The Tumultuous Tale of Mahaveer Raghunathan

let me start off if I may with Eddie the Eagle to those unfamiliar this man is legendary through the events that transpired at the 1988 Winter Olympics these have been well-documented and has even been made into a movie but it wasn't because he won any silver with finishing last in both the 70 and 90 meter ski jump events by some margin the International Olympic Committee changed the rules to ensure such an embarrassment could never be repeated however through his bumbling efforts in the games he endeared himself to the public and became this weird sort of hero through his determination to never give up even if he couldn't jump the reason I bring this up is because 31 years later we have a very familiar story so let's begin with the basics Mahavira guna 'then was born in Chennai India and China is a prominent area of India when it comes to motorsport it is the location of the Madras motor racetrack one of India's most used race facilities and is the base for the MRF challenged summer series where an array of drivers from around the world have come to prove their worth and Chennai was the birthplace of former f1 driver karoon Chan doc so he was born into a good area in that regard but he supposedly didn't come from a background of wealth which as we'll find out later makes about as much sense as Raman Gras Jones crashes but nevertheless as all of us racing fans have he fell in love with the sport where competitors drive in circles all day long and overpriced coffins so after competing in carts for a few years where he managed civil race finishes raghunathan made his racing car debut in the JK racing Asia series which was basically a continuation of the Asian Formula BMW series in the final round of the 2012 championship at the age of 13 he was the youngest driver on that grid but his results weren't too good certainly nothing indicative of being a the one star in the making but it was his car racing debut so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt on that one the following year he would finish six in the MRF challenge 1600 series and made an appearance in the Formula Masters China Series toward the end of the year the results were not that great here either being among the slowest drivers in that final round in Shanghai and whilst yes he was significantly younger than a lot of the field there was nothing to demonstrate that he was worthy of being a Formula One talent here still for 2014 Ethan would make the transition into the Italian Formula Ford Championship competing full-time with fnm racing whilst he was initially quite a bit slower than his teammate Marty add Rudy he would itch closer towards season's end but as a whole he was still about 1.5 to 2 seconds off the pace on average throughout the season although in that farm around he came in 6th in all three races and was more on the pace in this round than any of the rents that came before hand being only half second off his teammate Rudy and he did beat his other teammate Giovanni Aldo e on a regular basis although the results for that guy were about as hopeless as a die slixa canna spelling V next year he would move up into the Formula three category with part-time appearances in the Formula Renault Alps euro formula Open Championships competed in the Masters of Formula three and competed full-time in the European Formula three championship with motor parkings between reg and Nathan so let's start off with those two part-time appearances okay and the Formula Renault series he drove with creme motorsport at Spa Francorchamps I'd vesali Romney and Travis Jordan Fisher both of these drivers hung around the midfield for the majority of the season with Romanov claiming a handful of podiums but such fortunate results would not exist for our boy once again he was about 2 to 3 seconds off the pace of his teammates retired from the first race and was the last of the finishes on the second race in the Euro formula Open Series he made a guest appearance at Monza driving for Team westtech even over the entirety of the weekend raghunathan was still a mile and a half behind his teammates and among the last of the finishers in both races and the Masters our formula 3 event at Zandvoort raghunathan would be incident with the Moto Park team alongside Marcus Palmer Sam McLeod noble Geoffrey and suja sitter Kamara know those guys qualified in the load to high 31s with Nabal Geoffrey being slightly outside with a 32 point o4 one raghunathan space time was a 133 point 199 and throughout both the qualifying and main races he would be the last of the finishers although slightly saved somewhat by Palmer's problems in the main race to come home in 17th so by this stage we've run through a whole bunch of nothing in terms of results but hey there's still more to come the 2015 European Formula 3 championship driving with motor park again his teammates would be the same pulled from the same boat race I mean he was the only rookie out of the bunch but that excuse apparently didn't work for LAN stroll so I mean for the first couple of rounds at Silverstone and hockenheim raghunathan really wasn't on the pace it was sort of same old same old when it came to his position which was at the back and his times which were measured in days the third round of Poe was where his pace or lack thereof would be evident he was nearly 5 seconds slower than Paul men Charla Claire in qualifying and as a result of that he was marked down as it did not qualify for the POE grand prix to say this was a setback as a little bit of an understatement his pace varied from round to round but the results sort of remained the same with his best result coming at the Norris ring in the second race with 20th place but the lack of success would not deter the young man as he would sign on for the GP 3 Series in 2016 driving with the Chiron and team starting from Barcelona but this would be his only race in GP 3 the results were what you would expect at the tail end of the timing