Karun Chandhok and team ends 4th at FIA GT Series at Zandvoort

Indian racing driver Karun Chandhok achieved his best FIA GT Series result when his team, Seyffarth Racing, finished fourth in Round 3 of the racing series, here on Sunday.

The former Formula One driver alongwith team-mate Jan Seyffarth had initially qualified in 16th position. They finished eighth in the qualifying race before finishing fourth in the main race.

The race pace for Seyffarth Racing seemed to be a lot better than qualifying as they moved up the order in the qualification.

In the main race Chandhok had a great start as he quickly moved up to sixth place at the end of the first lap. His team-mate Jan Seyffarth took over for the second half of the race and held off Alvaro Parente off Loeb Racing to finish in a brilliant fourth place.

"I am extremely happy to finish in 4th after our qualifying position yesterday. We could not find any grip in qualifying and had to make a host of changes for the race. The changes seemed to work as the car was much better in the race.

"To move up from 16th to 8th in the race was excellent and the car felt great. I managed to set the 5th fastest lap in the race which clearly showed our car improved," Chandhok said.

"It was tough as the cars ahead of us were much faster. Jan also drove well and did a great job holding off Parente in the last part of the race. After the Le Mans recovery it was good to have my best finish in the FIA GT Series.

Meanwhile, Indian racing driver Armaan Ebrahim and BMW Sports Trophy today rounded off their strongest weekend of 2013 with a third place finish in the Pro-Am category and tenth overall.

Having scored their maiden podium by finishing second yesterday, the team was on their way to go one better but a delay during the driver change threw a spanner in the works.

"We were really on it today, the car was really strong and we could have won the class and finished top five overall," said Armaan, hinting disappointment at the final outcome.

Armaan started the race from ninth position but like yesterday, a huge incident on the opening lap led the race being red-flagged. The restart saw him holding his position and challenging the train of cars ahead.

But his attention was focused as much on the car behind as it was ahead, with nine-time WRC champion Sebastien Loeb in his McLaren MP4-12C breathing down Armaan's rear bumper.

"I could see him coming in the mirrors but I had enough pace in the bag to keep him behind and was focusing on passing the cars right ahead of me," he said.

But the BMW Z4 GT's inherent lack of straight line speed prevented him from passing the Nissan GT-R and Mercedes SLS lying close ahead of him, despite the BMW holding an advantage around the rest of the 4.3-kilometre layout.

Having held Loeb off for the length of his stint, Armaan pitted for the mandatory driver change on lap 14, but disaster was in store.

"As soon as I tried to unbuckle (the seatbelt) myself, it refused to release despite repeated efforts. Then we had the crew on it and it took forever for me to come out and buckle Melroy (teammate) back in," he said.