How often do you see a storyteller become the story? It’s as rare as spotting a globetrotting Formula One journalist from a cricket-obsessed South Asian country in the giant media centre of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
And if the journalist happens to be a female, it only adds an element of mystique.
For Niharika Ghorpade, it was love at first sight with motorsport when her father, a Formula One enthusiast, took her to a karting track many moons ago.
Despite coming from a family of car enthusiasts, Ghorpade never pursued a career in motorsport after competing at karting level in India. Her younger brother, Parth Ghorpade, did. A five-time national champion in India and the first Indian to test drive with the Ferrari Driver Academy, he went on to win the Formula Abarth Asian Championship.
But Ghorpade has also carved a niche of her own, having become India’s only full-time F1 journalist who recently completed her 11th season as an accredited writer at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Emerging from a small town, Kolhapur in Maharashtra, and overcoming the odds in a male-dominated Indian sports media industry, Ghorpade is a trendsetter in India, writing on F1 cars, the masterpieces of engineering, and spellbinding races across the world.
“In India, it's the gender dynamic that can be very complicated. We are still way too much of a patriarchy-driven society. You have to continuously keep proving your credibility, and you must work towards it relentlessly,” Ghorpade reflected on her challenging journey.
She may have established herself as an important voice from India, but Ghorpade still faces challenges every year while travelling from one city to another in the 24-race long F1 season, which requires pit stops in Asia, Europe, Australia and the Americas.
“My (Indian) passport goes against me; we need visas to travel to most countries, unlike my colleagues in the media centre from other countries,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Also, the Forex is always against us. Logistically, it's expensive, very hard to convince publications to take care of your budgets, so that tends to be a struggle.
“And then obviously it's a very British-dominated sport. The PRs keep changing, you have to keep reestablishing your relationships in each team, and your (Indian) publications are less known than the standard ones they know in this sport.
“So yes, it’s a very challenging profession, and I ended up with two choices — either I let it get into my head and keep worrying about the obstacles, or the other was to try and survive and thrive. And now it has become my biggest identity, being the only Indian journalist — male or female — covering the full F1 season.”
And the man whose heart swells with pride seeing her cover F1 races and interview champions like Max Verstappen is Karnsingh Ghorpade, her father.
“He's 71 now, but both of us would sit and talk motorsport, the father-daughter thing in our family,” she said.
“So, it's one of the unusual households. Most families gossip at gatherings. But we debrief engines, strategy, and all of that,” she laughed.
“It's quite normal in our household. And he is proud of how far I’ve come on my road to F1 journalism.”
