Greater Noida: India's lone driver Narain Karthikeyan on Thursday said that he just wants to enjoy the country's first-ever Formula One Grand Prix by finishing the race without any trouble and was not thinking about pressure of expectations.
Karthikeyan is the only Indian driver to feature in Sunday's Indian GP as Team Lotus refused a racing seat to Karun Chandhok.
"Well I can say so many things, but the realistic thing with our car is to possibly finish the race and beat your teammate. I think at the moment we can't expect more," he said at a media interaction here.
"It is an historic and symbolic moment that an Indian driver is on the grid and, of course, there is a lot of people who are following F1 for a long time. There will be a lot of fans here. It will be hard to explain but it is what it is. I want to enjoy the weekend, have lots of fun, and try and do the best I can do," said Karthikeyan, who will drive for Hispania Racing Team at the Buddh International Circuit on Sunday.
Karthikeyan admitted that there would be immense pressure to drive before home fans.
"I just need to relax and from tomorrow it is going to be different, you are in the car a lot. I just want to enjoy the whole atmosphere. My family, everyone is coming. All the sponsors and so it will be a huge day for Indian motorsport and those first few laps on Friday are going to be very special," he said adding that he has received thousands of requests for race passes.
Karthikeyan said since BIC is a new circuit and dust is also there, drivers will take time to find which place on the track has the best grip.
"Well, off-line yes, it is going to be dirty for sure, so you just have to see where the best level of grip is and go for it. For us, the big problem is when you go off-line when you get lapped, that's the problem. We will try to see how it goes. The track is going to evolve a lot and we have to see where the level of grip is," he said.
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