Narain’s Win at the Super GT x DTM Dream Race is a Win for Indian Motorsport
India has a vibrant motorsport culture. The paddock at any race weekend is usually filled with a great mixture of young and old, bantering about both the good old days and the days to come. Even the cars in the top levels of the sport have reached a stage in their R&D where the speeds are actually faster than a lot of production supercars.
However, as we all know, it just doesn’t get the same props as other sports, and in a lot of ways, it is because the majority of the population believes that we haven’t yet achieved the levels of success we have in other sports such as cricket, or hockey. But that is all about to change.
Narain Karthikeyan has been pushing the envelope when it comes to making an Indian presence felt globally ever since the late 90s in the Formula 3 grid. Narain set a record-breaking lap time of 2:12.887s at the Macau GP in 2000, and was on pole for one of the biggest races in the calendar year. By lap 5 of the race, he’d pulled 6 seconds clear of the car in 2nd. But sadly, he lost control and smashed into the barriers, ending what would’ve been a huge launchpad for the racer from Coimbatore.
Of course, we all know that he made his F1 debut in 2005, and by 2012 he’d racked up 46 race starts and 5 world championship points. After his foray into F1, Karthikeyan became a noted driver in a number of open-wheeler series, and 2 years after his final F1 race in 2012, he leaned into a burgeoning racing career in Japan in the Super Formula series. After 5 seasons in the Super Formula, Narain made his first real transition into sports cars for the 2019 season driving for Modulo Nakajima Racing where he drove a Honda NSX-GT GT500.
The fact that Narain finished 2nd in the Sugo GT in the 2019 season of the Super Formula, beating other incredible drivers such as Jenson Button, Kamui Kobayashi and Alex Zanardi, finally gave us conclusive proof that Narain is indeed, among the best of the best.
After the 2019 Super Formula season came the showcase: the Super GT x DTM dream race that combined the grids of two of the foremost touring car series in the world at the Fuji Speedway. In a grid that included 7 DTM cars, driven by the likes of Rene Rast, Mike Rockenfeller and Marco Wittmann, Narain stood out with a calm and precise drive.
The race endured rain, sunshine and 3 safety car stints, pushing viewers to the edge of their seats at every restart. The tension remained until the very last moments of the race when Narain endured a scrappy finish that saw Marco Wittman and Loïc Duval battling each other for a shot at chasing him but it was too late for them. Narain’s demons from Macau were going to be well and truly vanquished because his victory at a huge, international stage was meant to be. The Indian anthem was heard on the podium. The hair on the backs of everyone’s neck rose. Because finally, there was no doubt in anybody’s minds: Narain Karthikeyan is a true champion.
Echoes of the victory have been felt in the racing fraternity all over India, and that is the reason why this is a win for Indian motorsport as a whole. Finally, drivers and engineers alike know that it is indeed possible for someone to come from a background such as theirs and still taste the champagne on an international level. It is their permission to dream, their peek into the looking glass at what is possible. Narain’s victory fills the entire motorsport fraternity of the country with both awe and hope, and so, his victory is also a victory for the whole nation.
