Narain Karthikeyan

So I went to post Narain's response to Vettel's comments on his thread only to find out that he is the only driver on the current grid who doesn't have one! bless his little cotton socks. So I thought I'd write him one.

Born in Madras in 1977 the son of a rally driver and also related to Indian motorsports legend Karivardhan its not surprising that Narain grew up with the ambition to be India's first ever F1 driver and if you look at his junior career its no surprise really he made it. He won British Formula Ford in 1994. He won Formula Asia in 1996. He came 4th in the championship for the Stewart team in British Formula 3 in 2000 and then spent the next 4 years working his way up the leader boad in the Formula Nissan World Series until he managed to strike a deal with the declining Jordon team.

It was Feb 1st 2005 when Karthikeyan singed his deal to be one of Jordon's lead drivers for the upcoming season and thus promising to be India's first F1 driver. He gained his superlicence on Feb 10th and the deal was certain and whilst there is no doubt that a healthy wad of cash helped him get that Jordan seat he wasn't judged at the time as being completely out of his depth and pretty much kept pace with his more rated team-mate Tiago Monteiro. Karthikeyan's 'day of glory' came on the 'day of shame' for F1 at the U.S Grand Prix of 2005 when only 6 cars took to the start after a tyre issue - this meant that Karthikeyan scored 4th place and 5 points meaning not only is he the first driver from India to drive in F1 but he is also the most succesful (thak that Chandhock!). It seemed Karthikeyan was set for a second season with Jordan until Jordan were no more and became Midland. Apparently Midland asked Karthakeyan for 11.7 Million U.S Dollers in turn for him to keep his seat in 2006. Narain scoffed at the idea and was quoted as saying "I'll learn far more from being a tester at one of the bigger teams anyways". He promptly landed himself the job as test driver at Williams mainly because Tata were his and Williams main sponsor at the time. He got his first outing for Williams in December 2005 at a test in Spain where he posted the 5th fastest time of the day outpacing Williams newly signed superstar Nico Rosberg who could only managed 9th. Although he continued as test driver for Williams in 2007 as well he was mainly sidelined behind Nakajima due to the withdrawl of Tata from Williams sponsorship list.

It was in 2007 that Narain too on the job of leading Team India in A1GP. He actually scored 2 victories in the series, one in China and one in Britain at Brands Hatch and continued into the 2008 season and although he scored no more victories he was runner up at Brands Hatch once again. It was 2008 when he was linked to both Force India and Super Aguri but neither of those deals came off in the end and in 2009 Narain decided to turn his hand in the Le Mans series in a team run by Colin Kolles with Christian Albers as his partner. Disappointingly Narain was ruled out of the actual Le Mans race after looking strong in practice after he fell and dislocated his shoulder. In 2010 Karthikeyen went over to the U.S to take part in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and whilst he failed to set the series alight he became the first none American winner of the Most Popular Driver Award voted for by fans.

2011 finally saw the Narain get the call back to F1 he never thought he'd get when on Jan 6th 2011 he was announced as the new driver for HRT. Narain will be the first to tell you that Tata's backing of HRT played no small part in his return but he himself is quoted as saying that although this move to F1 would probably wipe out all the money he'd earned from other series that he didn't want to live with the 'what if' of not having taken it. Unfortunately due to the uncompetitive nature of the HRT Karthikeyan broke an F1 record twice that he wouldn't have wanted too. He came 23rd in the Chinese Grand Prix and 24th in the European Grand Prix meaning he has the two lowest classes finishing positions of any F1 driver. On the 30th June it was announced Ricciardo would replace Karthikeyen for the rest of the season with Narain coming back for the Indian GP later that year. He took Liuzzi's seat for the Indian GP that year and actually did a stellar job and pretty much kept pace with the highly rated Ricciardo and indeed finished in front of him in 17th on race day. For all of us though we accepted that the first Indian GP was the swansong for India's first GP driver. However we were all wrong.

Narain Karthikeyan's F1 drives are a bit like Police Acadamy movies. Just when you think its finished they make another one. Much to everyone surprise it was announced on February 3rd 2012 that HRT has resigned Karthikeyan again probably in no small part to the backing of Tata. So once again Narain is one of the 24 F1 drivers and while he is much ridiculed and perceived of not deserving to be here it is worth remembering he has shown far more promise than some who have driven in F1, Fangio he ain't but lets not get him confused with Sakon Yamamoto or Phillipe Adams shall we? On top of which you can't help but have a soft spot for Narain because he's actually a lovely bloke. He'll need a lot of luck in that HRT though.
 
The point I was making was that he was always going to finish last so what would it have mattered if he'd stopped at the end of the start/finish straight, let the leaders through and then gone on his merry way.
 
Karthikenyan knew he would be lapped during the race and asked Charlie Whiting about turns 3 to 7 as it's impossible to move over before turn 8. He was told by Whiting he didn't have to move over until he had cleared turns 3 to 7. He moved over coming out of turn 7 allowing Vettel through at turn 8. He did nothing wrong.
 
I'm unsure whether it was from the briefing or a personal conversation between Whiting and Karthikenyan though I suspect the question was asked by Karthikenyan at the briefing. It is reported on the Autosport website which is always reliable, in fact I think it's fair to say Autosport don't got to print until a story is factual.
 
I've noticed that Khartikeyan takes quite a bit longer than the rest of the backmarkers to get out of the way, I've often found myself nearly shouting at him to get out of the way as he is quite reckless.

