Raj Bharath finishes 5th in race 2 and 3: Formula Masters

Kuala Lampur, 15 Sept 2013: Indian racing driver Raj Bharath rounded off a challenging Formula Masters outing at the Sepang International Circuit with a pair of fifth place finishes. The 5.5-kilometer venue also plays host to the Malaysian F1 Grand Prix and MotoGP rounds, a press release from Meco Motorsports said.

Supported by Bangalore-based Embassy Group and driving for Meco Motorsport, the start of the weekend was far from ideal for the 19-year old as he was stuck with a misfiring engine in the opening session of the weekend. The issue took the entire day to work through and cost him several hours of track time before it could be successfully diagnosed and fixed.

“I had done maybe three laps and the engine started to misfire and grew worse, so I pulled into the pits and that was the end of the day”, said Raj recounting his inauspicious start to the weekend.

The reliability of the Volkswagen-powered Formula Masters car has been satisfactory throughout the season, but this particular outing proved to be a difficult one.

After several hours of troubleshooting, the issue was finally traced to a faulty fuel injector (which was clogged) that was not supplying enough fuel to one of the cylinders, leading to the misfire and subsequent loss of power.

The injector was duly replaced and the car finally fired up normally, but Raj,  a student of the Centre for Management Studies in Bangalore, India  had lost two hours of track time by then, which given the mixed conditions was a major setback for the rest of the weekend.

As a result, he went into qualifying with only a handful of laps under his belt, and found himself off the pace compared to the frontrunners who had driven and done setup work throughout the day.

“We went into qualifying without a clue of what we needed to work on with the setup and so on, and we were almost two seconds off the pace, which is miles off”, he quipped.

Luckily some other drivers had issues in qualifying as well, so Raj still managed to start seventh on the grid for race one. But lady luck had decided not to smile upon him yet and after a feisty few opening laps, Raj was tipped into an uncontrollable spin that ended his race in the gravel trap.

“The car was feeling different somehow in the race, not just the balance but the way it was responding which was a bit inconsistent between right-handed and left-handed corners”, revealed Raj.

“It was raining hard as well, so I just thought maybe it was the track surface, but having driven in the rain at Sepang before and won here, I knew something was amiss”, he elaborated.

But he didn’t get much time to reflect on the issue as coming out of the long right-handed turn two, the car snapped into an uncontrollable spin and Raj was spitted into the gravel trap instantly.

“I got some oversteer at the exit of turn 2, which is normal and I corrected it, but then the car just came around so fast – I had never experienced anything like that before”, said Raj describing the incident.

The car was taken back to the pits and this time it was the left-rear damper that had given way, which had left the car with no compression damping when the car was loaded in right-hand corners. Given the torrential downpour, a complete loss of grip was imminent.

With the component replaced for the next two races, Raj managed to finish fifth in both after starting towards the rear end of the grid.

His pace improved significantly as well, as he effectively did his practice laps and setup work after the second race – the first hard laps he had done all weekend.

“Driving the in race with other cars around I realised I was losing out a bit in the long corners, because we had excessive understeer. Stuff like this we usually do in practice but that’s how it is sometimes”, he remarked.

With two fifth place finishes, Raj lies fourth in the championship with only the triple-header season finale at Shanghai International circuit remaining, the venue where he won in May earlier this year.

Raj Bharath’s 2013 Formula Masters Stats:

Rounds: 5
Races: 15 (3 per round)
Pole positions: 1
Wins: 1
Podium finishes: 5
DNFs: 2
Points: 118
Championship standing: 4^th

About Raj Bharath:

Born November 20, 1994 in Bangalore, Raj took his first steps in motorsport with karting in 2008 – like all aspiring F1 drivers. Then aged 14, he immediately showed glimpses of his potential in his debut year, winning the trophy for the ‘Most promising rookie of the year’ in the National Karting championship.

He eventually won the title in 2010 and progressed to Formula BMW Asia in 2011 followed by the Ferrari Academy supported Formula Pilota in 2012.

For 2013, Raj is participating in the Formula Masters China before moving to Europe in 2014, and getting closer to his aim of making it to Formula 1. He posted his first victory of the season at the Shanghai International Circuit in May.

Formula Masters China Calendar:

Zhuhai (China)             10-12 May
Shanghai (China)         24-26 May
Ordos (China)               05-07 July
Inje (Korea)                 9-11 August
Sepang (Malaysia)       13-15 Sep
Shanghai (China)         25-27 Oct
Macau Grand Prix          8-10 Nov

ends