Chennai boy breaks barriers on the track

ROM having hard days over mathematics in school to handling high-speed racing cars, Chennai's Monith Kumaran has come a long way in life. Growing up watching multipletime F1 world champion Fernando Alonso in both his Renault and McLaren days, the sight of him zooming in the slipstreams and beating his opponents caught Monith's imagination.

- CHANDRA PRABHU

Years later, the 21-year-old has taken a credible step towards realising the dream by winning the rookie category (93 points) of the LGB F4 event as part of the JK Tyres' National Racing Championship, which concluded at the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore recently. In the third and final round, he won three of the four races to collect a total of 34 points.

The LGB category is an entry-level category for single-seat open-wheel racing. The cars are powered by a 1298cc Suzuki Swift engine.

Apart from enjoying the sight of Alonso dominating the track in F1, Monith's life in school was filled with doubt. He found it difficult to deal with arithmetic, and according to his father Srinivasan, Monith was often found finishing tests late. "We felt he should take up open schooling after he found it difficult to calculate. The fact that he writes with his left arm invited suspicion from the teachers," he explained.