or at the very least a testing position with the Silverstone-based squad this year, but with Mallya electing to retain his 2008 line-up in its entirety, there was no room at the inn for the man from Chennai, Karun.