Sports India

After proving himself to be the best F1 rookie in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Albert Park, Melbourne, Narain Karthikeyan is looking forward to continuing his good work for Jordan on Sunday.

The Indian is eagerly looking forward to the next race even though weather conditions in Malaysia will be much more demanding than in Melbourne. Karthikeyan flew directly from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur to give himself enough time to acclimatise.

“Even though I haven’t raced on the track before, I know the Sepang international circuit site is a good one, but it’s quite difficult. It’s got a lot of interesting corners, both high-speed and low-speed, and it’s quite long.

“This seven-year-old circuit is high speed and at the same time, it looks really technical and challenging for a driver. At least this is what I guessed from seeing the track from last year’s on-board footage film,” Karthikeyan said.

“I’m sure that the challenge will make me enjoy driving around the track despite the high temperature,” he said.

On expectations back home, the 28-year-old said: “The Indian media has explained to the public that I am not capable of winning races at the moment. I have also told them we have realistic goals, which is first to finish races and in the few races we can, we’ll pick up points.

Back to his Sepang preparation, Karthikeyan said he is being supplied lot of inputs. “The engineers have analysed last week’s race and have a lot of data to pass on to me for a better race this time round. We’ve got a lot of work to do especially because the conditions will be different than in Australia.

“My trainer Gerard came along with me and we worked for four intensive hours every day on the cardio-ratio rhythm, and on building up my neck muscles to absorb the g-forces in the F1 car and to also acclimatise to the humidity and heat-stress factors.”

Schumi warning
Meanwhile, Michael Schumacher has warned Ferrari’s rivals that the F1 season is a marathon, not a sprint.

“I’m pretty relaxed about what’s going on. I know it’s 19 races and it’s just one that’s passed by. It’s nothing more,” he said on Thursday.