Coimbatore: Sixteen-year old Akhil Khushlani from Hyderabad is among the four young drivers who have been selected to represent the two teams of Formula One driver Narain Karthikeyan at the 2006 JK Tyre National Racing Championship, in the Formula Rolon category.

After strenuous trials for two days, Narain announced his two teams ? Amaron NK Racing and Speed NK Racing ? by analysing the large amount of data collected and studying the drivers’ past records, achievements and the teamwork they demonstrated.

The selected drivers are Ameya Walavalkar (23) from Mumbai, Adity Akkineni (17) from Hyderabad, Aditya Patel (17) from Chennai and Akhil Khushlani (16) from Hyderabad, a press release from Narain Racing said.

It was decided that one driver with extensive experience in domestic racing would be selected.

His knowledge of Indian racing cars from the past seasons would prove to be a great benefit to the team in its first year of operations. As Narain may be unable to attend all six rounds of the championship, beginning on August 20 here and ending in Chennai in December, due to his commitments as a Williams Formula One test driver this deemed to be important.

The other three drivers were selected on the basis of lap times, consistency, natural ability, and career performance, the release said. Karthik Shankar (19) of Delhi and Ajay Kini (17) from Chennai have been selected as reserve drivers.

The reserves will step into any of the main drivers’ cockpits in case the main drivers are unable to attend a race due to illness, injury and clashing educational commitments, the release said.

Narain was very thankful to them for supporting his new venture in Indian motorsport and advised them to continue pursuing their dreams of achieving motor racing glory.

“I’m really happy to give these young guns this opportunity” Narain said. (PTI)