After the turns in question he wasn't that quick to get out of the way.

I think ignoring 4 blue flags is too much, should be 2.
 
Does anyone actually know WHERE Vettel caught up with Karthikeyan?

Judging RB's comments, Vettel was on his tail in turn 2, where there were plenty of overtakes, so definitely a chance to respect the blue flag. If that's true, Narain could have most certainly done more to respect 'the blue'.

I understand you can't vanish into thin air, and despite his antics this year, I have a bit of a soft spot for Narain, but it can't be coincidental that it's Karthikeyan who seems to cause most problems for the front runners. Are we to believe he is the one that somehow always finds himself in the wrong spot, or is he just a bit more stubborn?
 
It looked like it was in sector 1 just before the DRS straight, while BBC commentators were critical of Karthikayan it is firstly a difficult part of the track to be looking in mirrors and navigating the s-bends albeit in a HRT which is not the safest car to drive. While yes it is unfortunate it does happen, I remember a back marker holding up Alonso at Turn 2 in Canada allowing Button to pass in 2010, such is life but the race goes on.
 
Regarding when Vettel was caught by Karthikenyan it was just prior to turn 3. Autosport states Vettel was held up "BRIEFLY" through the sequence of turns 3 to 7. I think far too much is made of this in an attempt to apportion blame. The difficulties all the lapped drivers have is having to drive other peoples cars as well as their own, in other word having to drive on their mirrors. They simply cannot be watching their mirrors constantly, they do have their own cars to race. The leading drivers need to realize the back markers also have a difficult situation to deal with when they're being lapped and in most cases do their best not to impede the leading cars. In other words regarding Karthikenyan, cut him a little slack.
 
It was a little more than briefly in my opinion. Looking at the lap times and time gaps between the cars throughout the race, I don't think Hamilton would have overtaken Vettel without him getting caught up behind Karthikeyan. Hamilton stayed within 3.281s of Vettel throughout the race but could never make the move and Vettel managed to keep him behind for 41 laps. The lap Vettel was overtaken he lost 1.896s dropping to a 1:42.746 (lap 42) from a 1:40.850 (lap 41), whereas Hamilton barely affected was only 0.001s slower than his previous lap. Then Vettel stayed within 1.822 for the remainder of the race.

Once he reached Turn 3, Karthikeyan didn't do anything wrong at all, but looking at how close they were just before that he could have released them at any point after Turn 20 and before Turn 3 without affecting the lead battle or affecting his own race anymore than letting them through were he did. So from Vettel and Red Bull's perspective it's pretty understably frustrating when one small moment due to another driver costs you a race win and potentially his battle for the championship.

Turn 20:
Turn 20.jpg


Turn 1:
Turn 1.jpg
 
Viscount......The top image you've posted is very telling. At that time Vettel would have been braking for turn 1 while Karthikenyan was accelerating towards turn 2. Although Vettel was much quicker than Karthikenyan there is no way he would have been on Karthikenyan's tail before turn 3 and there would also be no way Karthikenyan would have sighted him before then. The mirrors on an F1 car are damn near useless. He quite possibly would have seen a car in the distance behind him as he accelerated along the straight towards turn one but he also probably had no idea who it was at that point. His team would have no doubt warned him of Vettel and Hamilton approaching, but not necessarily until he had reached turn one or two.
The word briefly was taken from the Autosport report. I'm not suggesting Vettel and Red Bull shouldn't feel frustrated, of course they should, but blame shouldn't be leveled at Karthikenyan, which appears to be the view many insiders and journalists share.
 
Kewee the top image was Turn 20 and the bottom was Turn 1 in my post above, just added the labels.

I've just had another look at the race and the blue flag/light was flashing on the side coming into Turn 1 which would have also meant it was flashing on Karthikeyan's wheel so he would've known faster cars were close behind. To be fair he can pass 3 flags before letting them through, but he knew he wouldn't be able to left them through between Turns 3 & 7 and also that they'd close in very quickly in that section in superior machinery.

Here's the blue light coming into Turn 1 (apologies for the poor quality):
T1 Blue.jpg


T1.jpg
 
Viscount......My apologies, I mistook the top image for turn one. In saying that I'm amazed Vettel wasn't all over Karthikenyan by the end of the main straight. I do still stand by my previous postings though. All the criticisms aimed at Karthikenyan are coming from fans, the stewards have made no comment on the incident nor have they issued any warnings so clearly they are happy Karthikenyan did nothing wrong. I will make one other comment. In the past there have been some very serious accidents caused by a driver slowing unexpectedly resulting in a faster car becoming airborne when the following driver was taken by surprise. It's only my opinion but I believe drivers should always race at their normal speed, making room for cars that are lapping them when they're able to safely. Imagine how messy things could have been had Karthikenyan slowed suddenly to let Vettel past but was unsighted by Hamilton due to Vettel's car obscuring his view of Karthikenyan. It's precisely that type of situation that has caused massive accidents in the past. Drivers need predictability in front of them, not a lapped driver doing the unexpected.
 
Kewee I do pretty much agree with you since Karthikeyan technically didn't do anything wrong, but as he was in control of the situation he could have made the whole scenario a lot easier for everyone involved. Though it's easy to say this in hindsight, as a driver who has been passed probably more than 100 times this season alone he should have evaluated the situation better at the time.
 
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