sheets in qualifying the last running current both races and noticeably off the pace from the rest of the field so up until now raghunathan career results have been quite consistent not in a good way though I mean you wouldn't run home to your parents with an array of D minuses on your report card huh and at this point options were diminishing as he apparently was running sponsor lists for a while and hardly anyone would want to sponsor a driver at this point who hasn't won anything at a professional level but that's when the realization came through to raghunathan the rationale changed and he pulled the plug on the GP 3 venture after just one round the reason for this he had turned his attention toward the auto GP series at this point the auto GP series was already dying a slow death and almost no one with any serious racing ambition ran in it anymore after just one round of 2016 the auto GP series merged with the boss GP series a championship which played host to older Formula one cars as well as other formula cars from GP 2 to formula 3000 so there was some serious toys in the ship ship being run on some legit circuits a perfect training ground you'd written for raghunathan to get his hands dirty and prove his worth the thing is though the boss GP championship isn't really that legitimate for you see the majority of the people who compete in this championship are people who are earned enough of a fortune to a point where they can afford to race these things so it's much like the concept of gentlemen drivers and GT racing and so when you have a young gun who are supposedly racing professionally going up against these guys it's like competing against Gary Coleman and a tip-off would you drop my listing man but even then raghunathan still wouldn't be able to win the Auto GP championship as he would lose out to Louis Michael door Becker who was the only other full-time competitor in the championship might I add just for clarity even though the Auto GP series died after one round they continued running the championship and just utilized the boss GP calendar to complete the series makes sense fantastic let's move on for the following season raghunathan would commit to the boss GP formula class and would win the title but only just for most of the season Johan leader Meyer had won most of the races and had virtually dominated the championship whilst raghunathan basically picked up the leftovers but after a no-show at Zolder and ineffective withdrawal at Imola raghunathan secured the formula class title by 16 points he made a one-off appearance in the Michelin LeMans Cup in 2018 but nothing much happened for the twenty-year-old in that season that was until the 23rd of March 2019 when empty motorsport announced that raghunathan would be driving alongside Jordan King in the 2019 FIA formula two championship now we all know what happens as the adventures that he endured in the season are well documented for a number of reasons but to put his career into retrospect at this point he had no wounds or podiums or fastest laps all pole positions in any professional category up to this point or at least until you entered the boss series in 2016 which was primarily for gentlemen drivers I'm not purposely trying to drag the man down but this is not indicative of someone who is a world class driver now huh it also raised the question of how one got the money to get their MPC's the word around was that he was being sponsored by an Indian car company whatever one it was must have seen something that not a lot of us saw by hey let's get back on track and let's discuss Mahavira GU Nathan's formula to campaign raghunathan completed pre-season testing with MP motorsport with Richard ver sure in the other car now let me just start off by saying the Shah is someone who is definitely worthy of the Formula two seats and this was before as mchale victory but hey I guess it all comes back to the thing that plagues motorsport now huh times and testing don't really mean anything programs vary therefore so all the times so let's just move on to the regular season now shall we at the opening round in Bahrain raghunathan was the slowest driver in both free practice and qualifying being half a second down on Tatyana Keller on who was second to last after multiple excursions off the track throughout the weekend not too many people would have been pigging him as a title contender there wasn't much to write home about in regards to his performances in either the feature or the sprint race but there was something of notes after being slow enough to be left in the sprint race and after eventual race winner Luca Giotto took the checkered flag raghunathan decided to complete another lap at full speed now we may laugh at this but consider for a moment that marshals will almost certainly be over the fence at this point under the assumption that anything that passes the finish line is just cruising and all of a sudden doesn't start to be funny anymore the stewards didn't see the funny side of this either they imposed a ten place grid penalty for the next race which was a little bit pointless and handed out the first of what will be many penalty points the next round of back who and if you've been around this website I don't know if you heard of it before it's called YouTube you've probably seen what I'm about to dish out here during free practice raghunathan got stuck at the escaped Road in turn three now a normal driver at this point would be able to navigate the way out of here with relative ease if you can't do that which to be fear as a possibility then shut off the engine before you cook the damn thing but instead we were treated to this [Music] so after 10 minutes of some of the most helpless driving in Formula two history raghunathan emerged from the escape road with a roasted engine which didn't exactly impress his team members qualifying was about as disastrous as you'd expect he was about 2.6 seconds slower than Calderon who was the second slowest driver and 6.2 seconds