Narain Karthikeyan
Kumar Ram Narain Karthikeyan born 14 January 1977, Coimbatore. He is a motor racing driver from India. He has previously competed in Formula One, and is currently an A1GP and Le Mans Series driver. He made his Formula One debut in 2005 with the Jordan team, and was a Williams F1 test driver in 2006 and 2007.
Karthikeyan was born in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. Karthikeyan did his schooling at Stanes Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School, Coimbatore. Karthikeyan’s interest in motorsport began at an early age, as his father was a former Indian national rally champion winning South India Rally no less than seven times.
He is also related to the late S. Karivardhan, India’s most famous racing driver until Karthikeyan came along. With the ambition of becoming India’s first Formula One driver, Karthikeyan finished on the podium in his first ever race, at Sriperumpudur in a Formula Maruti.
He then went onto the Elf Winfield Racing School in France, showing his talent by becoming a semi – finalist in the Pilote Elf Competition for Formula Renault cars in 1992. He returned to India to race in Formula Maruti for the 1993 season, and in the same year, he also competed in the Formula Vauxhall Junior championship in Great Britain.
In 1994, he returned to the UK, racing in the Formula Ford Zetec series as the number two works Vector driver for the Foundation Racing team. The highlight of the season was a podium finish in a support race for the Portuguese Grand Prix held at Estoril.
Karthikeyan also took part in the British Formula Ford Winter Series, and became the first Indian to win any championship in Europe. In 1995, Karthikeyan graduated to the Formula Asia Championship for just four races. However, he showed pace immediately and was able to finish second in the race at Shah Alam, Malaysia.
In 1996, he had a full season in the series and became the first Indian and the first Asian to win the Formula Asia International series. He moved back to Britain in 1997 to compete in the British Formula Opel Championship, taking a pole position and win at Donington Park and finishing sixth in the overall points standings.
In 1998, Karthikeyan made his debut in the British Formula Three Championship with the Carlin Motorsport team. Competing in only 10 rounds, he managed two third place finishes in the final two races of the season, at Spa – Francorchamps and Silverstone, to finish 12th overall.
He continued in the championship for 1999, finishing on the podium five times, including two wins at Brands Hatch. His season also included two pole positions, three fastest laps and two lap records, helping him to sixth in the championship out of 30 drivers.
He also competed in the Macau Grand Prix, qualifying in sixth position and finishing sixth in the second race. Continuing his drive in the British F3 Championship in 2000, he finished fourth overall in the standings, and also took pole position and fastest laps in the Macau Grand Prix. He also won both the International F3 race at Spa – Francorchamps and the Korea Super Prix.
Karthikeyan started 2001 in the Formula Nippon F3000 Championship, finishing the year amongst the top ten. In the same year, he became the first Indian to ever drive an Formula One car, testing for the Jaguar Racing team at Silverstone on 14 June.
Impressed with his performance, he was then offered a test drive in the Jordan-Honda EJ11 at Silverstone in September. Karthikeyan again tested for Jordan, at Mugello in Italy on 5 October, finishing just half a second off the pace off Jordan’s lead driver Jean Alesi.
In 2002, he moved into the Telefonica World Series with Team Tata RC Motorsport, taking a pole position and setting the fastest non – Formula One lap time at the Interlagos Circuit in Brazil. Continuing in the renamed Superfund Word Series in 2003, Karthikeyan won two races and took three other podium positions on his way to fourth overall in the championship.
These results earned him another Formula One test drive, this time with the Minardi team. He was offered a race drive for the 2004 season, but was unable to raise the necessary sponsorship funds to seal the deal. During the year, he married Pavarna.
He continued in the Nissan World Series, renamed “World Series by Nissan”, in 2004, taking wins in Valencia, Spain and Magny – Cours, France.
On 1st February 2005, Karthikeyan announced that he had signed the preliminary deal with Jordan Formula One team and said that he would be their main driver for the 2005 Formula One season, thus making him India’s first Formula One racing driver. His partner was the Portuguese driver, Tiago Monteiro.
Karthikeyan completed the necessary testing Distance of 300 km in an F1 car in order to gain his superlicence at the Silverstone Circuit on February 10.
In his first race, the Australian Grand Prix, Karthikeyan qualified in 12th position. After a poor start which saw him drop to 18th place by the end of the first lap, Karthikeyan finished in 15th, two laps behind winner Giancarlo Fisichella. He achieved his first points in the 2005 United States Grand Prix under farcical circumstances as all but three teams pulled out due to an argument over tyre safety.
Karthikeyan finished fourth, finishing ahead of the two Minardi drivers but behind team mate Monteiro. Apart from the USGP, Karthikeyan’s highest finish was 11th place. In the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix free practice, he was fastest for a long period of time and eventually qualified 11th.
At the 2005 Chinese Grand Prix he qualified in 15th place, very close in times to many of the top teams. In an unlucky end to his 2005 season, Karthikeyan crashed his Jordan into a wall at the Chinese race, but was unhurt and able to provide an interview afterwards.
Because the Jordan team was taken over and renamed Midland for the 2006 season, the Management change prompted some doubt over Karthikeyan’s future at the team.
Near the end of 2005, Karthikeyan announced he would not be driving for Midland the following year allegedly due to their demand that he pay as much as USD 11.7 million to secure his seat on the team. He mentioned that “anyway, being a test driver in a good car will allow me to showcase my skills better”.
On 8th December 2005, Karthikeyan tested for Williams at Spain and finished a respectable fifth, outpacing the confirmed Williams second driver, Nico Rosberg in the FW27C chassis, who finished ninth.
On 27th January 2006, Williams confirmed Karthikeyan as their fourth driver. He was to perform testing duties for the team alongside Alexander Wurz who had been confirmed earlier as the team’s third driver. He was retained as a reserve test driver for Williams alongside Kazuki Nakajima in 2007.
Karthikeyan said he was blown away by the difference between Formula One’s stragglers and a top Flight team.
Later in 2007, he was linked with the Spyker Formula One team after their driver Christijan Albers was fired, although Sakon Yamamoto got the drive. Due to the withdrawal of support from Tata of Williams F1, Nakajima was given the lion’s share of testing duties and Karthikeyan was sidelined.
When the Spyker F1 team was bought out by Vijay Mallya towards the end of 2007, Karthikeyan had been linked with a drive with the new Force India Formula One team in 2008.
However, Karthikeyan did not even get to test for the team. Karthikeyan was also linked to a drive with the Super Aguri team in January 2008, as one of the terms of an Indian consortium investing in the team. The deal was not agreed and he continued to drive for A1 Team India.