For the first time this season, Narain Karthikeyan will be the leading HRT driver when the red lights go out at Monza this afternoon. The Indian lines up in 21st position, having out-qualified team-mate Pedro de la Rosa and taken advantage of two misfortunes.
Quicker than de la Rosa on Saturday by two tenths of a second, Karthikeyan is two places ahead of the Spaniard because Pastor Maldonado has been demoted to 22nd position with a double penalty. In 24th, the qualifying spot previously filled by Karthikeyan nine times in 2012, is the Force India of Nico Hülkenberg which suffered a fuel line problem on Saturday.
“We’ve had very good sensations since (Friday) and the car performed even better with the setup changes we made,” Karthikeyan explained. “The performance was better with the first set of tyres, as we faced some problems with the second set, but I’m happy with the result we achieved. We need to continue with this good standard and try to beat our main rivals.”
The 2012 Italian Grand Prix begins at 2pm local time (BST +1). All of the action can be tracked through the interactive GPUpdate.net Live Report.
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Formula 1
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Narain Karthikeyan
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  L. Hamilton | McLaren | 01:24.010 | 15 |
| 2. | J. Button | McLaren | 01:24.133 | 15 |
| 3. | F. Massa | Ferrari | 01:24.247 | 16 |
| 4. | P. di Resta | Force India | 01:24.304 | 17 |
| 5. | M. Schumacher | Mercedes | 01:24.540 | 14 |
| 6. | S. Vettel | Red Bull | 01:24.802 | 22 |
| 7. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 01:24.833 | 15 |
| 8. | K. Raikkonen | Lotus | 01:24.855 | 18 |
| 9. | K. Kobayashi | Sauber | 01:25.109 | 18 |
| 10. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 01:25.678 | 16 |
| Full results | ||||
| Narain Karthikeyan | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| More Narain Karthikeyan photos | |||
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