slower than Pohlman Navajos Matsushita that deficit is alarming and it's not even a case of the team either teammate Jordan King was over five seconds faster in fact the gap between himself and Kelvin was larger than the deficit from first place to 17th place but it's not as if qualifying really mattered for him because he would be forced to start from the pit lane after he missed the Weybridge in free practice thing is though is that the Baku race is one of attrition so long as you can keep your car out of the wall or other drivers who should be on for a decent result and of course raghunathan managed to stay out of trouble while seven cars failed to finish and aided - by the misfortunes of Matsushita and Ralf boss Zhang raghunathan came across the line to record 11th place now throughout the races his race pace was pretty terrible I mean I'll link some perspective here in the feature race teammate Jordan King's best time was a one 57.61 six raghunathan specced tom is a 203 point nine four six but of course the trouble didn't in there for once again he was penalized this time for passing Guangzhou before the control line at the safety car restart during the sprint race five seconds were added to the race time which remarkably had no effect on his final results and he finished in 13th place the last finishing driver the next round of Barcelona was relatively quiet for him although he was way too close to being lapped in the feature race I probably don't need to tell you how he was pace wise although there was something somewhat amusing that weekend also hosted the opening round of the Formula three championship slower cars and formula to much slower but the fastest lap in the Formula 3 sprint race was set by G Honda Ravello a one thirty four point seven one one raghunathan fastest time in the formula to sprint race was a 134 point nine seven one so were only three rounds in and the next round is Monaco after almost failing to qualify for the event saved only by the group qualifying format to combat the congestion issues on the slightly oversized go-kart track raghunathan had a horrid time finishing two laps down in the feature race and one lap behind the nearest car granted there was a timing issue in that feature race where half the grid was put a lap down for no good reason but that was it before some of the worst driving I have ever seen in my life after holding up jack akin by cutting the chicane and weaving all over the place raghunathan punted Aitken at the hairpin putting him out of the race which would have hacked off a can just a little bit as he was in the title race up to this point and just earlier in qualifying raghunathan was born the same tricks as what you just saw in this race this of course meant that a drive-through penalty was issued but a 20 second time deduction was undertaken instead after he didn't serve said drive-through and by now more penalty points were starting to rack up for the sprint race raghunathan had managed an incredible start and passed several drivers but there was a reason for that I seriously don't know what to make of this talk about not getting it but his race would only last a further six laps when Luca Geass Oh took him out of the race at the hairpin Giotto was penalized for this but raghunathan was also penalized for his tomfoolery at the start of the race a three grid drop penalty was issued for the next race at Paul Ricard qualifying was par for the course over five seconds slower than Paul main chimera and whilst he would achieve his best result to date in the feature race he was penalized again this time for virtual safety car infringement 15 seconds would be added onto his race time and as well as that more penalty points now with penalty points once you've amassed 12 during the course of the season you will be issued a ban for the following event and after collecting 9 penalty points with his shenanigans during the race raghunathan would be issued a ban for the next round after he had wrecked up 12 penalty points in total there was some speculation as to whether or not he would actually return after said been given the nature of how a season had gone but sure enough regs was back on the grid for Silverstone in an interview with the Chicot flag raghunathan stated he had learned from his mistakes and was willing to respect the rules more he was also looking forward to this event saying that the fast flowing nature of the circuit suited him and that he had prior knowledge of the circuit having driven there in f3 so perhaps this was an opportunity to hit the ground running and demonstrators worth ah no the results were what you'd expect and this was the same case in Hungary where he would qualify at the back and stay there during the races raghunathan and his teammate jordan King were reprimanded in spa Frank was shot after failing to slow down during qualifying for the yellow flags and were both handed three place grid drops during the event of course we all know what happened during the feature race and no race results were recorded that weekend the next random monza had a lot of emotional weight to it after the horrible injuries to one man well Korea and the tragic death event want her there but as has always been the case with motor racing and for however callous it may seem the show went on for a goo Nathan nothing changed on the pace front but after a string of unfortunate events befell the drivers up and down the grid raghunathan finished in tenth place to record his first points in Formula two and hey kudos yeah there were people that struck problems and put him out of the race but you still got to keep your nose clean in the end to get the points so hey that's legit in the next race he started 10th but fell down to 13th place not too much to report on in that race so let's head on to the next round of Sochi he was once again miles off the pace was last in qualifying and in both races however he was again penalized for track limit breaches now keep in mind this is all still