Meet Atiqa Mir, the 10-year-old from Srinagar racing into Formula 1 history
This resilience is already bearing fruit. Last year, Mir qualified for the final of the prestigious Rotax Max Challenge International and won the famous Le Mans circuit in France – two first historicals for an Indian and Asian woman. These achievements have led to its selection for the Discover Your Drive program of Formula 1 Academy, an initiative designed to feed female talents in motorsport. Based to the water, where the MIR family now lives, Atiqa is one of the only three girls in the world to be chosen, and the youngest from afar.
“At school, after a race, I do a show-And-Tell,” she smiles. “Everyone always asks for my top speed. When I say 120 km / hour, they are in total shock.” For a sixth year student, the daily routine of Atiqa is closer to that of an Olympian as a schoolgirl. “I wake up at 5:30 am, I go to the gymnasium at 6 am, then to school. After 15 hours, it is a training on the simulator, another training, a simulator again. Dinner, stretch, sleep ”, she shakes, like a calendar.
On racing days, the pressure only intensifies. “The races last 16 to 17 minutes,” explains AIF. “At these speeds, with children a few centimeters from the other, it is a pressure cooker in there.” The role of his father has evolved along the way. It was watching him running who sparked Atiqa’s fascination for the Karts in a shopping center. “The sooner she needed my help, even entering and getting out of the car. Now she has a professional team around her, but she will always come back with me, ”he says. The father’s transition to a strategist is not always simple. “You want to be analytical, but you are also a parent. There is always something flowing at the back of your mind. I try to keep it there, at the back. ”
Her daughter, on the other hand, seems to be safe from the nerves. “I am a naturally cool person,” she admits. His recent trip to India, however, came with another type of endurance test: legendary trafficking in Mumbai, without finish line. “It’s quite boring to just sit. Karting is much more fun, ”she quips. But starred house stains, walks on Marine Drive and Biryani stops entertained it between the two.
While Mir is preparing for the rest of the shopping calendar, she knows that the real breed is much greater – push barriers that most adults would not even dare to approach. And this is what makes me his initial question more remarkable. “What is the meaning of the stereotype?” Atiqa Mir does not need to understand the word. At ten, she already rewritten it – at 120 km / hour.
