By Anand Philar, IANS
Chennai : Karun Chandhok, the second Indian after Narain Karthikeyan to drive a Formula 1 car, intends doing another season in GP2 that is a feeder series for F1 and possibly combine it with more test drives for Red Bull Racing.
Describing his initiation into F1 at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona in Spain as a “positive experience”, the 23-year old from Chennai told IANS that he was too busy to feel nervous on the occasion.
Karun said his father — well-known rally driver Vicky Chandhok — was probably more nervous than he was.
“I was just really busy trying to get the systems to work how we wanted, and I didn’t really get a chance to sit back and look into what a big occasion this was for me.
“In some ways it felt like another day in the office, like at a GP2 test, but with a lot more people. In GP2, my entire team had 14 people. This week, we had 80 people here just for a test. It was very interesting for me to work with so many engineers from the engine, chassis, electronics, aerodynamics, tyres and brakes.”
How was Chandhok’s overall experience of driving a Formula 1 car?
The test, he explained, was “about reliability and working to get all the new complicated electronic systems up to working order and assist the team in their development.
“For the team, it also gave them a chance to evaluate my ability as a test driver in terms of speed, consistency and feedback.
“Physically also I felt pretty good and only started to suffer with my neck a little bit towards the end of Day 2 which is quite normal for anyone in their first test.”
Chandhok did 96 laps of the 4.627-km circuit and clocked a best of one minute, 23.255 seconds that was 11th quickest on Wednesday, his second day of testing.
Asked why his timings had improved so much from Day 1 to Day 2, Chandhok said: “On Day 1, our running was limited to just 15 full laps by some teething problems with the new electronics, which to be honest, we expected with a complete overhaul of systems.
“But on the second day, I was able to carry out some good runs and work well with the team on making steps forward with the car.”
How significant was the timings achieved in a test session?
Chandhok said: “Of course testing times are very hard to judge because of the different teams running different testing programmes. But to end up P-11 (11th position) at the end was very satisfying all the same and I’m quite happy with that.”
How different is an F1 car from other racing cars? Chandhok said: “The F1 car itself is actually a bit smaller than the GP2 car in size.
“Although it’s more powerful and the brakes are better, to be honest they weren’t anything that I didn’t expect and really not too much of a step from GP2.
“What was really different was the aerodynamics — the sheer amount of grip and speed that you can carry in a fast corner is something incredible.”
The rookie was in the same team as one of the biggest F1 stars – David Coulthard. Did they get to exchange any notes?
Chandhok said: “David Coulthard was very open and offered his 13 years of experience if I had any problems. I told him it was a bit bizarre for me to think that I have a T-shirt in my room that he autographed for me at the Macau Grand Prix Formula 3 race, when I was seven years old! Today, we are running alongside each other!”
Asked about his plans, Chandhok said: “At the moment, I cannot really comment on what the next step is although it is likely to be another season of racing in GP2 which I would ideally combine with some Formula 1 testing.”