Motorsports: Armaan's hopes go up in smoke

Mechanical problems, highlighted by a blown engine, wrecked the weekend for India's Armaan Ebrahim and BMW Sports Trophy Team India in the round four of the 2013 FIA GT World Series here.

The team was positive coming into the weekend on the back of its maiden podium at Zandvoort last month, but disappointment was in store as a blown engine put paid to their hopes after qualifying 17th for the race.

"We were hoping to pick up from where we left off, but unfortunately it wasn't to be. On Saturday morning, the first practice session was quite promising as we were around 1.2 seconds off the pace and were still working on dialling the car in.

"We were hoping to make a step forward in FP2, but then the guys discovered that the exhaust was broken right near the engine mounting," Ebrahim said.

The nature of the issue meant the engine had to be removed in order to replace the exhaust system, which forced the team to sit out of the second and final practice session before qualifying.

The Indian also had a new teammate for the weekend, Slovakian Filip Sladecka, who proved to be a value addition to the team given his intricate knowledge of his home venue.

Armaan started race one from 17thon the grid and managed to make up a few places on the opening laps, and was running 14th when the engine blew in a cloud of smoke.

"On lap three, the engine suddenly seemed to lose power and then I saw a plume of white smoke in the rear-view mirror, and I knew it was over," remarked Armaan.