India's first Formula One driver Narain Karthikeyan is looking forward to his Super GT debut in Japan this weekend, marking a full-time switch to sports car racing.
Karthikeyan is venturing into sports car racing after spending two decades in single seaters.
The 42-year-old is ready for the fresh challenge having completed multiples round of testing in Japan and Malaysia. He will be competing in the GT 500 class alongside former Formula One world champion Jenson Button.
"The series is very tyre dependent and in the first few races you would have to get used to the GT 300 traffic. But we believe we will have a good few races. I wouldn't say a baptism by fire but it is going to be very different from what I have done earlier," Karthikeyan told PTI.
The Indian spent the last five seasons in Super Formula, considered the fastest single seater series outside Formula One. However, it doesn't enjoy the popularity of Super GT.
"I think GT500 is on a much more international level. It is the most popular form of motor sport in Japan. We have a huge number of fans, almost 100,000 people attend some of the races."
"Racing terms are common all over the world so it wasn't anyway a big issue. But yes, I can speak a bit of Japanese if needed. Japan is an awesome place for racing, they have accepted me which is a big thing."
"So the important thing is to impress in F3 and get into a programme with any of the F1 manufacturers. It makes life much easier rather than finding a sponsor and then trying to get into F1 because the kind of sponsorship you need is very expensive (running into millions of dollars)."
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