Narain Karthikeyan’s return to single seat racing in Japan didn’t go as planned but there’s much to look forward to, he feels.
In our previous issue you would have seen many reasons for touting the Japan based Super Formula series as one of the premier single seat racing series around. The new Dallara chassis, the Formula 1 style low capacity, low cylinder turbochaged engine layout.
The power to weight ratio of the Dallara SF14s being used are almost 1,000 bhp per tonne and the Bridgestone racing slicks provide the kind of grip (especially at the front) that makes India’s first F1 driver Narain Karthikeyan excited to be a participant.
Then of course, there is also the matter of who he is going up against.
FIA World Endurance Championship title holder Loic Duval. Two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Andre Lotterer, former F1 participant with Williams-Toyota and hometown hero Kazuki Nakajima, former F1 driver with Toro Rosso, Vitantonio Liuzzi.
With the exception of Lotterer, these were among the 17 drivers that Karthikeyan out-qualified to take second on the starting grid with a time of 1min. 37.148 seconds.
It was a time just 0.126 seconds behind Lotterer’s pole position time and would have been good enough to make it within the 107 percent cut-off for last year’s F1 Japanese Grand Prix that was also held at Suzuka.
PLENTY TO COME
However, Karthikeyan and company were setting such times in the first year of the new Super Formula car’s debut with plenty of development still left while last year’s Japanese GP featured the ‘frozen-engine’ F1 cars that were at the end of their life cycle.
It was perhaps for that reason that Karthikeyan was able to put a brave face on what he ultimately had to describe as a “horrid” race weekend.
The Chennai-born, Coimbatore resident was bumped three places down the starting grid due to impeding a fellow driver in free practice. Following that a scrap to get up the field with the eventual winner of the first round – Duval – resulted in a collision at the Casio Triangle chicane.
Yes, the same Casio Triangle where around 25 years ago, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna’s McLaren-Hondas famously collided, but that’s a bit of F1 trivia that Karthikeyan may see the amusing side of a little later.
PREPPING FOR MORE ‘FUN’
While speaking to autoX from Chennai, Karthikeyan was far more concerned with an opportunity wasted. One that would have shown up some of the best sportscar racing drivers in the world including a couple of moderately experienced ex-F1 participants.
The purpose is not to put himself into contention for a possible F1 drive again. It’s a question Karthikeyan bats away with as much enthusiasm as he conveys excitement while talking about what makes the Dallara SF14 “the most fun” car he has driven in fast corners throughout his 16 plus year international career.
And this is a guy who has driven F1 cars (albeit ones not at the sharp end) at Spa, Monza and Suzuka.
“The car is quite complicated to achieve an optimum set up,” said Karthikeyan. “There are a ton of buttons on the steering wheel, the most I have seen outside F1 with which we can adjust everything from throttle mapping, differential settings and even the power steering.
There are still some things we (Lenovo Team Impul) need to do in order to get my car more to my liking as I prefer a strong front end. And it is especially important with this car as the power is not all linear due to the turbo and the Bridgestone tyres too have a fairly small operating window. On top of which the track temperature this weekend stayed between 14 and 21 degrees.”
SPREADING THE WORD
Talking to Karthikeyan about both the difficulties and the positives of the opening Super Formula round made it pretty clear that he was really sinking his teeth into the challenge of hitting the sweet spot for the remainder of the year.
Should it happen, it is something he hopes motorsport fans in India will soon be able to witness in their living rooms.
“We are working on a deal with Star Sports to broadcast the remaining rounds,” said Karthikeyan. “It would be a mixture of same day delayed as well as live broadcasts.
“These guys (series organizers) also seem keen to mix things up as far as the race format is concerned, which keeps people on their toes I guess.”
Karthikeyan is referring to the second round on the 18 May Weekend being run in a two sprint race format at the Fuji circuit instead of in a single 250 km race format that Suzuka was held in.
The final round of the season on the ninth November weekend at Suzuka is the only other round that will be split into two sprint races.
With an F1 style kinetic plus exhaust based heat energy recovery system also being tested it seems that there is more than just self-promotion involved when Karthikeyan gushes about the series.
Hopefully fans here will get to check it out too.
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