Akhil notches top 10 finish at Nurburgring Circuit

Bengaluru born rider Akhil Rabindra, the only Asian to seal an Aston Martin Racing Driver Academy spot earlier this year, has helped his team PROsport Performance earn a top 10 finish by securing the eighth spot in class in the season finale of the 2019 GT4 European Series at the Nurburgring Circuit in Germany.

Ekris Motorsport drivers Ricardo van der Ende and Euan McKay converted their pole position into a race win in the final race of the season at the 5.1 km Nurburgring Grand Prix Circuit whereas MDM Motorsport drivers Simon Knap and Alec Udell clinched the Silver Cup title on Sunday.

The GT4 European Series, having returned to the Nurburgring Grand Prix track, saw 32 cars compete for the title. With one podium finish at the Brands Hatch, Akhil is currently seventh in the Silver Cup category. Till the end of the 3rd round, Akhil was in the top 5 in the championship but due to car related issues, he had to miss out three races, thus missing out on some valuable points.

Akhil said after the race: "It's a promising result for us and we certainly look forward to the next season hereon. We have learnt technicalities of the racing mechanism and as a team, can surely dig deeper to maneuver better outcomes next season. I, personally, have grasped a lot and can't wait to work on my shortcomings to better my performances."

Akhil and his teammate D. Griessner, who drove a Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4, clocked 2:05.340 minutes and qualified P6 in Q1 while David clocked 2:04.998 minutes and qualified P5 in Q2.

The ProSport Performance racing duo completed the 28-lap first race of the day in 1:01:49.005 hours to finish P10 and P9 in class, whereas winners A. Lambertz and R. Monti of Silver Marcedes AMG GT4 winded up the race in 1:01:07.897 hours with a slender lead over the Silver Ekris M4 GT4 duo of R. Van der Ende and E. McKay who clocked 1:01:11.395 hours.

In the second race, David started P5 and stormed into P3. After the pitstop, Akhil improved to P2. Unfortunately, Akhil was a bit stormy in the pit lane, dropping below the minimum time by a fraction of a second and was handed a stop and go penalty.

Akhil and Griesnner made a strong comeback in the second race and logged 1:01:29.983 hours to finish the 28 laps to cement their P10 finish and P8 in class to conclude the 2019 European GT4 Series. Throughout the championship and also in the last round at Nurburgring, Prosport Aston Martins were the best finishing Aston on the grid.

( With inputs from IANS )