Narain Karthikeyan (Kumar Ram Narain Karthikeyan)

Kumar Ram Narain Karthikeyan (born January 14, 1977, Chennai, India) is a Formula One driver. He made his debut in 2005 with the Jordan team. He is currently a Williams F1 test driver. He is often given the title of "The Fastest Indian in the World".

Early career
Karthikeyan was born in Coimbatore,Tamilnadu and belongs to the PSG and sons charities,Coimbatore which hails a lot of Racing people.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. 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 (a.k.a.FISSME). 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. This gave him valuable experience in European racing, and he was keen to return for the following year.

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.

1995 saw Karthikeyan graduate 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 3rd 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 5 times, including two wins at Brands Hatch. His season also included two pole positions, three fastest laps and two lap records, helping him to 6th in the championship out of 30 drivers. He also competed in the Macau Grand Prix, qualifying in 6th position and finishing 6th in the second race. Continuing his drive in the British F3 Championship in 2000, he finished 4th 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 Korean 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 F1 car, testing for the Jaguar Racing team at Silverstone on June 14. 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 October 5, 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-F1 lap time at the Interlagos Circuit in Brazil. Continued to, now renamed Superfund Word Series| in 2003, Karthikeyan won two races and took three other podium positions on his way to 4th overall in the championship. These results earned him other 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 also married his wife Pavarna.

He continued in the Nissan World Series, renamed "World Series by Nissan", in 2004, taking wins in Valencia, Spain and Magny-Cours, France.

Timeline
2004: Formula Nissan World Series(World Series by Nissan), 6th (RC)
2003: Formula Nissan World Series(Superfund Word Series), 4th (Carlin)
2002: Formula Nissan World Series(Telefonica World Series), 9th (RC)
2001: Formula Nippon, 14th (Impul)
2000: British Formula 3, 4th (Stewart)
1999: British Formula 3, 6th (Carlin)
1998: British Formula 3, 12th (Carlin)
1997: British Formula Vauxhall, 8th
1996: Formula Asia, Champion
1995: Formula Asia (4 races)
1994: British Formula Ford Winter Series, Champion
1993: Indian Formula Maruti + British Formula Vauxhall Junior
Teams: Carlin Motorsport, RC Motorsport, Team Impul

Championships: British Formula 3, Formula Nippon, Formula Nissan (now merged as Formula Renault)

Formula One career
 
On February 1, 2005, Karthikeyan announced that he has signed the preliminary deal with Jordan Formula One team and said that he will 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 300km in an F1 car in order to gain his superlicense at the Silverstone Circuit on February 10. Both rookies were "paying drivers", i.e. drivers selected not necessarily because of their talent.

In his first race, the Australian Grand Prix, Karthikeyan qualified in 12th position, mainly thanks to the changeable weather conditions, but still over 3 seconds faster than Monteiro. 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, and nearly a full minute ahead of Monteiro. 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 4th, beating only the drivers in Formula One's traditional backmarker team, Minardi. Besides the controversial USGP, Karthikeyan's highest finish was 11th place.

In an unlucky end to his 2005 season, Karthikeyan crashed his Jordan into a wall at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. Fortunately, he escaped unscathed, able to provide an interview right 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 due to their demand that he pay as much as USD11.7 million to secure his seat on the team. "There is no way I can raise the kind of money," he said. He mentioned that "anyway, being a test driver in a good car will allow me to showcase my skills better." On December 8th, 2005, Karthikeyan tested for Williams at Spain and finished a respectable 5th, outpacing the confirmed Williams second driver, Nico Rosberg in the FW27C chassis, who finished 9th. On January 27th, 2006, Williams confirmed Narain as their fourth driver[1]. He will perform testing duties for the team alongside Alexander Wurz who was confirmed earlier as the team's third driver.

Narain Karthikeyan says he has been blown away with the difference between F1's stragglers and a top flight team.

After spending his rookie year with Midland owned Jordan, the 28-year-old Indian made his test debut for former title winner Williams at Jerez last Tuesday.Karthikeyan told the Indian media that the difference between the two cars was 'huge'.

Narain Karthikeyan - Williams point of view
Much is made of the fact that Kumar Ram Narain Karthikeyan is the Indian subcontinent’s very first envoy in Formula One, but if his provenance is studied, it is perhaps surprising India has not yielded a racing star before now.

Born in the Southern Indian city of Chennai, the young Karthikeyan had a home-made role model in the guise of his father, GR Karthikeyan, who had competed in arduous marathon rally events in the 1970’s in the heyday of adventure marathon rallying. His natural talent and success earned ‘GR’ a number of national titles and naturally enough, the most dedicated support and admiration of his young son.

But perhaps close proximity to the demands and dangers of rallying encouraged GR to try to deflect his son’s natural inclination to follow his father’s footsteps. The first diversion GR attempted was the rifle club, and it is notable that Narain still lists trap and skeet shooting as a personal interest, but clearly not one with an attraction as pervasive or as strong as motor racing. The affection for motor racing endured even when his father suggested the idea of his son trying his hand at the local flying club.

A motorbike, shortly followed by a kart, built by his father, was a concession to Narain’s persistent interest and before long, his father had conceded defeat and helped the young 16 year old enrol at the Winfield Ecole Pilotage at Magny-Cours in 1992, the school that set Alain Prost and Damon Hill, both WilliamsF1 World Champions, on their path to Formula One success.

The school both validated and precipitated his precocious talent and the young Narain made it to the semi-finals in the Pilote Elf competition. The following year, he started racing at home in Formula Maruti, before the necessary move for an aspiring career racer, to Europe to contest the Formula Vauxhall Juniors.
By 1996, Narain was Formula Asia Champion and before the decade was out, he had progressed into senior single seater racing in Formula 3, moving beyond the confines of the UK to gain important international experience at blue riband events such as the Macao Grand Prix.

The millennium was something of a turning point, with Narain extending his experience in Formula 3 before following the career path of the likes of Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill into Formula Nippon in Japan. 2001 also delivered the first Formula One tests with Jaguar and Jordan and moved the Indian’s name onto the radars of Formula One talent scouts.

Since 2002, it has really only been a matter of time until Narain arrived in the Formula One paddock as he contested the highly-competitive World Series for three seasons, notching podiums and wins along the way. Jordan Grand Prix made it to the cut first, retaining Narain for his debut Formula One season in 2005.
In his first Formula One season, Narain demonstrated clear speed, constrained only by his modest equipment and managed to produce a strong finishing record, frequently achieving finishes just on the fringes of the top ten.

Although without a race seat in 2006, Narain is playing a critical role in the fortunes of a senior team, another step on the way from his first petrol-driven experience behind the wheel of a Hindustan Ambassador in his home town of Coimbatore. A long way perhaps, but eminently predictable because, as his father GR reflected when Narain was just a lad, “He’s stubborn,” and there seemed no way in hindsight that India’s first racing star was ever likely to let his fascination drop by the wayside.

thanks to Allianz

thanks to wikipedia