Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], After crashing in the first lap of the 2024 Nürburgring Langstrecken-Series due to a rib injury, dynamic racer and tech founder Akshay Gupta revealed the biggest goal of his life.
Akshay represented India as the sole Mertens Motorsport driver in the prestigious 2024 Nurburgring Langstrecken-Series and had a standout performance in the NLS3 race, overcoming formidable challenges to achieve impressive results.
The Ahmedabad rider stated that he now wants to win the overall championship and not the category championship.
"One of the goals behind competing in NLS is that it will eliminate any little fear you have in terms of racing cars. If you can race here, you can be competitive and faster, and if you know the world's track, you can The goal is to win. the overall championship. I don't even want to win the class championship because in our championship there are different classes of cars, so there are about 20 different classes of cars," Akshay told ANI.
"They're all competing in their own individual championships, but they're all racing in the same race. They're all racing in the same race but they're all racing for different championships. But overall, out of these 120 cars, there's one car in particular that wins the overall championship, It could be any category," said the 31-year-old driver.
The Motorsport racer said that selection for the overall championship depends on the class and not the position in which the race is finished.
"I want to win the overall championship and it doesn't matter if I finish the race and cross the second position, it depends on your class. If there are enough participants, they need seven or more participants to give you all the points for "If there are enough participants, then you get all the points. points for the class, so you need to keep winning your races consistently, and I think with the pace I have to do it next year," said the Mertens driver.
Akshay also spoke about the support he has received throughout his career so far. He said his family and his university have been very supportive.
"In the first few years of my journey, I had a couple of sponsors. When I was 18 or 19, when I started racing, I won the Toyota National Championship. And in that period, the responses I had were very helpful. My university In fact sponsored me and that was a great help," added the motorsports driver.
In the end, the 31-year-old concluded by saying that his sister used to provide funding in the early stages of his career.
"Family support has been fantastic. My sister has been funding part of my career in the early days. Little by little, I've gotten to a point where the scale I compete on is really big. The money involved "I usually take it out of my savings during my own trip," concluded the driver from Ahmedabad.
Akshay began his career as a professional driver in 2010, Akshay demonstrated his driving prowess by finishing second at the Buddh International Circuit for Toyota in the season finale of the National Championship in 2013. His remarkable talent also earned him recognition. of Nissan, which selected him after a rigorous driver selection program among 10,000 drivers in India to compete in the final of the Asian GT Academy held in the United Kingdom. The competition has been turned into a major feature film released on Netflix called Gran Turismo.
Parallel to his racing endeavors, Akshay's need to fulfill his passion for racing led him to entrepreneurship, where he founded a connected car startup called Scouto, which was notably acquired by online used car retail unicorn Spinny in December 2021. This serves as a testament to his success both on and off the track, and following his triumphs on the business scene, the Indian has returned to his racing roots.
Akshay represented India as the sole Mertens Motorsport driver in the prestigious 2024 Nurburgring Langstrecken-Series and had a standout performance in the NLS3 race, overcoming formidable challenges to achieve impressive results.
The Ahmedabad rider stated that he now wants to win the overall championship and not the category championship.
"One of the goals behind competing in NLS is that it will eliminate any little fear you have in terms of racing cars. If you can race here, you can be competitive and faster, and if you know the world's track, you can The goal is to win. the overall championship. I don't even want to win the class championship because in our championship there are different classes of cars, so there are about 20 different classes of cars," Akshay told ANI.
"They're all competing in their own individual championships, but they're all racing in the same race. They're all racing in the same race but they're all racing for different championships. But overall, out of these 120 cars, there's one car in particular that wins the overall championship, It could be any category," said the 31-year-old driver.
The Motorsport racer said that selection for the overall championship depends on the class and not the position in which the race is finished.
"I want to win the overall championship and it doesn't matter if I finish the race and cross the second position, it depends on your class. If there are enough participants, they need seven or more participants to give you all the points for "If there are enough participants, then you get all the points. points for the class, so you need to keep winning your races consistently, and I think with the pace I have to do it next year," said the Mertens driver.
Akshay also spoke about the support he has received throughout his career so far. He said his family and his university have been very supportive.
"In the first few years of my journey, I had a couple of sponsors. When I was 18 or 19, when I started racing, I won the Toyota National Championship. And in that period, the responses I had were very helpful. My university In fact sponsored me and that was a great help," added the motorsports driver.
In the end, the 31-year-old concluded by saying that his sister used to provide funding in the early stages of his career.
"Family support has been fantastic. My sister has been funding part of my career in the early days. Little by little, I've gotten to a point where the scale I compete on is really big. The money involved "I usually take it out of my savings during my own trip," concluded the driver from Ahmedabad.
Akshay began his career as a professional driver in 2010, Akshay demonstrated his driving prowess by finishing second at the Buddh International Circuit for Toyota in the season finale of the National Championship in 2013. His remarkable talent also earned him recognition. of Nissan, which selected him after a rigorous driver selection program among 10,000 drivers in India to compete in the final of the Asian GT Academy held in the United Kingdom. The competition has been turned into a major feature film released on Netflix called Gran Turismo.
Parallel to his racing endeavors, Akshay's need to fulfill his passion for racing led him to entrepreneurship, where he founded a connected car startup called Scouto, which was notably acquired by online used car retail unicorn Spinny in December 2021. This serves as a testament to his success both on and off the track, and following his triumphs on the business scene, the Indian has returned to his racing roots.
