After qualifying on the front row again in Sepang, my ECU lapsed into ‘safe mode’ at the start, which meant the engine would only rev to 3,600rpm when I needed at least 5,000rpm to pull away for the warm-up lap. It just left me stranded, looking stupid like I had stalled or something, but there was nothing I could do about it.
Then after fighting back up through the field my right rear wheel jammed on at my pit-stop, so I was delayed by over 30 seconds there too. Despite that I fought back again, and had just set three consecutive fastest laps and was about three seconds per lap quicker than Armaan Ebrahim when I caught him with a few laps to go. I sat behind him for a lap and had a look into the last corner, but unfortunately for both of us I just locked a wheel on a damp patch from the earlier rain shower and slid into him.
In the sprint race I felt like
Lewis Hamilton getting stuck behind
Mark Webber and
Jarno Trulli in the grand prix. I was quicker than the cars ahead, but it was just impossible to pass on that track. We were quick all weekend, but I was really irritated that technical problems, a bad pit-stop and a mistake from me meant I didn’t score points.
Being the first weekend of the year with
F1, it was important to show that I had the speed, though. I had a chance to interact with a lot of people in the F1 paddock during the weekend, and it was nice to hear that they had seen the qualifying performance. The races were a bit of a lottery with the weather, but qualifying is a more pure display of our potential.
After getting straight into the lead from second on the grid in Bahrain – the fourth time I had qualified on the front row in four meetings – the safety car coming out really messed things up for us. When leaving the pits I made a mistake, but I was determined to make up for it once I’d got the car going again.
![GP2 front-runner Karun Chandhok chats to iSport International team-mate Bruno Senna [pic credit: Karun Chandhok]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/429657.jpg)
