Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandok clinched the 2012 Race of Champions Asia Cup at the Rajamangala Stadium in Thailand on Saturday. They defeated Team Japan 2-0 and won four out of the six races that they participated in as well as lead the Asia Cup tournament for most of its duration.
This is the first ROC outing for the victorious Indian duo. While Karthikeyan spent the year with the HRT F1 team and had an event F1 season, Karun participated in the FIA World Endurance Championship for JRM Racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France.
Both drivers were quite happy over their victory. Karun said “It was a really good night and it was obviously very nice to end up on top. It wasn’t as straightforward as we would have hoped as we both had our favourite cars and we ended up driving the opposite ones to what we wanted. But it worked out well in the end. It was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed our first experience of competing here. In the end I think we beat everyone fair and square.”
Karthikeyan was equally happy, “This is the first time at the Race Of Champions for both myself and Karun and I’ve really enjoyed this event so far. It’s a unique format and it’s pretty tight and narrow out there. So it was a challenge to put a precise lap together in any of the cars. But it’s just about getting the best out of each car.”
In the nation’s cup finals, Team Germany beat Team Australia's Jamie Whincup and Mick Doohan by two heats to nil. They had earlier cruised their way to the top of Group B with six wins out of six to kick off their perfect night. Team Australia joined them in the semi-finals with three victories: two for Whincup, one for Doohan.
Following their triumph in the Asia cup, Narain and Karun failed to make it beyond the group stages this time. They took a win apiece but it wasn't enough against the might of Germany and Australia.
Germany took out Australia and battled France for the Finals. While the French were led by Lotus Renault driver Romain Grosjean and rally driver Sebstian Oiger, at the helm of the German team were Seven times F1 champion Micheal Schumacher and 2012 F1 champion Sebastian Vettel.
In the end, Vettel and Schumacher took their sixth consecutive ROC nations cup victory for Germany after defeating France.
Images: ROC Facebook page
