Pit stop

In the high-speed, no-exit expressway lifestyle of the Formula 1 driver, the current three-week break is like a two-day weekend for normal p...

In the high-speed, no-exit expressway lifestyle of the Formula 1 driver, the current three-week break is like a two-day weekend for normal people. It gives them a chance to recharge batteries, switch off for a while and let the backroom boys work on the car.

For Narain Karthikeyan, it8217;s been an opportunity to get over the disappointment of the Bahrain GP, where he had to pull over early with technical problems. 8216;8216;It8217;s been refreshing8217;8217;, he told The Sunday Express. 8216;8216;It8217;s helped to ease the constant pressure, especially when every alternate week one needs to get back into the groove almost from scratch.8217;8217;

The break has been fruitful for Narain on two counts. First on the homefront, where Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa 8212; whom Narain visited on a brief trip home 8212; made clear her intentions clear of hosting an F1 race in the state.

The other was more immediate: The Jordan engineers were able to clear the 8216;electrical failure8217; that did him in at Bahrain. Their findings: Sand in the alternator of the car that caused a short-circuit.

Narain spent a couple of days last week in the familiar Jordan-Toyota cockpit, running pre-mandate tests at the Paul Ricard Test Track in Paris before heading off on the European trail for the San Marino GP on April 24.

When this reporter caught up with Narain, he8217;d just finished 640 km of tyre development tests for Bridgestone, apart from several new car developments. Test drive apart, it was turning back the clock 13 years at the venue where his big-time ambitions were born. Narain spent his formative years in the early 1990s at the Elf Winfield Racing Academy, which had its base at Paul Ricard.

8216;8216;It8217;s good to come back to the place where it all started8217;8217;, he said. 8216;8216;It was here that I first dreamt F1.8221;

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So is it racing on familiar ground? 8216;8216;Not really. Nothing like it was back then. The track now is brand new, including the structures around it.8217;8217; The circuit hosted the French GP in 1971 and was dominated by Jackie Stewart, before the local authorities at Magny-Cours funded a switch away from Paul Ricard.

The track subsequently was sold after Paul8217;s death and was bought by Bernie Ecclestone for around 11 million and today remains a test track.

Preferring not to get into details of the aerodynamic and mechanical experiments carried out during tests, Narain did mention being around 2.3 seconds off the pace of the other teams.

8216;8216;It8217;s quite good8217;8217;, he said, adding that at Imola San Marino, Jordan would be the only team running with an old car, after Minardi on Friday tested their 8217;new8217; PS05 at Mugello and subsequently announced they would be running their new car at San Marino.