Karun Chandhok is getting closer to his Formula One dream. He has officially set himself a two-year target, but every test drive he takes, he keeps getting closer. Like the test drive he undertook this week. In his own words: “I had the opportunity to test with Arden International and Dave Price Racing at the Paul Ricard circuit in France. Arden is run by Christian Horner, the boss of the Red Bull F1 team and in the past they have run Heikki Kovaleinnen, Tonio Liuzzi and this year Bruno Senna. Apart from Christian’s personal involvement, the team is backed by Red Bull with good interaction between the F1 and GP2 team and I was very glad to be invited to test with them.”It wasn’t a one-off thing for Chandhok. He revealed to this daily, that since the last race in Valencia, he sees “several options for the 2008 season and in GP2.”What is so special about these testing sessions? “It is normal practice for all the teams to carry out test sessions to evaluate their drivers for the following season. Obviously, for the drivers it is important to try and secure a seat with a top team and for that you have to have the opportunity to test with them first,” says Chandhok. Chandhok is doing the circuit too. A week after that final round of the championship, he was invited by the 2007 Champion team I-Sport International to test with them at Jerez in Spain. “The test went very well in that the team and I worked well together. We were fast both in qualifying and in race set-ups. It was quite an eye-opener to drive the same car that took Timo Glock to the championship this year and the fact that we were in the top 5 all through the session was very positive.” Then came this week’s trials. According to Chandhok, the so-called heir apparent to Narain Karthikeyan, the Renault-powered Dave Price Racing team have “had a lot of success in the past in other categories and are race winners in GP2. They didn’t have a very good season this year but I was surprised that their car was very competitive and we were once again comfortably in the top 8 all day.”So what does that mean for Chandhok? Possibilities, three of them, for next season. At the moment these are just three options for next year and there is also the new GP2 Asia series. Chandhok says he should have a plan in hand, following a positive from one of the teams by the month-end.
