By IANS,
Kuala Lumpur : Armaan Ebrahim shrugged off a disastrous feature race in the Formula Renault V6 Asia series here and came away with a seventh place finish to get four points and add to the 10 he picked up while winning the sprint event.
The 19-year old from Chennai enjoyed a strong start Sunday in the feature race and led second placed Earl Bamber by over half-a-second. However, after four laps, the Safety Car came out following an incident involving Hafiz Koh at the back of the field.
On restart, Armaan pulled away again when disaster struck as his engine suddenly lost power forcing him to pit on three cylinders. It was then discovered that the spark plug connector had come loose.
He rejoined the race two laps down, but made considerable ground to eventually finish in the seventh spot and picked up four points.
“It was not a pleasant situation. I was leading the race quite comfortably and was not under any pressure from any of the cars behind me. I was just beginning to settle into a rhythm when suddenly the engine went dead. The spark plug connector coming loose is quite strange as it is the same part that is used in the aircraft engines,” said Armaan.
“The car was perfect in the morning warm up session and all of a sudden this happens in the race. But it is what it is and I guess we have to be a lot more guarded before the next race,” he added.
Meanwhile, another teenager from Chennai, Aditya Patel, met with more misfortune than Armaan and ended the weekend without a point to his name in the Formula BMW Pacific championship.
Having qualified ninth and 10th Thursday, Aditya spun off in the first race and finished 13th in the next, a lap down. In the subsequent five races, Aditya came in 13th, seventh and eighth.
Aditya later said he had problems with the gearbox and throttle. The glitches haunted him through the weekend, but he hoped that the car would be in better shape for the next round in Indonesia.
After two rounds, Aditya has 12 points from the third place finish on debut in the first round in March.