We had the opportunity to speak to Akshay Gupta before he takes on one of the most gruelling endurance races in the world, the 24 Hours of Nurburgring. We discussed everything from his story of how he got here and how there is much more motorsports has to offer outside of Formula 1.

For those who don’t know you yet, can you tell us a bit about your background and how your motorsport journey began?

My name is Akshay Gupta, and I am currently racing in the Production car class & TCR class of the Nurburgring Endurance Championship (formerly VLN), while doing other endurance races across the world. My goal right now is to conquer The Green Hell. I want to set lap records here and win championships before I move on to other racing tracks and championships across the world.

I am also a tech entrepreneur who built a Connected Car startup focusing on the consumer market and sold it to Spinny in December 2021. I love building companies as much as I love racing cars.

Was there a moment when you thought to yourself that this wasn’t just a hobby, but something you could pursue professionally?

A lot of times. When I was doing the Nissan GT Academy, my laptimes in a completely new car, on the first lap, were faster than their factory driver on a couple of occasions.

Last year, doing my first ever race with the team, on a track like Nurburgring, I closed the gap to the last year’s champion within a few laps, and we had very close competition throughout the year. By the end of the year, we were beating them.

Regularly, in our class, we have drivers like WTCC champion, World Karting Champion, LeMans winners, ex-F1 drivers, and F2 drivers who have competed to gain their license. My laptimes were always faster than all of them. Yes, one can argue that for them it isn’t as serious since they are competing in the class to get their license. But as racing drivers, we are always trying to get the best out of the car.

After you measure yourself against so many drivers on so many occasions, you start thinking if this can be more than a hobby. To be honest, most of my racing is partly funded by the teams, so I’m already doing it semi-professionally.

What is one thing you love about being a racing driver, and one thing you hate about being a racing driver?

The feeling when you’re inside the car, the mind-body sync, it’s like you’re in a different dimension, there’s this disconnect between you and the world. I absolutely love it. I’m addicted to it. There’s this quote, “Racing makes Heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty” I’ve had this on my wall for a few years now. I wouldn’t want to degrade the love I have for the sport by comparing it to a drug addiction, but there’s no other analogy that I find apt to describe how addictive it really is. The feeling.

I hate everything that it takes to get there (laughs).. like every sport, the hours of training and rehab, the hours of making the money, travelling half way across the world 13-14 times a year, living in multiple time zones, the chaos of building & breaking racecars and the operations of it, the amount of money this all takes. It’s just exhausting. It’s funny how we spend 99% of the time in misery for those few hours of pure joy.

That to me is motor racing.

You stepped away from motorsport to build a startup, and returned to racing just six days after it was acquired. What was going through your mind while you were away from motorsports, and what brought you back? Or was it always the goal to build the startup and then fund your own racing?

I always dreamt of racing cars again. By the end of the 5th or 6th year, the literal dreams had started fading, but I always knew that I was partly building it to get back behind the wheel. There were other motivators, I’ve this idealistic side in me which wants to solve a lot of world problems, and at that time, I had started my business wanting to partly solve the road safety problems in the country.

But the thing that drove me the most to endure the pain and suffering that is running a business is another poster in my room which had this image of the cockpit of my dream racecar, the Porsche 911 RSR, and a line underneath it that said, “Racing is a life sentence”..

That motivated me for all those years.

The moment I got the cheque, I knew what I wanted to spend it on.

There’s this funny incident: I was hanging out with friends, and the wife of my closest friend told me that once I get married, my wife will make me stop racing, and I said it wouldn’t happen. We were on the verge of making a large bet on this, and my friend jumped into the conversation and told his wife that no one can convince this fool to stop racing in this world. This guy knows me the most, so that sums up my relationship with motorsport.

How did the opportunity to race in the 24 Hours of Nürburgring for the first time come about?

I always wanted to do the 24 hours. Last year, I couldn’t do it because I had not fully recovered from my hand surgeries and broken ribs. I broke my ribs in June, and the race was within a month. I didn’t want to take a chance because I’d broken the same rib back to back in a period of one month.

This year, we had a major crash in the last NLS race (May), and there wasn’t enough time left to prepare the car. So, I started speaking to other teams. There were a few offers, but AsBest made the most lucrative one. The prospect of going into the biggest race of the year with a team and car you know well, offering you such lucrative terms, was too good to reject.

Tell us about the team and the car you’re driving this weekend.

I’m competing with AsBest Racing in the Cupra Leon TCR. The TCR spec cars are used worldwide in various competitions, including the World Touring Car Championship (one of the 4/5 world champions crowned at the annual FIA prize-giving ceremony)

Compared to what I usually race, the Hyundai i30N Production spec racecar, the TCR is much faster and easier. It weighs 300kg less, has 50-70 more horsepower, a lot of downforce, race ABS, completely different suspension geometry, and you are sitting right behind the B pillar.

It should be 40 seconds faster around the ring than the production car and quite close to a GT4 car in speed.

What are your goals for this race, and also long-term, somewhere down the line, in a few years?

My goal is always to win. It’s a familiar car (Dubai) and a very, very familiar track! The teammates are familiar. The team is familiar. I think we should have the pace to win this one if all goes well. But it’s endurance racing and it is Nurburgring, so even if you’re the fastest outright by a mile, a win is not guaranteed. So, I’m here to give it my all.

This year, I’ll be testing GT4 cars with some teams. The idea is to decide whether I want to go GT4 or TCR for the next 3-4 years. TCR is something I’ve tried and enjoyed, but it has been a while since I drove a GT4 car, maybe a decade. Geographically, I want to continue racing in Europe for a few more years and then move to the Americas.

I might end up buying a car in the next few years. I’m working on something. It’s much better financially that way.

Of course, the ultimate goal is to race in GT3 cars across the world and win every single iconic race!

For someone who is just starting out in his racing career and wants to one day race in the 24h of Nurburgring, what would your advice be?

Look beyond F1. In the last 2 years of racing at the ring, I might have met 100s of drivers, and it’s astonishing to see how many of those drivers make a living racing at the Nurburgring alone. There are so many parallel ladders to explore apart from the usual F4>F3>F2>F1 ladder. Yes, you’ll get the best talent in the world competing with you over there, and that will hone your skills to do better, but it will also burn the biggest hole in your pocket.

There are so many ways to climb up the ladder of becoming a professional racing driver while spending 1/20th of the amount that the F1 ladder will take, with maybe 50-60 times better odds at making it.

Majorly, it’s not just about speed in the racecar. You’ve got to have the right attitude, learn how to work with the team and engineers, set up the car, and have a good relationship with everyone, including the co-drivers. Network and know everyone in the paddock. Opportunities knock. You’ve got to place yourself in the best position to grab them.

I would say that if you get everything right and are talented, you can find yourself with a factory seat on shoe shoestring budget too.

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Akshay’s journey is nothing short of inspiring, and it shows the next generation of racing drivers who want to be professionals that there is a big world of motorsports out there, outside of Formula 1. Here is wishing Akshay good luck for his upcoming race and whatever he has next in the future.

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