Narain
Karthikeyan

Narain Karthikeyan was born on 14 January 1977 in Coimbatore, India. His father was a national rally champion, so he was around motorsport from an early age. After attending a racing school in France, he raced in the Indian Formula Maruti series in 1993 and also in the Formula Vauxhall Junior championship in Great Britain that year. In 1994 he won the British Formula Ford Winter Series, becoming the first Indian to take a championship title in Europe. In 1996 he became the first Indian and the first Asian to win the Formula Asia title. In 1998 he made his debut in British Formula 3 with Carlin, won twice at Brands Hatch in 1999 and finished fourth in the standings in 2000. In the Superfund World Series he took fourth place overall in 2003. He tested for Jaguar in 2001, which made him the first Indian to drive a Formula One car, and tests with Jordan (2001) and Minardi followed.

In 2005 he joined Jordan as India's first Formula One racing driver, alongside Tiago Monteiro. He finished his first race in Australia in 15th place. At the United States Grand Prix, where only three teams took the start after a dispute over tyre safety, he came fourth and scored his only points of the season. He ended the year 18th in the championship after contesting all 19 races. In 2006 and 2007 he worked as a test driver for Williams.

He returned to Formula One with HRT in 2011, after five years without an active part in the championship. He started eight races that season. At the end of June Daniel Ricciardo took over his seat, and only at the Indian Grand Prix did he race again, finishing 17th. He ended that season 26th in the standings. In 2012 he drove for HRT again, with Pedro de la Rosa as team-mate. He failed to qualify in Australia, so he started 19 of the 20 rounds he was entered for. In Malaysia he ran as high as fifth in the wet, but a time penalty for a collision left him classified 22nd. In Monaco he finished 15th. He finished the season without points, 24th overall. In total he made 46 starts.

Beyond Formula One, he raced for India in A1GP from 2007, winning at Zhuhai in December 2007, the country's first A1GP victory. In 2010 he made his NASCAR Truck Series debut and finished 13th at Martinsville, and he also won a Superleague Formula race at Brands Hatch. In 2013 he won five races in Auto GP and finished fourth overall. He raced in Japan's Super Formula from 2014 to 2018 and ended his single-seater career in 2019 by moving to Super GT. In 2010 the Indian government awarded him the Padma Shri.

Source: Wikipedia, “Narain Karthikeyan”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.