Arshi Gupta (Special arrangements)

NEW DELHI: At seven, when most children are generally busy figuring out their favourite cartoons or playground games, Arshi Gupta had already discovered her new obsession: speed. By seven years, five months and 18 days, she had become the youngest driver to obtain a racing licence, which landed her in the India Book of Records and quietly signalled that something unusual was brewing in the narrow lanes of Faridabad.“When she was young, maybe 3 or 4 years old, we noticed that she liked speed and she had decent control over it,” her father Anchit Gupta told TimesofIndia.com during an exclusive interaction. “When she was with her toy cars or tricycles driving around our home, we noticed that she had good control, and she had speed that she loved.”

That love for speed has now taken her to one of the biggest stages in motorsport.Last week, Arshi, now 9, became the youngest driver ever selected for the F1 Academy Discover Your Drive (DYD) programme, which is a global initiative designed to identify and support young female racing talent.

Talking to speed

Long before professional karts and international circuits, there were toy cars and tricycles. Anchit, a Formula 1 fan who never imagined pursuing racing professionally himself, saw something different in his daughter’s fearlessness.He searched for a place where a child could legally drive. That search led him to a small karting track in Gurgaon.“She started going there every week, and she became one of the fastest on that track in that five-month period,” he recalled.

Arshi Gupta (Special arrangements)

The track owner, former Formula 4 racer Rohit Khanna, suggested she experience professional racing conditions.By late 2023, Arshi was having first-hand experience with a proper racing team.“Rohit told me that he’s taking his team for a testing programme to Bangalore, and he would like Arshi to join the team and just experience professional cars and see if she likes it or not. So that’s how it started,” her father added.However, at that point, who knew it would become a journey requiring crossing borders, continents, and countless logistical barriers.

Racing without a system

By any conventional measure, India is not where Formula 1 dreams are supposed to begin. There is no grassroots ladder, no dense calendar of races, no thriving junior pipeline. It’s not a coincidence that India has not managed to produce a single top-level racer to date.“The biggest challenge has been the fact that there really is no motorsports ecosystem in North India,” Anchit said bluntly. “Even if you go to Bangalore, Chennai, the ecosystem is nothing compared to what we see in the UAE or in Europe or in the UK.”When Arshi began training, India had just one professional karting track. Travelling from Delhi to Bangalore for practice felt as burdensome as flying to the Middle East. So the family chose the latter.Between October 2024 and February 2025, Arshi was based in the UAE, racing in the IAME Series and Rotax Max Challenge.

Arshi Gupta (Special arrangements)

She earned her first podium in January 2025 and consistently finished in the top ten against seasoned international competitors.“That gave us confidence,” Anchit added. “So we spoke to different people in the industry, and we were informed that training in the UK is the best. The UK has some of the best drivers in the world.”Seven weeks of training in Britain followed, before she returned to India to compete in the National Karting Championship. She won it and became the only female national karting champion in Asia and the youngest champion across boys and girls.

The F1 Academy breakthrough

In January 2026, Arshi’s racing CV was submitted to the F1 Academy selection panel. The process is competitive, divided into age categories and designed to support just a handful of girls globally each year.“She was selected,” Anchit said with some palpable pride. “Being part of the Formula One Academy driver programme, it is going to give her the right platform and the right guidance.”It goes without saying that she is the only Indian karting licence holder in the cohort.Through the DYD programme, Arshi will be supported in the British Champions of the Future Academy programme, racing across four rounds in the UK against some of the strongest junior drivers in the world.

Life beyond the tracks

The romance of motorsport often hides the grind. For Arshi, childhood has been a blur of airports, highways, and homework squeezed in between laps.“There’s a lot of struggle in terms of travel, late nights, early morning flights,” Anchit admitted. “But that has not deterred her at all.”In her father’s words, she would race at weekends, followed by five-hour drives to the next circuit, grab meals in transit, and sleep in the back of a car.“She would be eating whatever she can get in the car, sleeping in the back of the car and doing her studies,” he said. “She’s an A-plus student. She would study on the flight, she would study on the track, but we’ve never seen her complain.”

Arshi Gupta (Special arrangements)

In fact, the only complaint comes when she is not racing. “If you are in India and we’re not taking her to the track anywhere, that is a complaint for her,” Anchit laughed. “She says, ‘Why are we not on track?’”Behind Arshi’s rise is a small, tightly knit family unit. Anchit works in renewable energy investments; her mother, Deepti Gupta, is a doctor. Her younger sister completes the quartet.Her school, DPS Faridabad, has adapted schedules and exams around her travels.“We’ve been very clear with her that you cannot compromise on your studies,” Anchit revealed. “She has learned to prioritise and manage time.”Arshi Gupta’s rise is not just a feel-good story; it is perhaps a critique of Indian motorsport’s structural vacuum.ALSO READ: World champion at 7 in her first international event; ‘nervous’ while meeting PM Modi: How Pragnika Lakshmi became a chess prodigyHer journey required relocating to the UAE and UK, competing abroad, and building a global network before the age of ten.Yet, as she prepares to race in Britain this year, supported by F1 Academy and competing against the world’s best juniors, her story tells a lot about what an Indian talent can achieve if given the requisite aid.