Karun Chandhok unhurt in crash at Le Mans, but qualifying session ruined

Indian racecar driver Karun Chandhok (R) with Spanish racecar driver Lucas Ordonez Martin-Esperanza

Le Mans (France), June 13 (IANS): Karun Chandhok, driving the Oreca 03R Nissan of Team Murphy Prototypes, walked unscathed from a high-speed crash during the qualifying session of the Le Mans 24 Hours race, here Friday.

At the time of the crash that occurred at the Indianapolis corner, Chandhok looked certain to put his team third on the grid for the race that will commence Saturday. The Chennai-based driver will be joined by Rodolfo Gonzalez and Nathanel Berthon to share the V8-powered Nissan.

With largely cosmetic damage, the Murphy Prototypes team is confident that the car will be ready to take its place on the grid Saturday afternoon for the 82nd running of the world's greatest endurance race.

A mere half a second separated the top six cars in LMP2 class in yet another evening of mixed sessions with both red and yellow flags disrupting the running.

The team's best time set in Qualifying Practice Two by Berthon looked set to be beaten in the third session by Chandhok, who is supported by JK Tyre, Tag Heuer, Sidvin and the AVT group. before he crashed out towards the end of the session.

Chandhok had managed to put the car in second position in the first practice session continuing his good run of form. In last week's test, Chandhok was also second and felt very confident with the car.

Running all three drivers in Wednesday afternoon's free practice session, the team picked up on their impressive pace from the official pre-event test to finish the session in second. The time, set by Chandhok early in the session, left the team feeling very confident going into the evening's Qualifying Practice One.

"Obviously, it's a disappointing end for the boys and myself. It was a really weird accident that caught me out by surprise. I came out of Indianapolis and on the exit the car just snapped to the right," he said.

"Fortunately, it went quite sharply to the right and hit the barrier square on so the front crash structure seemed to absorb the impact.

"I am glad I have the day today to recover but am confident of being strong for tomorrow. The car has been competitive all week and we've got a good team of guys to get it ready for the race so we should be in good shape," he added.