Driving for Carlin Motorsport team and sponsored by Kingfisher, Narain, the 22-year old from Coimbatore, enjoyed a good race even though rain clouds gathered on the circuit and a few drops made the surface damp and greasy. Fortunately, the weather cleared and the circuit dried up by the time the race got underway.

Narain, in his Open engine-driven car, made a blistering start and by the end of lap 1, he was up in fourth position. In front of him were the rapid Belgin and French drivers, David Saelens and Frank Montagny. Soon, Narain closed up and passed them to move to second position at the end of lap six.

Both the drivers then attacked Narain, but, in theprocess, took each other out and were out of the race after damaging their cars. Now, the British driver, Darren Manning, began to close up on Narain who was clearly struggling with the straight-line speed.

Their battle continued for several laps until Manning passed Narain on the run up to the `La Source' hairpin bend. Narain then had only two laps remaining and had to rest content with a third position, his first podium finish in Formula-3.

``It was a good race and a great result. My car was about 10-15 Kph slower in the straight line as it had a short fifth geared set up for rain. But since the track dried up before the race, we had a problem. Nevertheless, we had a good result this weekend and the Kingfisher team is very pleased,'' said Narain.

Having placed a distant 21st out of 40 cars after Friday's practice session, Narain came up with some brilliant driving to eventually finish sixth on the grid.

But a podium finish was far from Narain's thoughts on Friday when he drove a car that was clearlynot perfect for the Belgian circuit and his lack of experience at the circuit reflected on his timings.

Saturday donned bright and sunny. The first qualifying session would be the fastest because of the low track temperatures. Narain was one of the first drivers on the circuit and immediately felt the car handling better than on the previous day.

In the first 15 minutes of the qualifying round, Narain was placed 10th and 17th on the grid. However, after pitting and taking on his second set of new tyres, he improved his grid position to ninth place.

With only four minutes left of the 30 minutes of qualifying session, he again improved his timing and ended up an impressive sixth on the start grid, just 0.49 seconds off the pole position.

``I am happy with the qualifying result when you consider this is my first visit to this long and demanding circuit. The best drivers are here from different Formula-3 championships and it is now possible for me to have a good race,'' he said.

Results (14laps):

Mario Haberfelt (Paul Stewart Racing team) 1 Darren Manning (Speedsport) 2 (7.908 secs behind the winner); Narain Karthikeyan (Carlin Motorsport) 3 (11.882 secs); Enrique Bernoldi (Promatecme UK) 4 (12.614 secs); Kristian Kolby (Fortec Motorsport) 5 (13.778 secs).