Shriya Lohia receives the 2022 Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar

A new light was shone on the world of Indian motorsports when 13-year-old Shriya Lohia was presented with the 2022 Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She was given the award for her contribution in sports and was also awarded prize money of Rs 1 lakh. Shriya is from Mandi, Himachal Pradesh and she opened up to us about her career so far and her plans for the suture from here on out.

Shriya has been in the world of motorsports from a very young age. She started her career in karting from the age of nine and since then, she has always been behind the wheel. She has participated in nearly 40 karting races so far comprising both national and international championships.

She has quite a few awards under her belt. She was the runner up of the 2019 X30 National Karting Championship and has also raced in Malaysia and Italy in 2019. Her first championship was the MMSC FMSCI National Rotax Max Karting Championship in 2018.

When asked about her future goals, she expressed that she is excited to take part in the junior categories of single-seater racing, but does not want to be restricted to just the single-seater category. She would like to pursue other formats of racing as well like saloon car racing, rallying and even autocross.

On receiving the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar, she expressed that she was really honoured, but at the same time, she also felt a sense of responsibility on her. Now, she wants to keep improving herself and set an example for the youngsters in India. She also wants to inspire children, especially girls, to take up motorsports.

In her immediate future, she wants to aim for the Formula LGB series and the saloon car series in the MRF INRC championship. And, after that, she aims for a Formula 4 seat and has aspirations to climb the Formula series order.

She concluded by expressing that India needs to provide more recognition to the motorsport field as it has huge potential. She also wants various Indian states to rise up, encourage and support motorsport as the basic literacy to motorsport is not yet known by a huge percentage of the Indian masses.