Narain Karthikeyan

Kumar Ram Narain Karthikeyan (born 14 January 1977) is an Indian racing driver.

He was the first Indian driver to compete in Formula One.

He has previously competed in A1GP, and the Le Mans Series.

He has won multiple races in A1GP, British F3, World series by Nissan, AutoGP, Formula Asia, British Formula Ford & Opel series in his single-seater career.

He then went on to 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 at the age of 15 years, 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.

He won the British Formula Ford Winter Series in 1994 & Formula Asia Championship in 1996.

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.

He also took part in the British Formula Ford Winter Series, and became the first Indian driver 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 with the Nemesis Motorsport team, 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 3 Championship with the Carlin Motorsport team.

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.

He also competed in the Macau Grand Prix, qualifying in sixth position and finishing sixth in the second race.

He was the first racing driver to record a win for Carlin in British F3 ever since then Carlin have been invincible in terms of race wins in the British F3 Championship.

He also finished fourth overall in British F3 in 2000 & the World Nissan series in 2003.

He made his Formula One debut in with the Jordan team, and was a Williams F1 test driver in and.

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 a 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 Telefónica 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.

Like several other former F1 drivers, Karthikeyan moved to stock car racing and drove the No. 60 Safe Auto Insurance Company Toyota Tundra for Wyler Racing in the 2010 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of Padma Shri in 2010.

Karthikeyan was born in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.

He did his schooling at Stanes Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School in Coimbatore.

His interest in motorsport began at an early age, as his father GR Karthikeyan, was a former Indian national rally champion winning South India Rally 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.

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.

In 2011, he returned to F1 with the HRT team, continued with the team in 2012 and was expected to drive for them in the 2013 season as well.

However, HRT was not included in the FIA's 2013 entry list, and thus Karthikeyan was left without a drive.

From 2014–2018, Karthikeyan raced in Japanese Super Formula series.

In 2019, he ended his single-seater career by joining SuperGT series in Japan.