[ F E A T U R E ]
WORDS TEAM TURBOCHARGED
H E R O E S O F T U R B O C H A R G E D
SANJAY SHARMA
Catching up with the man who is known as the ‘Bernie Ecclestone of India’!
J
K Tyre has had a hand in creating some of the
country’s greatest motorsport personalities.
In fact, we’ve featured a few already,
including Hari Singh and Gaurav Gill. That’s
besides the fact that the only two Indian
drivers to make it to Formula 1, Narain
Karthikeyan and Karun Chandhok, both cut
their teeth in racing in the JK Tyre National
Racing Championship before being supported by the
tyre major to make it big internationally!
In fact JK Tyre’s motorsport program is an
institution in itself, having created motorsport
champions across multiple generations in over
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two decades. And at the helm of proceedings is
Sanjay Sharma, affectionately known as ‘Hardy’.
He has been responsible for backing most Indian
racers who have raced abroad. Of course, his love
for all things fast started at a very young age and
(thankfully!) Hardy isn’t a suited-booted corporate
who was given the reins of what is arguably one of
the country’s best motorsport programs. He was
actively into motorsport himself and learnt driving
thanks to his school friend and neighbour, Titu
Singh (Titu Singh passed away recently and we at
Team TURBOCHARGED offer our condolences to
his family).
 Titu Singh also introduced Hardy to motorsport,
following which Hardy was further coached by Tutu
Dhawan, another motorsport veteran. Tutu helped
Hardy understand the finer nuances of motor racing,
also introducing him to technicalities. He got truly
bitten by the bug when he was marshalling the
Himalayan Rally, back in 1985. Needless to mention
Hardy went onto compete in the rally himself, as
driver and then as co-driver (navigator) too. However
all his major achievements have been as navigator,
in India and abroad says Hardy. Fortunately for him,
Vikram Singhania (MD of JK Tyre until 2016) was his
batchmate in college, which helped Hardy enjoy an
informal relationship with the Singhania family.
Along with Vikram Singhania, Hardy put in place
a motorsport program, circa 1993. Interestingly the
focus was on rallying, since that was the era of the
Himalayan Rally and also because he had been more
into rallying himself. They had some of the country’s
best talent, including Hari Singh, Nikhil Taneja and
Dicky Gill, all veterans. The only true competitors
he says was the works team from MRF Tyres, who
had N Leelakrishnan (we featured him just last
month as one of the Heroes of TURBOCHARGED!).
JK Tyre went on to win the INRC (Indian National

September 2021 www.turbocharged.in 67

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HARDY HAS BEEN

INSTRUMENTAL IN CREATING
WORLD-CLASS RACERS WHO
HAVE BEEN MAKING THE
NATION PROUD

68 www.turbocharged.in September 2021

Rally Championship) five times in quick succession.
Mid-1990s is when JK shifted focus to racing. That’s
also the time when the late S Karivardhan built the
Formula Maruti car which was a perfect platform to
launch a racing program for youngsters, says Hardy.
He says the JK Tyre National Racing Championship
runs the Formula LGB class even today, because it is
the most affordable racing series in the world. And
that’s important for a country like ours he feels, given
that Indian racers’ pockets aren’t as deep as those
of their foreign counterparts. He has always been
believed in focusing on the grass root level so kids
can be trained not just in terms of their driving skills
but marketing skills as well, so they can learn the art
of bagging sponsors early on in their careers. And the
past two decades have seen JK Tyre focus largely on
racing, which Hardy says was a conscious decision.
And it’s thanks to this focus that they have been able
to create world-class racers, including Aditya Patel
and Armaan Ebrahim who made it big in GT Racing,
before launching their own racing programs, their
newest venture being the Formula Indian Regional
Championship; besides Narain Karthikeyan and
Karun Chandhok. JK’s racing program is designed to
have young racers cut their teeth in karting, progress

Left: Sanjay Sharma aka Hardy working on an engine himself. Above: Competing in the
Great Desert Himalayan and Himalayan Rally as co-driver in a Mitsubishi Canter and a
Lancia Delta - in India! Below: Posing with the JK Tyre Rally team.

September 2021 www.turbocharged.in 69

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to the national championship and then support

them once they’re ready to race abroad. He tells us
with pride that 95 percent of Indians racing abroad
have graduated from JK Tyre Motorsport’s racing
programs!
Hardy was also responsible for bringing down
Volkswagen’s world-class one-make racing champi-
onship to India, the Polo Cup. Interestingly, he says
when he traveled to Germany to meet Kris Nissen,
the then Volkswagen Motorsport director, Nissen
could not believe Hardy was the decision maker and
thought Hardy was pulling his leg. Details of the pro-
posed program were only noted on a paper napkin
while sitting on a coffee table! The rest as we know
is history – Volkswagen launched the Polo Cup in In-
dia in 2009 and Hardy says he has a learnt a lot from
the German brand, given how structured their way of
working is.
He has thus been instrumental in creating world-
class racers who have been making the nation
proud. So be it Hari Singh’s generation, Gaurav Gill,
Karun Chandhok and Narain Karthikeyan’s or Jehan
Daruvala’s, Hardy has always been there for the sport.
TOP: At one of the press conferences with
“When your passion becomes your profession, what a younger Armaan Ebrahim. ABOVE: All
more do you want in life” he says! smiles with Bernie Ecclestone

70 www.turbocharged.in September 2021