Armaan becomes first Asian to grab podium finish

Armaan Ebrahim on Saturday became the first Asian ever to finish on the podium in an FIA Formula 2 Championship held in Valencia.

After the two official practice sessions, which were not too encouraging, Armaan worked long hours with his engineers and found a good balance for the qualifying session.

Prior to putting on new tyres, Armaan was lying in 8th position and with 10 minutes to go in the session, he pulled off two really quick laps to qualify third on the grid.

He could have finished better, but on his second flying lap, Armaan caught a bit of traffic and that cost him 2 tenths of a second.

"Finally. It was always there race in and race out, but something always fell out and it never happened. After long deliberations last night, I made up my mind that this was it and this was going to be a podium though testing did not go well.

"Qualifying was good and I had a good car. We managed to do everything right and I got my quicker laps in the right band and though P2 was on the cards, we hit some traffic on my final quick lap and that was it. P3 was really moral boosting and it was now up to me to convert the same in the race," Armaan said.