India’s Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandhok won the 2012 Race of Champions Asia and qualified for the Nations Cup where they will be in the same group as defending champion Germany, which has Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher in its ranks.
Team India defeated Japan 2-0 in the final after leading the group stage with four wins out of six races. Both the Indian drivers won three out of their four races.
Narain, who drove for HRT this year, was thrilled to win on his first visit to the ROC. “It is an incredible feeling to be a part of Team India’s success in the ROC Asia in only our first visit. It has been really tough with limited track time, but at the end of the day we pulled it off,” said Narain.
ADVERTISEMENT
Karun, too, thoroughly enjoyed his first-ever ROC stint. “We did a fantastic job to win ROC Asia. The competition was really strong and we were pushed harder than we thought,” said Karun.
The ROC, being staged for the 25th consecutive year, brings together the world’s best drivers from motorsport’s main disciplines, including Formula One, world rally, touring cars, Le Mans, MotoGP, Indycar and the X-Games. The drivers battle it out head-to-head in identical machinery.
Schumacher and Vettel have won the event for the last five years.
ADVERTISEMENT