adding to the penalty point total and this would come back to bite him in the final round in Abu Dhabi during the practice start procedure you normally meant to allow the drivers ahead of you to go off before you initiate your own one instead raghunathan started before the two ahead of them were even underway now that's a pretty dangerous thing to do if you collide with stationary vehicles as we've seen many times in motorsport it can go pretty bloody wrong but of course he doesn't slow down once it was obvious there was a mistake he just carried on so unsurprisingly the Stewart's were pretty animated about this he then tried to claim that the driver ahead of him was rolling which was the biggest load of bull since Lawrence strolls said that his son got into racing point on merit by now raghunathan had amassed a total of 24 penalty points which therefore means he was issued a second ban but this wouldn't be a problem for raghunathan as race bans are issued for the event after which the penalty points are issued so basically he can only have been banned from the next round but of course this was the final round of the season he could still race this weekend and he did but not before the stewards gave him an additional penalty of a pit lane start which turned out to be a mixed blessing actually because in the early stages of the race raghunathan had set the fastest lap of the race [Music] but the celebrations were short-lived as he would retire and what was a really unusual incident at turn 17 on lap 7 now as funny as it may is seem to retire by virtue of just being himself the more embarrassing thing was witnessing I'm trying to get out of his own car seeing this was about as painful as watching Sunderland try to avoid relegation his season ended with a 15th place finish bringing an end to a rather adventurous career with a best result of teeth finishing 20th in the standings and a grand total of one point after this farce of a season and the penalty point fiasco that resulted from us the rules were amended so that if a driver gets enough penalty points in practice or qualifying they'll be suspended for the remainder of that event which is great but the fact that the loophole had to be exploited in the first place is so alarming to a point where you've got a question whether or not this guy doesn't give a [ __ ] about the rules as otherwise that's stupid now I don't wish to put drivers down and I realize how rich this sounds coming from a guy with a moderately successful YouTube channel but we cannot afford to continue the charade of having a grossly under-qualified driver at the helm of what is supposed to be the final stepping stone before Formula 1 championship slope formula 2 [ __ ] the best of the junior talent across the world and I know it sounds terrible to put someone down who is merely chasing their dream but I am far more concerned for the drivers out there who do have the world-class ability required to extract the most out of the car but are unable to proceed due to the lack of funds then dead of a driver who is in constant danger of not qualifying in a fight sorry a little bit too much passion but my point remains the same it was a crying shame that one of the entries on the formula 2 grid didn't have a hope in hell of winning anything primarily due to that driver and before you start typing can you drive better or who's more talented than you look hang on shut up for a second I ain't saying I'm better I'm just documenting his career and being honest about how crap as driving was but my main issue was that that MP seat was wasted last year when raghunathan was on the sidelines during his mid-year ban pedo award was drafted in to fill the void at the rear bullring in his brief time in the seat award was much closer to teammate jordan king over the course of the weekend finally lifting the number 17 MP motorsport car off the back row of the grid and over the course of the weekend was gradually getting up to pace with his race time in the sprint race being only a couple tenths off of king raghunathan had almost an entire calendar year and was still just as far behind at the end of the season as he was at the start but despite having a torrid time throughout 2019 raghunathan would test for MP in the post season testing at Abu Dhabi leading to speculation that MP could house our Lord and Savior for another year why but thankfully no bahadur Matsushita looks set to take that MP seat as of now there are no plans going forward for the young Indian as he doesn't update his website or a social media and doesn't partake in many interviews so the sky really is about as secretive as the KGB now what's we all may laugh at him and it's easy to do that and he'll always have a special place in our hearts as the lord and king of the motor racing world from an honest racing purist point of view I'd rather contract a serious strain of the corona virus than endure another season of him weaving all over the place cutting corners getting lapped constantly barely qualifying receiving multiple bands throughout the year potentially endangering other drivers through rule breaches punting off other people and in a constant struggle to get out of his own car so Mahaveer nothing personal but leave formula 2 for the world class drivers and jean girl i'll but anyway what were your favorite memories from lord king raghunathan x' career drop a comment below let me know I'd also like to take the time out to thank Russell from Ireland my legal counsel of sorts and of course if you're going to the Australian Grand Prix this year Melbourne I'll be looking forward to seeing you all there in the meantime though keep it respectful be wholesome don't be a - even though I was wondering this episode but I mean hi and as always I'll see you all later [Music] [Music]

Channel: Josh Revell

Views: 3,237,977

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Id: vFJl-00C_bw

Length: 22min 15sec (1335 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 30 2020