19/1/1984
Record updated 19-Jan-23
Karun Chandhok was born in Madras, India.
In 2000 he won the Indian National Racing Championship with 7 wins from the ten races. He also took pole position and fastest lap in all 10 races.
The following year he became the youngest ever Asian Formula Champion driving for Team India Racing winning 8 races during the season. He then tested with British Formula 3 championship team, Carlin Motorsport.
He moved to the UK in 2002 to compete in the British F3 Championship driving in the National class. He finished 6th with 6 top 3 finishes.
He improved to 3rd overall in the British Formula 3 National class in 2003 winning 8 races and scoring 19 podium finishes in 24 races with T-Sport.
He continued in British Formula 3 with T-Sport in 2004 and was a top 5 qualifier and finisher partnering fellow countryman, Narain Karthikeyan, in the World Series by Nissan for the final two rounds the year, finished 4th ahead of Karthikeyan in the final round. Team captain of "Team India" at the 24 hour Dubai Karting race.
For 2005 he drove for RC Motorsport in the World Series by Renault and was the first driver to represent India in the A1 Grand Prix series.
He won the first ever Formula Asia V6 by Renault Championship in 2006 with 7 race wins and 9 pole positions from 12 races.
For 2007 he drove for the Durango Corse team in the GP2 series. Karun's first win came in the sprint race at the challenging Spa Francorchamps circuit in Belgium. He had also led the sprint race in Turkey starting from pole, before the second place Kazuki Nakajima of DAMS collided with him. The collision resulted in retirement for Chandhok while Nakajima was handed out a drive through penalty.
Chandok got a call up from the Red Bull Racing Formula One team to test for them over two days at the Circuito de Catalunya in Barcelona in November. It looked possible that he might be inline for a test role with the team in 2008 but after announcing that he would not be present for the official presentation of the team's RB4 single seater at Jerez on 16 January, this seems unlikely.
It is expected that he will be given opportunities to test for countryman Vijay Mallya's Force India team some time in 2008.
Chandhok will remain in GP2 for 2008, switching to the iSport International team where he will be partnered by Bruno Senna.
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