Chandhok was set for a welcome finish until Trulli landed on his HRT
The Monaco GP finished on a spectacular note when Jarno Trulli’s Lotus climbed over the back of Karun Chandhok’s HRT, triggering the safety car that in turn led to the controversial Michael Schumacher/Fernando Alonso incident.
The crash got HRT and Chandhok some TV time, but it robbed the Indian of the chance to be the first car home from one of the new teams after a tenacious drive – one that even saw him drag Rubens Barrichello’s steering wheel around from Massenet to the Chicane.
“It was really disappointing for me and the team,” Chandhok told this blog after the race. “With Petrov’s problem we would have been P13, which would have put the team into 10th in the World Championship, which was important for them.
“It’s very frustrating because I think I drove a good race. I pushed like hell to make the gap to Bruno early on. I caught the Lotus and the Virgin, which was surprising. I had more pace than Jarno, and later on I was catching Bruno again after the strategy didn’t work out for me.”
Chandhok says the overtaking attempt by Trulli came as a surprise, although the Italian himself insisted that the HRT slowed more than usual.
“I knew Webber was coming because I saw the blue flags,” said Chandhok. “That’s why I was surprised that he was trying it on me. Obviously he had to let him past before me. It was pretty unacceptable what he did.
“It was ridiculous. It’s impossible to pass into Rascasse, and he’s apologised for it. If you remember Brazil last year… When he apologises, he knows he’s screwed up. He would never have gone round the corner, he wouldn’t have had enough steering lock from the angle he was coming at. He would have just done the old Schumacher 2006 parking move! I ducked and it went over my head, so I got away with it.”
In the end the stewards took no action against Trulli: “It doesn’t matter does it? It doesn’t get my race back, and doesn’t do anything for me, so I don’t really care. I’m sure he didn’t do it on purpose, it was just a bit of brain failure. He’s a nice guy, he’s not an idiot.”
The battered HRT is carried back to the pits. Photos: Cooper
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
Hopefully Karun has learned (or was reminded) NOT to put his hand up over his head. That was the scariest part…
If he keeps giving interviews like this, Karun is going to quickly become the nicest bloke in F1.
Every interview his gives he comes across as such a cool, down to Earth guy. Other F1 drivers – take note!
Scary accident indeed – glad to see Karun get out of it unharmed. Trulli’s move was idiotic, though.
Jarno has his own story though, I will probably post that tomorrow!
Then take story 1 and story 2, combine and divide in half and you end up with approximately what happened.
Does it involve a pile of eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each
one was to be used as evidence? 😀
Adam, your blog has really come alive recently… I’m enjoying it – please keep it up!