SINGAPORE – Almost 30 years to the day when legendary Formula One driver Ayrton Senna fatally crashed at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, a Singaporean teenage speedster had a close shave on the same track.

During a Formula Four test event at Italy’s Imola circuit in April 2023, Kabir Anurag lost control and drove into the wall near the infamous Tamburello corner, where Senna hit a concrete barrier and died.

Fortunately for the 16-year-old, who is throttling at 250kmh despite being below Singapore’s minimum driving age of 18, he lived to tell the tale.

Emerging with a “ballooned” right hand as his second metacarpal broke into four pieces during the accident, he flew back to Singapore the next day for surgery.

He said the crash made him realise that this sport needs respect and it requires discipline to race.

“When you’re pushing a vehicle to the limit, you are eventually going to go over it,” said Kabir, who was racing for French team R-ace GP. “It was a scary moment because I never really expected to break something. I was worried if I could hold the steering wheel again or return to racing.”

Gradually regaining confidence, he returned to the track in just seven weeks, half of the estimated recovery time. In his debut F4 weekend last July following his comeback, he finished 26th and 17th out of 37 drivers in the first two of three races at Circuit Paul Ricard.

Convinced of his potential, Alpine signed Kabir in April 2024, making him the first Singaporean to join an F1 development team.

Kabir, a Singapore-born Indian national who with his parents became Singapore citizens in 2020, has covered a lot of ground in a short time against others with years of experience.

He was just five when he was mesmerised by F1 cars zipping by on the Marina Bay Street Circuit as Sebastian Vettel won the second of his five Singapore Grand Prix titles.

Six years later, he experienced that adrenaline rush when he first hopped into a go-kart at the old KF1 track in Jurong.

As the former United World College of South East Asia student started winning local karting championships, he became more serious about his F1 target.

His parents, who are understood to spend a six-figure sum annually on their younger son’s ambitions, backed his move to Italy’s Desenzano del Garda in 2022 with his coach and manager Pavan Ravishankar.

There, he gets support from mechanics, engineers, physical trainers and sports psychologists as he juggles training with his studies.

Pavan, a 24-year-old Singaporean who used to compete in the British F3, said Kabir has “a lot of fire in him”.

He added: “It is what drives him to the gym and work on the simulator every day and become the best version of himself.

“The plan was to spend 2023 racing shifter karting, a category of karting with gears. We were also doing some F4 preparations in private... He improved a lot faster than we expected, and we realised we can race F4 sooner.

“Being in the Alpine Academy gives us a route where he could potentially become an F1 driver with Alpine, but that’s not a given. We still need to do a really good job in the upcoming categories to reach that goal.”

F4 is the first step from karting to F1, with drivers typically progressing through F4, Formula Regional, Formula 3 and Formula 2.

There have been speed bumps along the way, as Kabir admitted to initially struggling in the wet and feeling inadequate against some “untouchable” drivers.

The 1.88m teenager, who misses Singapore’s kaya toast and the egg fried rice and xiao long bao dumplings at Din Tai Fung, also had to shed eight kilos to 65kg in a few months to meet the weight limit, because an extra 10kg “can cost 0.4 seconds in lap time”.

What has not reduced is his insatiable need for speed. In the first race weekend of his first full F4 season at Misano on May 4 and 5, he finished 29th and 23rd out of 37 drivers. Calling it “disastrous”, he vowed to improve when he returns to Imola for the second race weekend from May 31 to June 2.

Inspired by Fernando Alonso who won his world titles with Renault before they were rebranded as Alpine, Kabir aims to become an F1 driver in seven years.

He said: “There are drivers who started karting at four but I’ve spent only four years and I’ve been able to catch up. My progress is rapid and if I keep on levelling everything up, I’ll be at a super high level ready for Formula One.”