CHENNAI, FEB 5: Eighteen-year-old student from Japan, Ryo Fukuda, looked the odd man out as the members of the Elf La Filiere scheme lined up for a formal introduction at a press conference here on Wednesday night to announce details regarding the McDowell Grand Prix motor races at the Irungattukottai track on February 7 and 8.But having won the Go-Kart race at Mumbai last year, Fukuda appeared as tall in stature, if not in height, as the rest of the Frenchmen, all part of the same scheme. The spotlight will be on him this week-end when the 16 drivers, including eight from India, climb into the Formula Campus single-seater cars.Two others also stood out -- bubbly 22-year old Frenchwoman, Melina Priam and India's Narain Karthikeyan.
Karthikeyan, the 22-year old from Coimbatore, earned plaudits for his brilliant victory in Formula Opel race at Silverstone, England, last year. He shrugged off wet conditions and a sixth place start to win, and is all set to move up to Formula-3 before attempting to realisehis dream of becoming India's first Formula-1 driver by 2000.
``It will take a lot of determination and hard work, but I hope to make it to Formula-1 by 2000,'' said Karthikeyan during a tete-a-tete with The Indian Express.
Incidentally, none of the Indians have driven a Formula Campus car. And, during the introductions, all the eight of them said they were looking forward to having ``some fun'' on Sunday and the experience of competing on the international stage.
The Indians in fray, besides Karthikeyan, are: Kamlesh Patel, Vikram Murthy, Cyrus Mazda, Akber Ebrahim, J D Madan, Parthiv Suresh and Uday Eswaran.Apart from the four-wheeler event, the Grand Prix programme, which will also commemmorate McDowell's Centenary, a seperate race for two-wheelers (250cc and 125cc Formula bikes) is scheduled, apart from the 13th and final leg of TVS Race-A-Bike series, a competition for 1300cc Indian cars, and a race exclusively for CEOs.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
