Aditya Patel

Aditya Patel (born July 8, 1988 in Madras, India) is an Indian racing driver and represents Audi India Motorsport. Prior to this, he has competed in the Volkswagen Scirocco R-Cup, Polo Cup, Formula BMW Pacific and the 24 hours of Nurburgring.

Aditya was given his first taste of motorsport in a Go-Kart at the age of four. He began participating in local Go-Karting events at the age of eleven. Although in school, his parents Kamlesh Patel (former Indian racing and rally champion) and Amita Patel were instrumental in showing support in his early career. His first national title came in 2001 when he won the Jk Tyre Junior Karting championship in Goa.

Patel continued to pursue racing as well as academics while trying to strike a balance between the two. It was only in 2007, in his final year of high school, that he won the National racing championship in Single seaters for the NK Racing team owned by Narain Karthikeyan as well Rotax Max India challenge and went on to represent the country in the Rotax world finals held in Al-Ain.

Patel's international career began with a bang, notching up a third place finish on his debut in the Formula BMW Pacific Championship in 2008. After a year of racing in Asia, Aditya was given an offer to race in the Volkswagen Polo cup in Germany, which he accepted due to budget constraints in Single Seater racing. From there on he continued to race in tin-tops in the Scirocco R Cup in Germany with two wins and two podium finishes to his name.

In 2012 Patel was signed by Audi India and raced the 24 hours of Nurburgring in an Audi TT for Pro Handicap ev (with team mates Oliver Rudolf and Wolfgang Muller) and won in the SP4T category. He was then given a drive in the JK Racing Asia series where he notched up four Podium finishes and a Win, becoming the first Indian to climb on the podium and win an International event at the Buddh International Circuit.

Aditya participated in the ADAC GT Masters series in Germany with Team MS Racing in an Audi R8 LMS. The series in widely accepted by drivers and teams as one on the most competitive GT Series' in the world today. He was joined in the car by Daniel Dobistch who has been racing in the series for three years now. Together they made considerable progress and had a few top ten finishes over a span of 16 races in 8 weekends.

In 2014, Aditya had a successful year with Team Novadriver alongside team mate, Cesar Campanico in the International GT Open Series. The duo finished on the podium a total of five times through the year, which included a win at Jerez, and stood 6th overall in the GT3 category. Aditya also had his best GT3 qualifying in Silverstone where he qualified on Pole position.

2015 saw Aditya make a move into the Asian motorsport scene by entering the Audi R8 LMS Cup with team Audi China. After a successful beginning to the season, Aditya entered the halfway mark in the lead of the driver's standings. However, after a couple of bad weekends, capped off the season with a win in the final race and ended fourth in the overall standings.