Atiqa Mir, 11, Is the Youngest Indian With Two Top-10s in Karting's European Championship

She qualified eleventh, 0.13 seconds off the fastest time on the grid. Then she finished ninth and tenth in her heats.

Atiqa Mir is eleven years old, she is from Jammu and Kashmir, and at Round 4 of the FIA Karting European Championship in Kristianstad, Sweden, she became the youngest Indian to record two top-10 finishes in the discipline that feeds Formula 1.

The detail that makes the result land properly is the category. Atiqa was racing as a wildcard in the 12-14 age group — up to three years older than she is — in only her second FIA event. Some of the drivers she was racing are already inside Formula 1 junior development programmes.

How she got here

Atiqa is the first Indian driver backed by F1 Academy, the Formula 1-run programme built to move women drivers up the single-seater ladder. Her previous record came in May 2026, when she finished sixth in Round 2 in Spain — also as the youngest Indian to do it.

Motorsport is not a sport you fall into, and she did not. Her father, Asif Mir, was India's first national karting champion. "She was up against all-star karters of the world, including Formula 1 junior development drivers," he said of the Sweden result.

Atiqa's own read was flatter and more useful: "I'm super happy with my performance here. We achieved all our targets and I feel ready for a full championship next year."

Why a Jammu reader should care

Fair warning on geography: Atiqa is from the Kashmir side, not Jammu, and this runs here as a J&K story rather than a city one.

It earns that place because of what it says about the range of what is possible from here. The sports pathway young people in this region are shown is narrow — cricket, then a short list of disciplines with a state association and a stadium slot. Karting is not on it. There is no karting circuit in J&K. The route Atiqa is on runs through European circuits and a programme run out of Formula 1, and an eleven-year-old from this union territory is currently ahead of the field's own age curve on it.

The practical version of that, for anyone reading this at 16 in Jammu and wondering whether their sport counts: the ceiling on where you can go from here is set a lot higher than the local infrastructure suggests, and a wildcard entry is a real thing you can be given.

A full championship campaign is what she says is next.

Sources: The Tribune; Eastern Eye; Greater Kashmir.