Narain Karthikeyan is confident he can get back up to speed in formula one within a few races of his 2011 return.

The Indian’s highly rated teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi was significantly faster in the limited testing he has done with the HRT team, but 34-year-old Karthikeyan has not raced in F1 since his debut season in 2005.

“I did two days in the rain and it went very well,” he is quoted as saying by Dutch website formule1.nl.

“On a dry track there is still a bit of searching for the limit, but in my new teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi, I have a good reference,” added Karthikeyan, whose backer Tata is one of HRT’s only sponsors.

“My first impression is that our driving styles are quite similar,” he continued, “and that can only be an advantage. Give me a few races and I have no doubt that I will find the limit.”

Karthikeyan also insisted that he is not too worried about travelling to Australia without having driven the new F111 car.

“Many smart people have designed it and I hope it’s good enough to be the best of the three new teams,” he said.