This Lonavala-based motorsport champion aims to set up a racetrack for enthusiasts

Dhruv Chavan

Twenty-one lakh rupees to compete, six-and-a-half lakh in damages, and yet Dhruv Chavan came home with the title of the Polo Cup 2024 National Champion and the Pop Cup 2024 National Junior Champion. Now, the 21-year-old is planning the next steps for his business. Will it be associated with motorsport racing? He hopes. "My plan is to bring IndiKarting to Lonavala, where people can just come to chill and drive. But I will only know for sure after some market research," he says, adding that he is aiming to start laying the tarmac once the monsoon season ends.

Chavan grew up in Lonavala with a keen interest in cars rather than studies. "If I saw a car, I would write its name down on my palm and then come home and research about it on Google," he says, talking about how passionate he has been since he was five. Chavan's maternal uncle introduced him to the world of motorsport racing via the F1 races, and he was hooked.

After completing high school, Chavan was geared to head to Mumbai and begin racing. But his parents pushed him to go to college, which he eventually dropped out from within a year. At the age of 18, Chavan came across a team in Mumbai, Rayo Racing, where he got his first experience of the track. The decision was an easy one, "I was a natural, which helped me be fast from the beginning. In my very first race, I got a pole, which is big for racing drivers," he says. The pole position is a starting position in racing, on the inside of the front row. It's considered the best starting position and is given to the driver with the fastest qualifying time. On the second day, Chavan enrolled himself and began training as a racer, a career that he had never thought he would follow.

By the time he got into the world of racing, Chavan was aware that he would never become a Formula One racer. He explains that lakhs of drivers from across the world aspire to become F1 racers, and only 20 achieve that dream. "Some of these racers start training as early as when they are only three or four years of age. They are F1 drivers by the time they are 18. It was already too late for me," he says. Instead, his eye was on the FIA World Endurance Championship.

So far, Chavan has competed in 15 races, most of which he has won. He still remembers one loss that cost him a 25 lakh sponsorship. "I couldn't understand why I wasn't winning," he says. "In motorsport, skills are important but there is also the luck factor. I had bad luck with the engines and had to replace multiple of them. One of my coaches explained to me that this is what motorsport is. At times, it does not matter how skilled you are. So, I lost my sponsorship, but I understood that it was not meant to be," says Chavan, who moved on with his head held high and looked for different opportunities.

Finally, came the time to compete at Polo Cup India. Colouring a lap-by-lap picture of the race, Chavan talks about the weekend of racing that's crystal in his head. He details each lap, and talks about the other racers and their moves, as if commenting live from the scene. It shows his passion and his parents' support. On day one of the races, Chavan's car flipped over. This could mean only one thing: Pay for the damages or tap out of the race.

Chavan had a decision to make. He spoke to his parents about the situation and told them he would leave the race as the damages were quite high. After hanging up the phone, he spoke to his coaches and headed back to his hotel room. In minutes his father's text to him read: Continue the race, we will take care of the damages.

It's this that brought him to tears finally. But the next day of the race was not going to be easy on him either. Speaking about the lap that finally won him the title, he describes, "So moving under breaking is an illegal manoeuvre. But he [another racer] still did that and he didn't get a penalty for that," he explains, "But then the next lap, I made a move on him and he almost took me out. After that, I just had to finish the race because, by the time I had overtaken the guy in front of me, he was long gone."

The 21-year-old champion has his head on his shoulders and is aware that his racing career is not one that he can solely bank on or explain to most. Though, winning the Polo Cup has helped him shut down his family members who once offered no support. He says that the future of Indian motorsport racing largely depends on the infrastructure, which is why he is dreaming of bringing a race track to Lonavala.

Will he succeed? "Only the calculations after the market research can tell," he says. But if it works out, by the end of this year, Lonavala will see a race track come to life.