Formula one stars defeated by teenager Bonder Tuesday, December 05, 2006 06:20 [IST]
London: Formula One stars Felipe Massa and
Rubens Barrichello were given a stark lesson in their own back yard after
losing to a 15-year-old driver in the annual Granja Viana 500 Mile kart
endurance race in Brazil
over the weekend.
Teenager Otavio Bonder and his teammates won the 10th edition on Sunday at
Katrodromo International Granja Viana in Cotia, near Sao Paulo.
The F1 and Indy Racing League stars were shown a clean pair of heels as
Bonder’s team took the chequered flag more than two laps ahead of Barrichello's
all-star cast, which included Tony Kanaan and Dan Wheldon, after more than 10
hours of racing.
Pole-sitter Felipe Massa failed to cross the finish line. He lost first
position right after the Le Mans-style start and was running second at the
beginning of the second hour, when he was unable to avoid a shunt against
another kart that had just spun in front of him. A broken axle meant around 30
laps for repairs.
Massa managed
to rejoin the race until a third broken engine forced him out of the race.
"There was nothing I could do. When I realized, the guy just a few
meters ahead," the Ferrari ace explained.
"It was a shame, because our pace was quite good and we were capable of
finishing in the top three positions," he said.
Barrichello, however, was delighted to have finished second.
"We've got to celebrate, because our kart was not as quick as the ones
driven by the drivers that arrived in front of us and even some that we
happened to get passed. We faced problems with a poor engine all the
time", insisted the former Ferrari driver. |