The Hindu : Sport / Racing : Motor : Narain smiles on a bleak day

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 06, 2005

Sport

Sport - Racing : Motor

Narain smiles on a bleak day

By Rohit Brijnath

ON THE FAST TRACK, INTO HISTORY: Narain Karthikeyan benefited from a wet spell in Melbourne on Saturday to finish ninth in the first qualifying. The 28-year-old rookie makes his Formula One race debut on Sunday. Narain is the first Indian driver to compete at this level. - AP

MELBOURNE, MARCH 5. In this strangest of sports where drivers beseech their personal Gods for guidance before entrusting themselves to technology, and science collides with chance, occasionally the bizarre unfolds.

And so it was in the first session of qualifying on Saturday at the Australian Grand Prix where Jordan's Narain Karthikeyan, in his first Formula One race, in an under-powered car, was faster over one lap than seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher of Ferrari. "Incredible," muttered the Indian later in the pits and this single word best encapsulated a turbulent afternoon.

It was a typically uncertain Melbourne day, the sun and rain vying for attention, forbidding gray clouds rapidly exchanging position with blue skies, and it was a recipe for chaos as deciding on what tyres to use was reduced to tea-leaf reading. Wet tyres or slicks (dry tyres), will the rain stay or pass, is the weather radar accurate or not ... it was almost amusing to see a sport of such sophistication reduced to a lottery.

By the completion of the session, Michael Schumacher had skidded his way to 18th place (24.760 seconds behind the leader and probably out of contention), teammate Rubens Barrichello was placed 12th, BAR-Honda's Takuma Sato spun off, and Karthikeyan was sitting, momentarily and impressively, in ninth position out of 20 drivers.

Sunday morning is the second qualifying session and an aggregate from both sessions will decide final places on the grid. And only further divine intervention will ensure that Karthikeyan holds his ninth position through that, and 58 laps of the race when the more powerful cars will flex the muscles that are their engines.

Scarcely a slur

This is scarcely a slur on Karthikeyan's apparent ability, but an embrace of a reality in which the Jordan car is superior only to the Minardis. For a rookie to complete the race, in weather forecast as dreary, will be an achievement; to finish in any position above 17th will be a triumph in itself.

But while Sunday may spring its own surprises, Saturday brought a slow Indian smile that illuminated a bleak day. Karthikeyan believed he had "done very well" and unarguably he had, for the only relevant comparison could be made with his teammate Tiago Montiero, who was nearly 2.5 seconds slower than him in similar, if not better, conditions.

So long has Karthikeyan waited for this moment that accompanying his anxiety was the relief to finally slip into the car and compete. Pressure has stalked him this past week, and as he told The Hindu, "There's been so much attention, so many interviews. I've had more photographs taken in two days than in all life, and I feel like I'm being watched."

But once strapped in the car it is like another being is unleashed, as if inside the helmet the mask of the shy Karthikeyan is peeled off to be replaced by one of controlled fury. Pressure is replaced by pleasure. "When I wear that helmet, things change," he said. "I get more aggressive, I want to attack." Or as his watching father G.R. Karthikeyan put it: "In the car he is in his element."

Cautious aggression

On Saturday, he drove with what appeared to be cautious aggression, leaving Jordan sporting director Trevor Carlin, "very pleased. Narain drove with a lot of confidence in very difficult conditions." Indeed, in the slushy paddock just behind the Jordan garage, there was delight at Karthikeyan's timing of 1.44.357 on wet weather tyres on a track washed by rain, and perhaps all those boyish days of dousing his Coimbatore driveway in water to practice had been of some infinitesimal assistance.

Yet it briefly seemed that Karthikeyan, the third driver onto the track, had lost some advantage when a flirtatious sun made an unlikely appearance after he was done. A dryer track for the rest, allowing the use of either slicks or intermediates, on already quicker cars, promised much faster timings and for a while so it was. As Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella, who has provisional pole position with 1.33.171, admitted, "I was lucky, I went out at the right moment when it stopped raining."

But then the rain reappeared; covering the Albert Park circuit like a constant translucent curtain, and pandemonium reigned. Every driver who followed Fisichella, from Ferrari's Schumacher and Barrichello to Renault's Fernando Alonso to the favoured McLaren's of Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen finished slower than Karthikeyan.

For this fleeting of delicious moments, a grinning weather God had restored balance to an inequitable world of Formula One.

The results after first qualifying session (with driver, country, car, time and leader's speed): 1. Giancarlo Fisichella, Italy, Renault, 1m 33.171s (204.900 kph); 2. Jarno Trulli, Italy, Toyota, 1:35.270; 3. Mark Webber, Australia, Williams, 1:36.717; 4. Jacques Villeneuve, Canada, Sauber, 1:36.984; 5. Christian Klien, Austria, Red Bull, 1:37.486; 6. David Coulthard, Britain, Red Bull, 1:38.320; 7. Nick Heidfeld, Germany, Williams, 1:39.717; 8. Jenson Button, Britain, BAR-Honda 1:41.512; 9. Narain Karthikeyan, India, Jordan, 1:44.357; 10. Kimi Raikkonen, Finland, McLaren, 1:44.997; 11. Juan Pablo Montoya, Colombia, McLaren 1:45.325; 12. Rubens Barrichello, Brazil, Ferrari, 1:45.481; 13. Tiago Monteiro, Portugal, Jordan, 1:46.846; 14. Fernando Alonso, Spain, Renault, 1:47.708; 15. Christijan Albers, Netherlands, Minardi, 1:49.230; 16. Patrick Friesacher, Austria, Minardi, 1:50.864; 17. Ralf Schumacher, Germany, Toyota, 1:51.495; 18. Michael Schumacher, Germany, Ferrari, 1:57.931; Did not post time: Takuma Sato, Japan, BAR-Honda; Felipe Massa, Brazil, Sauber.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport