Tata group to back Narain Karthikeyan in Super Formula

Its glad tidings for Narain Karthikeyan’s fans as Tata Sons and Tata Motors announced that they will be the official sponsor for the Indian driver in his debut season in the Japanese championship Super Formula 2014. The racing series comprises of eight rounds in total, seven of which will be held in Japan itself and one round in South Korea. The Super Formula racing series will commence from April 13 and end on November 9. This isn’t the first instance that the Tata group has supported as it has been associated with the country’s first Formula 1 driver since 2002. Karthikeyan will be driving for Team Impul Hoshino Racing and will be racing in the company of 24 hour Le Mans winners and WEC World Champions, Andre Lotterer and Loic Duval, former F1 pilots, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Takuma Sato and 2010 Super Formula Champion, João Paulo de Oliveira, who is also Karthikeyan’s teammate, among others.

Speaking on the association, Narain Karthikeyan said, “It is an honour to be backed by the Tata group that has always been at the forefront of promoting Indian sporting talent, and has consciously strived to encourage sports in India and globally through multiple platforms, across multiple sports. I am excited and looking forward to compete in the 2014 Super Formula season, which has an amazing line-up of drivers from across the world. The best part about this spec-series is the fact that everyone has the same equipment and the same opportunity to win – something which I relished in Auto GP last year. I hope to make the country proud.”

Super Formula was earlier known as Formula Nippon and was started in 1973. Prolific drivers like Michael Schumacher, Eddie Irvine, Pedro De La Rosa and Ralf Schumacher have been part of the Super Formula racing series in the past. The 2014 season of Super Formula has been made interesting due to various changes being undertaken. Major ones being the introduction of the Dallara SF14 chassis and the switch from erstwhile V8 engines to smaller displacement, turbo charged powerplant pumping out 560PS of power. All these changes have made their impact as pre-season tests has shown that the new Super Formula car’s timing is just three seconds down to that of previous generation F1 cars. What really impresses is the fact that the lap times of the Super Formula cars are on par with current turbocharged F1 cars in terms of lap times.