The Pursuit To Find Indian Driver For Competing In F1.

The three finalists of the Sahara Force India F1 team’s ‘One in a billion’ initiative have been keeping busy in their quest to reach motorsport’s peak.

It was just two and a half years ago that Jehan Daruvala, Arjun Maini and Tarun Reddy set off to compete in Britain’s Super One karting championship as the three finalists of the Sahara Force India Formula 1 team’s ‘One in a billion’ initiative to find and prepare an Indian driver for competing in F1.

A COMPLETE KARTER

Fast forward to the present and Daruvala finished third in the CIK-FIA KF1 World Championship for karting and has finished runner-up in the extremely competitive German karting championship. The successes followed Daruvala’s British KF3 title in 2013, CIK-FIA Asia-Pacific KF3 title in 2012 and of course, the Micro Max title in the JK Tyre National Karting Championship in 2010 Success in European karting – which features grids of over 40 karters at times – was the step Daruvala had been chasing in his effort to prepare for car racing, most likely a Formula Renault 2.0 series in Europe.

Former national karting champion Rayomand Banajee – owner of Rayo Racing for whom Daruvala won the 2010 title in India – is understandably proud of his 16-year-old find. Things change a bit for a racing driver when switching to single-seat cars though. “The two biggest things that change for a driver are a reduced field of vision as well as reduced feel,” Banajee told autoX. “You sit very low in the cockpit and almost have to look over the nose. Also you are more connected as a driver to a kart than a car due to the car having more components in the chassis. But it’s not really a big thing to get used to if you have the speed which I think Jehan definitely has.

RACING FOR THE TITLE

Another with plenty of speed is Arjun Maini – 17-years-old in December – who leads the British-based BRDC Formula 4 championship as this issue goes to print.

F1 is the obvious goal and Maini spends a lot of his free time reading up on driver biographies. His current favourite is of former three-time F1 champ Jackie Stewart. “He did so much in is life including Olympic shooting and F1 titles despite being dyslexic,” Maini told autoX.

In between racing and preparing for racing at training facility iZone – physical and metal training for up to nine hours a day leading up to a racing weekend – Maini keeps busy with home schooling and even picking the brain of former F1 and current Formula E racer Karun Chandhok. “I am fortunate to be able to get advice from Karun about many aspects of racing,” said Maini.

MOVING UP THE RANKS

Also learning as he goes is Tarun Reddy – who will be 17-years-old before the year is done – who has been racing in the Protyre Formula Renault championship this year and scored a podium early in the season before being ineligible to score points following the mid-way point of the season ‘due to his Indian International License’ (as it reads on the championship’s official website).

Reddy is weighing his options for next year while competing in the MRF Formula 2000 International Challenge (after clinching the national Formula Ford 1600 title) this year and has already taken a win in one of the four races of the opening round in Qatar.

“My priority of course is my studies,” Reddy told autoX. “I am taking my state boards this year in the commerce stream and am evaluating whether to compete in the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC or ALPS or even Formula 3 in Europe.”

While it is still too early to tell how the careers of Daruvala, Maini and Reddy will pan out it is clear that they would have had the kind of training racers of the past would kill for.

That alone is enough for Indian motorsport fans to be able to hope that there will be alot more to talk about in another two and a half years.