Valencia (Spain), Aug 23 - India's Karun Chandhok put on a fighting display from the back of the grid to finish sixth at the European GP2 sprint race here Sunday.

Chandhok fought his way through the field in an incident-packed race which caused the safety car to be deployed three times in the first eight laps. Chandhok had earlier failed to finish in the feature race due to a damaged steering arm.

Chandhok got his race weekend off to a great start by finishing fourth in the free practice session. He encountered traffic on his qualifying lap, but still managed to start in a strong eighth position for the feature race.

Chandhok, who is sponsored by Punj Lloyd, JK Tyre and Amaron, made a good start and was running in seventh till the first round of stops. He lost out in the pit stop and came out in ninth position, but managed a bold move on Davide Valsecchi into eighth. However, he suffered a broken suspension and had to retire.

The Ocean Racing Technology driver said: 'We had a great start to the weekend and were looking ready for a good qualifying position. In the feature race, we were looking good for a points finish but when I went to pass Valsecchi, we touched quite lightly which resulted in a broken front suspension soon after. I was very disappointed that we would be starting from the back of the grid rather than on the front row.'

The sprint race started off in chaotic fashion with Kamui Kobayashi tapping Luca Fillipi into a spin and causing the safety car to come out.