Dead end for Narain

As Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso battle it down to the wire for the Formula One drivers’ championship next weekend in Interlagos, Brazil, next Sunday, our own speed king -- Narain Karthikeyan – is stranded. He doesn’t know where to look: left, right or straight, which is a dead end.
Stories on Narain have been all over the place in the last one week – web, wires and papers – mostly speculative, but none has understood the nuances of what it takes to just be in F-1. If you ask Hamilton in his first year, he will have great stories to tell, other than, of course, last weekend in China when he drove into a gravel trap.
A DNF (did not finish) for Hamilton meant the whole championship got thrown open, but it left not even a window of an opportunity for Narain, who happens to be Williams’ test driver. I would have hoped that in an action-packed year in F-1, when fans hardly missed Michael Schumacher, Narain would have got a look-in for the last race as Alexander Wurz had retired. No, instead it was a Japanese answering to the name of Kazuki Nakajima who was nominated by Sir Frank for the finale.
I know there is no link between Narain racing in the last race and who goes on to win the title finally next Sunday, but Narain has again hit a roadblock. The world of F-1 is a strange one, where drivers come to know very quickly when they are not needed. If half a decade back, someone like Frenchman Jean Alesi, despite his rich experience saw the writing on the wall, right now Ralf Schumacher knows his continuance in F-1 is jinxed.
So where does it leave our own Narain, who made his debut three seasons back? The moment Narain had a low-key debut with Eddie Jordan’s back-of the-grid team in 2005, tongues had started wagging as to how he had raised the megabucks through his sponsors. Narain, despite all the talk, did as well as he could in a car which was no better than an Ambassador when compared with the rest of the speed demons on the grid.
But, then, just as in any other sport, Narain was also a victim of his own creation, not being articulate with the media, and saying the wrong things to people who had no clue of the sport. The end result, he lost his seat and managed a test driver’s role in 2006 and 2007, which is like being a dummy for some big actor when stunts are to be shot.
In Narain’s case, stunts, too can’t work now, as age is catching up with him and big teams are not looking . The sadder part is Narain does not know where to look and has chosen to move to A-1 GP, which is almost two rungs lower. Narain has confessed his future at Williams is very unsure, and being test driver for another season could be just a waste of time. More so, because under the new rules, the role of a test driver is very, very limited.
Talking about A-1 GP, there, too, Narain has made no big impact and if people close to him are to be believed, whatever he earns just helps him pay loans which have accrued. Loans? Yes, loans, because in motorsport, most drivers’, unless they are performing at the top, keep spending all their lives. In the end, when they turn back and look at their careers, there is nothing but disappointment to reflect on.
Today, despite the dollar becoming cheaper in rupee terms, finding sponsorship for participation in motorsport is very, very tough. It looks very rosy with billionaire Vijay Mallya buying an F-1 team. But don’t get fooled, nobody buys an F-1 team for patriotic reasons, deep down the essence is hard core business.
People have linked Mallya buying the team to an Indian being there in his Spyker team as a driver. But make no mistake, Mallya is not going to have drivers’ in his line-up just because of their nationality or because he happens to know the drivers’ like Ralf Schumacher. In the end, whoever makes it to the team will be there for two reasons: Either he is good enough to put the team at least in the middle of the race or brings in a huge sponsorship package.
In Narain’s case, his ‘racing juices’, as the phrase goes, is not extinct, but at 30, he is not getting younger. He has worked very hard on fitness and endurance, running almost 10km a day in the heat when needed and taken lessons in yoga for better concentration. Yet, in the end, all this means nothing when you are left just watching your teammates race and testing cars for any flaws.
Talking about results, if Narain has been left to cool his heels, another Indian who has made waves is Karun Chandhok. Competing in GP-2, a competition just a rung lower than F-1, he won a Grand Prix three weeks back racing for European outfit Team Durango. So, if anyone is actually going to get a look-in from home for Mallya’s team just on form, it has to be Karun.
The smart, young man has learnt the tricks of the trade very fast. And given his PR skills and dad Vicky Chandhok’s links with F-1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, the day is not far when Karun is seen in the real fast lane.
And what about Narain? Time is running out for the first Indian who made it to the biggest stage in motorsport. Sadly, all that remains now is just a blur.