Late start, college can't keep Dubai teen from F1 dream

Zaamin Jaffer had never raced until he moved to Dubai at age 14. Seven years later he is closing in on his Formula One target.

Zaamin Jaffer.

Zaamin Jaffer grins when he recalls the first time his mother came to see him race in Formula Ford. Understandably nervous about her only child's chosen career, in 2009 she nevertheless made the journey from their home in The Lakes, Dubai, to Snetterton, a circuit in the east of England, to see her son in action.

"We had had a discussion about where might be the safest place for her to watch," he says. He opted for a spot midway along the main straight - "What could go wrong there?"

But instead of seeing her son motoring past harmlessly, Zakera Jaffer was treated to the spectacle of Zaamin, in the middle of a bunch of five tightly packed cars, being repeatedly shunted from behind by an aggressive rival at 235kph.

Just recently, Jaffer, 21, returned to the UK to begin the next lap of his race to become a Formula One driver. After two seasons in Formula Ford, he is graduating to the British Auto Racing Club's Formula Renault Championship for his first taste of "slicks and wings" - but not before he spent a final week cramming for an exam for his degree at Cardiff University.

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In a sport in which young drivers are frequently privileged children whose wealthy parents have bankrolled their progress up through the ranks, Jaffer stands out for having made his way so far under his own steam.

Further progress, however, now depends on finding a sponsor to back what could prove to be the UAE's first Grand Prix star.

Jaffer was born and raised in Mumbai, where his family ran a business leasing out construction equipment. An only child, Jaffer was just seven years old when his father died. Two years later he won a scholarship to study as a boarder at Millfield, a coeducational private school in Somerset, England, where he worked to gain the necessary A-levels for university.

It wasn't until he was 14, when his mother decided to move to Dubai, that he got his "first chance to drive something". Many would-be racing drivers get their start in karting at a much earlier age, but for Jaffer it was better late than never.

"I just started driving for fun at the Dubai Autodrome, but then I brought up the idea of racing in the UAE National Karting Championship."

Grudgingly, his mother bought him a Dh30,000 racing kart at the age of 16, which he had had for about a month before his first senior-division race, in 2006. To his own surprise, he finished second. On his second outing, two months later, he won the race and that, he says, "is when I realised I could make something of this".

For the best part of the next two years, Jaffer raced sporadically, but he knew he couldn't afford to hang around in karting for long. He also knew he needed someone familiar with the racing scene.

At 17, through a letter-and-email campaign, Jaffer managed to convice John Pratt, a former Formula Ford, Formula three and saloon-car racer and driver coach based in the UK, to be his coach and manager. Pratt steered him towards the single-seat Formula Ford series.

In 2008, even as he studied for his A-levels, Jaffer set about trying to raise the sponsorship he would need - both for Pratt's services and for a drive with a Formula Ford team. In all, his first season, in 2009, would cost him about Dh700,000.

"I e-mailed hundreds of companies every week. I tried the UK, here, India, and it was just 'No, no, no'. I got hundreds of rejections."

He finally found a private benefactor who wishes to remain anonymous - and who is not, he says emphatically, his mother, who runs her interior design business in Dubai.

"My mum doesn't pay for any of it. At the beginning she said, 'If it comes to it I'll try to help out', but I didn't want to put that burden on her."

Jaffer joined Raysport in 2009, and at his first race he qualified 16th out of 24 drivers, and finished the season fourth in the rookie standings.

He found himself learning fast. "What really shocked me was how close everyone was. In karting, there are five or six quick guys at the front and the rest are spread out. In Formula Ford, if you are 1.2 seconds off the pace you are going to be last. Lose one-tenth of second and you'll be three or four places back."

Last year, however, didn't go his way.

"By the end of the season, I counted 13 out of 25 races in which I had either had a technical problem or got hit by someone else," says Jaffer.

In the end, he finished the season 16th out of 26. "The positive I took out of the season was pace; there were moments when I had shown I could run up at the front."

Jaffer and his mentor then made the decision to get him into a class dominated by similar technical considerations.

The obvious F1 feeder class was the British Automobile Racing Club's Formula Renault Championship, from which Kimi Räikkönen graduated to Formula One.

"A lot will depend on this year," he says. "I haven't had the results I believe I should have, and it's got to the point where I really do need to perform now, otherwise I've got to reconsider where I'm going."

But he'll be going nowhere without the money he needs for the coming season - and which he has yet to find. He has won the promotional support of Dubai communications and marketing company Active PR, but he will need to find about Dh750,000 by the time team testing starts in the UK at the end of this month.

He is firmly committed to giving his F1 bid everything he has, but he is already looking ahead to a Plan B. If he hits the end of the road, Jaffer would like to start his own management and coaching operation in the UAE to pass along everything he has learnt in his time racing. The sport has changed his life.

What you gain, he says, is "an extra determination that I don't believe you would in everyday life. You get used to working long hours, flat out, and you just keep going.

"Even if I went into business I would have that mental strength."