New Delhi: At seven years old, when most kids are busy figuring out their favorite cartoons or playground games, Arshi Gupta has discovered her new obsession: speed. At seven years, five months and eighteen days, she became the youngest driver to obtain a racing license, which entered her into the Indian record book and quietly suggested that something unusual was brewing on the narrow lanes of Faridabad.“When she was young, maybe just three or four, we noticed that she loved speed and she had great control over speed,” her father Ankit Gupta told TOI in an exclusive interaction. “When she drives around our house on her toy car or tricycle, we notice she has great control and she has a speed that she likes.”
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Her love of speed has now taken her to one of the biggest stages in motorsport.Last week, Arshie, now nine, became the youngest driver ever to be selected for the F1 Academy Discover Your Driving (DYD) programme, a global initiative aimed at identifying and supporting young female racing talent.
talk about speed
Long before there were professional karts and international circuits, there were toy cars and tricycles. Anchit is a Formula One fan who never thought he would pursue a career in professional motorsport, but he saw something different in his daughter’s fearless spirit.He looked for a place where kids could legally drive. The search led him to a small go-kart track in Gurgaon.“She started going there every week and became one of the fastest people on the track for five months,” he recalled.
Arshi Gupta (Special Arrangements)
Track owner and former Formula 4 driver Rohit Khanna suggested she experience professional racing conditions.By the end of 2023, Arshi had gained first-hand experience working with a proper racing team.“Rohit told me that he was going to Bengaluru with his team for a test project and he wanted Arshi to join the team to get a taste of professional cars and see if she liked it. That’s how it started,” her father added.By then, however, who knew it would become a journey that would require crossing borders, continents, and countless logistical hurdles.
Systemless racing
By any traditional standards, India is not the birthplace of Formula One dreams. There is no grassroots ladder, no intensive competition schedule, no thriving junior pipeline. It is no coincidence that India has not produced any top racing driver so far.“The biggest challenge is that there really is no motorsport ecosystem in north India,” Anchit says bluntly. “Even if you go to Bengaluru, Chennai, the ecosystem there is nothing compared to what we see in the UAE, Europe or the UK.”When Arshi started training, there was only one professional karting track in India. Traveling from Delhi to Bangalore to practice felt as taxing as flying to the Middle East. So the family chose the latter.From October 2024 to February 2025, Arshi will compete in the IAME Series and Rotax Max Challenge in the UAE.
Arshi Gupta (Special Arrangements)
She reached the podium for the first time in January 2025 and has consistently finished in the top ten against experienced international competitors.“That gives us confidence,” Anchit added. “So we talked to different people in the industry and we learned that training in the UK is the best. The UK has some of the best riders in the world.”This was followed by seven weeks of training in the UK before she returned to India to compete in the National Karting Championship. She won the championship, becoming Asia’s only women’s national karting champion and the youngest champion among boys and girls.
F1 Academy Breakthrough
In January 2026, Arshi’s racing resume was submitted to the F1 Academy selection panel. The process is competitive, divided into age groups and designed to support a small number of girls worldwide each year.“She was chosen,” Anchit said with obvious pride. “It will give her the right platform and the right guidance as part of the Formula 1 Academy Driver Programme.”Needless to say, she is the only one of the bunch who holds an Indian karting license.Through the DYD programme, Arshi will receive support from the UK Future Academy Champions programme, competing across four rounds in the UK against the world’s strongest junior riders.
life beyond orbit
The romance of motorsport often masks the hardships. For Arsh, childhood was a blur of airports, highways and homework squeezed between circles.“There’s a lot of difficulty with traveling, late night, early morning flights,” Anchit admitted. “But that didn’t stop her at all.”In her father’s words, she would race on the weekends, then drive five hours to the next track, grab a bite to eat on the way and sleep in the back seat of the car.“She would eat whatever she could in the car, sleep in the back of the car and do her homework,” he said. “She is an excellent student. She would study on the plane, she would study on the runway, but we never saw her complain. “
Arshi Gupta (Special Arrangements)
In fact, the only complaints were when she wasn’t competing. “If you were in India and we didn’t take her to a track anywhere, that would be a complaint for her,” Anchit said with a laugh. “She said, ‘Why aren’t we on track?'”Behind Arshi’s rise is a small but tight-knit family unit. Anchit is involved in renewable energy investments; her mother, Deepti Gupta, is a doctor. Her sister completed the quartet.Her school, DPS Faridabad, adjusted the timetable and exams according to her travels.“We’ve made it clear to her that you can’t compromise academically,” Anchit revealed. “She learned to prioritize and manage her time.”Arshi Gupta’s rise is more than just a feel-good story; it’s perhaps a criticism of the structural vacuum in Indian motorsport.Also read: She competes in her first international event at age 7, wins world title; ‘nervous’ to meet PM Modi: How Praganika Lakshmi became a chess prodigyHer journey required moving to the UAE and the UK, competing abroad and building a global network by the age of ten.However, as she prepares to race in the UK this year with the support of the F1 Academy and compete against the best juniors in the world, her story speaks volumes about what Indian talent can achieve if given the necessary help.
