With a majority of driver contracts set to expire at the end of next season in 2008 in F1, Chandok is extremely hopeful of racing F1 in 2009.
CHENNAI: With a majority of driver contracts set to expire at the end of next season in 2008 in Formula One, India's Karun Chandok is extremely hopeful of racing in motorsport's premier competition in 2009.
My chances are looking a lot better now than one or two years ago," 23-year-old Chandok, only the second Indian to test for an F-1 team, told here on Sunday.
The Chennai born racer, however, was keen to finish in the top five of the GP2 Championship in 2008, which he hopes would help secure an F-1 seat in 2009.
"The most important thing is to have a good year in GP2 and finish in the top five of the Championship, there will be a good opportunity at Forumla One because a lot of contracts are expiring at the end of the next season," he said.
When asked about the possibility of him signing with Vijay Mallya's Force India team, he said "As far as Force India goes, Mallya has been very clear that the driver choice will be based on credibility than nationality and I 100 per cent agree with him."
The Indian, who won the sprint race in Belgium this year, said GP2 was a good training ground for F-1 hopefuls.
"Generally the GP2 series is a great platform because we race on Saturdays after F1 qualifying and we race on Sunday mornings before the F1 race. All the F1 people are there watching it ...you go to the paddock afterwards and they have seen everything. They are watching the races. They know everything. It is a good place to establish ourselves."
On his F-1 testing for Red Bull in November, Chandok said he had scored in every weekend in GP2 which helped him in getting a test drive at Red Bull.
"They were really very surprised. They said if I got within one second of David Coulthard, they will be very happy...I got within seven-tenths of his time!," he said.
Chandok, who Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone has tipped tobe the next F-1 driver from India, said testing for Red Bull was a fantastic experience.
"I learnt a lot of things...was fantastic experience. There wasn't much of a difference between F-1 and GP2. But an F-1 car has little bit more power, breaks a little better. But it wasn't something that it scared me at all. The big difference, however, was the aerodynamics...significant difference from
GP2," he said.
Asked if entering the F-1 circuit at an early age was an advantage, he said "it does give you a longer career span.When an F-1 team is looking to sign you on, they look to see if you have the capability of having a 12-13 year career span."
"(Michael) Schumacher entered when he was 24 or 25..he had given himself a 12-13 yr of a career span. That is why being around 25 years of age is where the window is, to really have a good 10-12 career span in F-1," Chandok said.
On what it felt like to test for a F-1 team when Michael Schumacher was also testing, he said "I did not even think about it. You just do not have the time to sit and think about.I spent a lot of time with David Coulthard and Mark Webber. Any questions that I asked, they were very frank and honest," he said.
Earlier, Amara Raja Batteries' corporate sporting initiative, Amaron Pro Racing unveiled the new brand logo naming Karun Chandok as "Madras Missile."
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