Indian viewers seek thrill, driving Formula One forward

For Karun Chandok, this Formula One season has been all about survival. As reserve driver at Lotus, he’s had some time on the track – nowhere close to what he would like – but it kept him going. If only just. However, being close to the track, allows him to do what he loves best – driving and driving fast at that. The experience might help him in the future but for now, he trying to keep his spirits up. The rumour mill was buzzing with talk about Chandok getting an one-off race come the Indian Grand Prix on October 30. While that may still happen, for now the 27-year-old can do little but wait. In a free-wheeling interview, Chandok speaks about life as a reserve driver, Red Bull’s dominance, Michael Schumacher’s bravery and the Indian GP. How much of a learning experience is it being a reserve driver for Lotus? With a bigger team, you’d probably spend a lot more time in the car. Is it the same with Lotus as well? I’m not doing the massive mileage that I would like to be doing in the racecar, but I just keep doing what I can. I have the opportunity to do quite a few Fridays this year and that’s important for putting me in the shop window for next year. I came here because I actually believe that I will get more in the medium-long term from Lotus than anywhere else. The objective is not to be a permanent third driver, the objective is to be back racing. It’s not costing me anything, unlike some others, and for me it’s a great opportunity to see how the team works. They have made more progress over the last 18 months than the other two new teams, so from that point of view, it’s interesting. But any racing driver wants to race and I am no different. [caption id=“attachment_12172” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Karun Chandok believes that the Indian GP will be a huge success”]  [/caption] In the sense, that it’s good to be on the circuit. That much is obvious. You are travelling around but what do you actually gain? I think the biggest gain for me as mentioned before is to see how the team works. The team has some great people with Tony (Fernandes), Mike (Gascoyne) and Mark (Smith) joining us as well. At the end of the day it is important to be a team member as everyone is doing their part. Apart from the driving part, there are so many more aspects to motorsports that it is important to learn. The technical side is one area of great interest to me as well so I try to learn as much as I can there as well. I try to spend time with the engineers as they plan for every race weekend. Everyone’s been talking about this season having a lot more overtaking opportunities as compared to the previous seasons. How does it change things for a driver? Well when you are ahead you will not like DRS but I believe it has made racing more fun - especially for the fans. For us drivers as well we would love to have a go at the car ahead of us as we are here to race and not follow in formation. But I guess a line has to be drawn on how easy overtaking is. Overtaking has always been tough in Formula One so this is a welcome change. For the smaller teams, how important is it to be able to just finish races as Narain has been doing of late and also how difficult is it to do that? When I started out with HRT my main objective was to finish races. After getting more comfortable with car I started to target the two other new teams in front of us, while aiming to finish the race at the same time. At Monaco I was running ahead of Jarno Trulli and Lucas di Grassi until Jarno collided with me but it was still the best finish for the team. So while at the beginning finishing is important, you have to look to constantly push ahead and now in their second year, results count more. Vettel and Red Bull have managed to piece together a superb package. Do you see anyone capable of challenging them during the course of the season? And has the number of races actually made things more competitive because it gives teams time to improve? Adrian Newey has given the two Red Bull drivers an absolute gem of a car to drive and I will be surprised if they don’t end up winning at least one of the titles from here on. Seb’s just driving in an unbeatable zone of self-confidence and belief. Since Japan at the end of last year he has been pretty faultless and only an engine failure in Korea 2010 and an inspired drive on a better strategy from Lewis in China 2011 have stopped the German from winning eight in a row. His qualifying laps have been absolutely brilliant and that has helped him win on the Sundays. Watching Schumacher is heart-breaking for every fan. He’s been such a great champion. What’s going wrong? Is it the car or is it the man? Michael’s a true legend of our sport and was one of my heroes when I was starting out. His return to F1 was a real feel-good story last year and I think most people, within and outside the paddock, would agree with me when I say I’d love to see him win a race this year. There’s no lack of bravery or commitment from Michael, as anyone who saw him fighting the wheel at turn eight would agree, but he has been few tenths shy of Rosberg, who has been driving really well. The Indian GP is obviously going to attract a lot of media attention. Do you see everything going as well as it should and what are your impressions of the track layout? I have been really impressed with the layout for the Indian GP. There are 2-3 corners that should provide plenty of overtaking. There has been huge interest in F1 in India for many years so the fan-base is already there. Last year’s Monaco Grand Prix was watched by 27 million people back home - that’s more than the TV figures for the UK, France, Germany and Italy combined. If only 0.5 per cent of that audience came to the Grand Prix, that would give us a crowd of 150,000. Indians will finally get a chance to see live an exciting, high-speed, thrilling sport. I’m a consultant and brand ambassador for the Jaypee Group, the people behind the project, so I’ve been working with them, helping and advising in whatever way I can over the last year or so. I would say that I visit the site pretty much every three weeks to see how things are going. The team of engineers seems very happy with progress in terms of timelines and the circuit should be ready around July 31 to still give us a few months in case of delays so we won’t have a Korea situation again.