Nivetha Pethuraj became an overnight sensation when she shared pictures from the track. She recently completed level 1 of Formula Race Car training recently. In a recent interview, she opened up on how she ended up in the tracks and her upcoming plains.

When I came to Chennai, I visited a few motor racing tracks. But never did I imagine that I would be racing on a track, one day. My brother Nishanth and I visited the racing school in Coimbatore and enrolled on the programme three months ago. Each session would have only eight people and I was the only girl among them. As I got used to the tracks, I started feeling more confident. By the end of it, my lap timings were almost on par with the other guys. That gave me a lot of self-confidence. I realised that motorsports weren’t just for men, but for women as well.” she said

When a question was shot towards her about the challenges she faced during this training she said “Every single second on the track is very challenging. The maximum speed we hit was 180km/hr. But generally, when you are on other tracks or Formula 3, 2 or 1, you travel at 350+ km/hr, which is very fast. Of course, those cars are built for that. This car, too, is built for that speed, but it is very difficult to control the car. Your core needs to be very strong for you not to spin or topple the car as accidents can happen in any unexpected second. So, you have to have a great presence of mind. The most challenging thing for me was to control the car at a very high speed. When you take steep turns, your body goes to the opposite side. At that time, you may hurt your neck. So, I need to learn how to move with the flow. Even though the experience was scary, it felt wonderful. I feel I belong to the track.”

She is already approached by sponsors for championships but Nivetha opted to wait a bit and complete her training “There is one race coming up in September, but I don’t think I am confident as yet. I need to get a lot of training before I participate and I am waiting to get my FMSCI license, which will give me access to participate in national-level races. If I am confident enough before September, I will take it up. If not, I’ll wait for a few months, she added.

When asked about her future plans, she said. “After completing all the levels, my next goal is to go to a drifting school in Mumbai. I am already saving for it. Hope we see this beauty on the tracks soon.