Karun Chandhok is hopeful of climbing onto the rostrum for only the second time in his GP2 career this weekend, as the all-new Asia Series roars into life in Dubai.
The 13 teams and 26 drivers who will be contesting the five-round championship have spent the past week testing at the Dubai Autodrome, scene of both the season curtain-raiser and also finale just under three months later after paying visits to Indonesia, Malaysia and Bahrain in the intervening weeks.
Despite preparations being disrupted by heavy pre-test rainfall and the dusty track surface, Chandhok who clinched his maiden series victory in Spa last year is optimistic his iSport international team is in good shape heading into the opening meeting.
I'm really looking forward to the season, enthused the 24-year-old Indian, who has been a regular fixture in the top five on the timing screens and topped the list outright on the morning of day three. The tests were reasonably good we had a couple of good days and a couple of not-so-good days.
The circuit itself is quite bumpy and dusty, as you would expect in a desert! It's going to be really important to get the tyres to work in qualifying, and the dirt off-line will make the racing exciting so it should be good to watch as well. There are some very quick guys here including Romain Grosjean, Luca Filippi, Adrian Valles, Andy Soucek and of course my team-mate Bruno Senna.
I've built up a good working relationship with the engineers in a short space of time, and although we started the week a little bit behind we have made good progress with the car. The mechanics did a really good job in the pit-stop practices yesterday, and I think there's no reason why we can't be in contention for podiums this weekend.
