Kumar Ram Narain Karthikeyan

Karthikeyan was born in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, to Sheela and Kakarla Karthikeyan Naidu. He has an elder sister, Deepika, and a younger brother, Rajeev. His father was a former Indian national rally champion who won the South India Rally seven times. Karthikeyan attended Stanes Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School in Coimbatore. In 1992 he became a semi-finalist in the Pilote Elf Competition for Formula Renault cars after attending the Elf Winfield Racing School in France.

Karthikeyan finished on the podium in his first race at Sriperumbudur in the Formula Maruti National racing championship. He competed in Formula Maruti for the 1993 season at age 15 and also raced in the Formula Vauxhall Junior championship in Great Britain that year.

In 1994 he raced in the Formula Ford Zetec series as the number two works Vector driver for the Foundation Racing team, taking a podium at a support race for the Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril, and won the British Formula Ford Winter Series — the first Indian driver to win a championship in Europe. In 1995 he contested four rounds of the Formula Asia Championship, finishing second in the race at Shah Alam, Malaysia. The following year he took a full Formula Asia season and became the first Indian and the first Asian to win the Formula Asia International series. In 1997 he moved to the British Formula Opel Championship with the Nemesis Motorsport team, taking a pole position and victory at Donington Park and finishing sixth in the standings.

Karthikeyan joined the British Formula 3 Championship with Carlin Motorsport in 1998, competing in ten rounds and taking two third-place finishes at Spa-Francorchamps and Silverstone to finish twelfth overall. He was the first driver to win a race for Carlin in British F3. In 1999 he took five podiums — including two victories at Brands Hatch, two pole positions, three fastest laps, and two lap records — to finish sixth, and also contested the Macau Grand Prix, qualifying and finishing sixth in the second race. In 2000 he finished fourth overall in British F3, took pole and fastest lap at the Macau Grand Prix, and won both the International F3 race at Spa-Francorchamps and the Korea Super Prix.

In 2001 Karthikeyan began the year in the Formula Nippon F3000 Championship, finishing inside the top ten, and on 14 June became the first Indian driver to test a Formula One car, doing so for Jaguar Racing at Silverstone. He was subsequently offered a test in the Jordan-Honda EJ11 at Silverstone in September, then tested again for Jordan at Mugello in October, finishing half a second off lead driver Jean Alesi. In 2002 he moved into the Telefónica World Series with Team Tata RC Motorsport, setting the fastest non-Formula One lap at the Interlagos circuit. In 2003 — competing in the renamed Superfund World Series — four podiums placed him fourth overall and earned him a Formula One test with Minardi; a race drive for 2004 was offered but sponsorship funds could not be raised. In 2004 he continued in the Nissan World Series, taking wins at Valencia and Magny-Cours and finishing sixth, and also made a single FIA GT Championship appearance with Scuderia Veregra.

On 1 February 2005, Karthikeyan announced he had signed with the Jordan Formula One team for the 2005 season, becoming India's first Formula One racing driver. His teammate was Portuguese driver Tiago Monteiro. He completed the required 300 km superlicence test at Silverstone on 10 February.

In his first race, the Australian Grand Prix, he qualified twelfth, dropped to eighteenth on the opening lap, and finished fifteenth, two laps behind winner Giancarlo Fisichella. His only championship points came at the 2005 United States Grand Prix, where all but three teams withdrew over tyre safety concerns; he finished fourth, ahead of the two Minardi drivers but behind teammate Monteiro. At the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix he was fastest in free practice for a sustained period and qualified eleventh. At the Chinese Grand Prix he qualified fifteenth before crashing into a wall, escaping unhurt.

The Jordan team was acquired and renamed Midland for 2006. Karthikeyan announced he would not drive for Midland, reportedly because the team sought up to $11.7 million for the seat. On 8 December 2005 he tested for Williams at Spain, finishing fifth and outpacing confirmed second driver Nico Rosberg, who finished ninth. Williams confirmed Karthikeyan as their fourth driver on 27 January 2006, performing testing duties alongside third driver Alexander Wurz. He was retained as a reserve test driver for Williams alongside Kazuki Nakajima in 2007. After Tata Group — Karthikeyan's main sponsor — withdrew Williams support, Nakajima received the majority of testing duties and Karthikeyan was sidelined.

