British Racers Impress In Indian GP Support

Alice Powell, Jordan King and Kourosh Khani Celebrate On The Podium After Race Two - Photo Credit: Final Sports News Blog

Jordan King and Alice Powell finished first and second in the first MRF Delhi Championship, leading a British Motorsport assault on the single seater series, which ran on the support bill of the inaugural Airtel Indian Grand Prix around the Buddh International Circuit.

King, who raced for Manor Competition in this seasons CERTINA Formula Renault 2.0 UK Championship, has competed in Formula MRF during the season and used this experience to great effect. A strong second place in Saturday's race was followed up by victory in Sunday's race, which took place in front of full grandstands just hours before the Formula One race started. The win, which was taken in controversial fashion after contact with a rival, saw Team Sidvin's King take top spot in the mini-championship and therefore he walked away with the top prize of $50,000.

The opening race saw King pressured throughout by Powell, the fellow Team Sidvin driver having to settle for a third, before once again following her Manor Formula Renault team-mate King home in the second race. Two podium finishes meant Powell, the only female racer on the grid, finished second to King in the standings, earning her $30,000 in prize money.

Other racers heading over from UK series to race were Protyre Formula Renault BARC regulars James Thorp, Zaamin Jaffer, Howard Fuller, Kourosh Khani and Sean Walkinshaw, former Dunlop MSA Formula Ford of Great Britain racer Chrissy Palmer and current contender Phillipe Layac and former British Formula 3 racer Alex Waters.

Iranian racer Khani impressed throughout the meeting, the BARC race-winner taking fourth in the opening race before securing a sensational podium with third in race two, even leading the race briefly early on. This gave him third overall in the championship and $20,000 in prize money. BARC rival Jaffer took a good sixth place in the opener before a dramatic second race saw him snatch fifth place on the last corner of the last lap to cap off an impressive weekend.

Jaffer's regular Hillspeed team-mates Fuller and Walkinshaw both enjoyed strong weekends. Fuller took a pair of ninth place finishes, while Walkinshaw took fifteenth in the opener before a great second race saw him climb from the back of the grid to take fourteenth.

BARC title contender Thorp had a disastrous opening race, his engine on running on three cylinders, causing him to lose multiple seconds a lap to his rivals, leaving him sixteenth. The second race saw an improvement with Thorp taking a top ten finish. Also in the wars were Palmer, Layac and Waters, the trio suffering various problems over the weekend.

V8 Supercar racer Nick Percat qualified on pole for the races and took the opening win, before the Australian was punted out of the lead in race two by King. The quickest of the local talent in qualifying was Gaurav Gill, the multiple national rally champion setting the eighth fastest time, before going on to take seventh and sixth place finishes in the races.

The MRF Delhi Championship was an invitational event, based on the Formula MRF series, and pitted twenty drivers together in identical Van Diemen single-seater cars, powered by 1.6 litre Ford Duratec Engines. The event attracted drivers from the UK, Australia, France, Iran, Finland and eighth racers from India, but was hindered by engine and tyres problems to the cars throughout the weekend. 

Race One Results: 

Race Two Results: