JK Tyre's Armaan Ebrahim storms in to Formula One

New Delhi: Fifteen-year-old Indian Formula BMW junior and rookie, Armaan Ebrahim (team E-Rain), astounded the Asian racing fraternity yesterday by taking a brilliant victory in Round 4 of Formula BMW Asia. The youngster made history by becoming the first rookie ever to achieve this result, in just his fourth outing in the car. He drove the 20-lap race with a maturity way beyond his years. Second was fellow BMW junior Robert Boughey (THA / team Meritus), followed by series leader Salman Al Khalifa (BAH / team E-Rain) in a heart-stopping race.

Said Ebrahim, who has been tipped for a test with India's A1GP Team and who has aspirations to follow in the footsteps of his mentor Narain Karthikeyan: "I never thought I'd win this quickly. I've been getting more experience and have learned from the first three races. Today I put my head down and am much more confident. You can expect more from me, but I have to thank BMW for giving me this opportunity and JK Tyre my primary sponsors for having faith in me." Not only did Ebrahim credit the comprehensive Formula BMW education and coaching programme with his extraordinary progress, but also some well-chosen words of advice from father Akbar, who was India's first ever Formula 3 driver.

In the qualifying for the race the fastest rookie was the JK Tyre prodigy Armaan Ebrahim who, a mere eight minutes before the end of the session, came in for a set up change and returned to the track for a final three laps. The BMW junior beat Malaysia's Aaron Lim, who is making his racecar debut this weekend, to fourth place literally in the closing seconds of the session.