On 6 January 2011, Karthikeyan announced he would race for the Hispania Racing F1 Team (HRT) in 2011, returning after five years away from the championship. The prospect of racing before the home crowd at the Indian Grand Prix in October was cited as motivation; financial backing from Tata Group was described as instrumental. Racing for a small team with reliable modern cars, Karthikeyan twice set the record for the lowest-placed classified finisher in a Formula One event: at the Chinese Grand Prix he finished twenty-third after being passed by teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi on the final lap, and at the European Grand Prix — where there were no retirements — he was the twenty-fourth car to finish. On 30 June 2011, Daniel Ricciardo replaced Karthikeyan for most of the remaining races, though Karthikeyan participated in Friday practice at Germany, Singapore, Japan, and Korea. At the Indian Grand Prix, Karthikeyan replaced Liuzzi, qualified twenty-fourth and last after blocking Michael Schumacher in qualifying, and beat Ricciardo by 31.8 seconds to finish seventeenth despite picking up damage on the first lap.

Karthikeyan returned to HRT for 2012, partnering Pedro de la Rosa. In Australia both HRTs failed to qualify. At the Malaysian Grand Prix the team gambled on full wet tyres at the start while others used intermediates; as the rain intensified, drivers who had started on intermediates pitted for full wets, briefly promoting Karthikeyan to a points-paying tenth place before a safety car and red flag. At the restart, Jenson Button collided with Karthikeyan while racing for position; Karthikeyan pitted for intermediates, dropped to the back, and finished twenty-first before a twenty-second post-race penalty dropped him to twenty-second for his role in the collision. Later in the race, Sebastian Vettel was given a puncture when his front wing struck Karthikeyan's car while lapping him; Vettel was forced to pit and dropped from fourth to eleventh. Vettel and Red Bull principal Christian Horner criticised Karthikeyan's driving publicly, with Vettel calling him an "idiot"; Karthikeyan replied by calling Vettel a "cry-baby" before later proposing a truce.

Karthikeyan qualified last at five consecutive races though started twenty-fourth and last twice (Bahrain and Canada) due to other drivers' grid penalties. He retired in Spain with a wheel-nut failure and in Canada with a brake failure; his teammate de la Rosa retired with a similar issue two laps later. At the European Grand Prix he qualified twenty-second for the first time in the season, ahead of the Marussia of Charles Pic; in Belgium he ran as high as thirteenth before retiring on lap 30 with broken suspension. At Singapore he out-qualified de la Rosa by over a second before crashing out on lap 30. At the 2012 United States Grand Prix in Austin, Vettel again accused him of impeding Lewis Hamilton while being lapped. He finished the season twenty-fourth in the standings with zero points.

In 2007, Karthikeyan drove for A1 Team India in A1 Grand Prix, winning the A1GP of Zhuhai for India — India's first A1GP victory — and taking pole position at Brands Hatch in the 2007–08 season. He won two feature races that season, including the finale at Brands Hatch from pole, helping India finish inside the top ten. In the 2008–09 season the team lost its title sponsor; Karthikeyan was eliminated on the first lap of the Feature Race at Brands Hatch by a spinning car.

In 2009, Karthikeyan drove for Team Kolles in the Le Mans Series, finishing sixth in his series debut at Spa-Francorchamps in the second round. At the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans, he dislocated his shoulder in a fall before the start and was ruled unfit to drive by race organisers at 1:00 am.

Karthikeyan made his NASCAR debut at Martinsville Speedway on 27 March 2010 in the Kroger 250 Camping World Truck Series for Wyler Racing in the No. 60 Safe Auto Insurance Company truck; he finished thirteenth on the lead lap. He was voted the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Most Popular Driver for 2010, the first foreign-born driver to receive the award. In 2010 he also drove for the PSV Eindhoven team in Superleague Formula, winning a race at Brands Hatch. In 2013, racing in Auto GP for Zele Racing and subsequently Super Nova Racing, he won five races and secured four pole positions, finishing fourth in the championship.

From 2014 to 2018, Karthikeyan raced in the Japanese Super Formula series. In 2015 he moved to Honda-powered Docomo Team Dandelion, then to Sunoco Team LeMans for 2016. In 2019, his final year of single-seater competition, he raced with Nakajima Racing and won the Fuji Super GT x DTM Dream Race, taking the fastest lap during the race.

The Government of India awarded Karthikeyan the Padma Shri — the country's fourth highest civilian honour — in 2010.

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