Around Christmas I'm going to India. I will arrive in Delhi at night and I will only have one day to visit the sites. I would like to visit all three world heritage sites (Qutb Minar, Humayun's Tomb and the Red Fort) and hopefully the tentative one too (Indrapasta Purana Qila as part of the Silk Road sites of India). Preferably I end the afternoon at the Red fort so I can also visit the Jama mosque next door if there's time left and stroll around the bazaar and have something to eat in Old Delhi).

My hotel is about 1 kilometer away from the Karol Bagh metro station. It looks like the entrances of most sites are quite a bit away from a subway station and the Hop on hop off bus seems to take forever (and it's quite pricey for one day to do the two routes (necessary for Qutb Minar)).
What will be the best way to visit the sites (autorickshaw?) without too much hassle (it's my first day in India ever and I will have a jet lag and not enough sleep ;-) )?

Don't forget Delhi's other T List site - "Delhi - A Heritage City". As well as earlier cities, this includes the Lutyens designed/planned colonial capital of New Delhi. It should NOT be missed - particularly the monumental axis from India Gate to the Presidential House along Rajpath past the government buildings. It is quite something to drive along if you take a taxi or use a bus. The residential/commerical areas centred on Connaught Circus are less impressive but still worth seeing - your hotel is only a couple of stops on the metro from it (Rajiv Chowk) which you will have to change at if you use the Metro at all.

I personally would base my travel plans on the metro with autorickshaws from the nearest stations to the sites themselves (particularly to get out to Qutb Minar and back).

Adventurous itinerary. I like it. Throwing yourself at the deep end I always find a good way to deal with jet lag and culture shock. As you really are prepared for it being overwhelming.

I don't know Delhi at all but from other experience with large cities I would echo Solivagant's idea of using the metro to get between places and rickshaws to get from stations to the WHS and back. But people with local knowledge may be better placed than me.

From Karol Bagh station it is only a few stops to Connaught Place with at least can provide a brief stop to see the layout of New Delhi and its axis.

Just having a look at Delhi it has some rather surprising things in the city. The section behind the Presidential Palace seems to be a mixture of nature park, scrub land and arable farms, right in the heart of the capital city surrounded by housing. Is there some reason this area hasn't been developed?
A little like the first time I went to Tiergarten and realised there was a forest in the centre of Berlin, and Edinburgh has mountains* in the city centre. (*not really mountains, but by British standards they are rather impressive craggy hills)

Also the national stadium is at one end of the monumental axis of the city, I really like that especially as it is a Hockey pitch, though a cricket pitch would have been even more Indian. And there is a Golf Course slap bang in the centre of the city (less than a km from India Gate). Even St Andrews can't compete with that!

Well New Delhi was of course designed and built to be the capital of Imperial India - the Pukka Sahibs needed their diversions to be close at hand!! The Golf course was in fact built on the site of numerous Mughal tombs which are incorporated into it - not visitable unless you have an invitation! There is nowhere more exclusive than an Ex-British club in India now run by Indians. I remember being in Ootacamund once - the very "Ooty" where Snooker was invented in the "Club". One of our group had an invitation to visit the club. It turned out she knew the Duke of Edinburgh!

I think New Delhi actually deserves an inscription on its own both for its architectural merit and for its place in the history of colonialism. But India presumably needs to show it more as part of the great sweep of the history of the sub-continent by which successive waves of invaders have come - and gone, leaving some aspects of their way of life but ultimately "beaten" by the indigenous culture. Hence the rather ambitious intention to include the remains of earlier cities.

Thanks for the input all.
I managed to visit the three WHS.
Took the metro from Karol Bagh to Qutab Minar station, autorickshaw to the site, autorickshaw back to the station, metro to JL Nehru Stadium, pedalrickshaw to Humayun's Tomb, autorickshaw to Purana Qila, autorickshaw to Red Fort, walk around the old city and back to the hotel by metro.

Great!
Are you travelling in India, Joyce? Or for work?

I was just there on a holiday (but back in Holland now). Unfortunately I now work for a company that doesn't do any business with India ;-)

Did you encounter any of the protests in Delhi or were you there before they started?

It was only from investigating your initial request that I became familiar with the lay out of Delhi and to my surprise it was all over the news a few days later.

Yes, I was there during the protests but I knew where they were so I didn't go to the Rajpath area (didn't want to get in trouble). The only difficulty because of the protests was that the police blocked a lot of the main roads so it took our driver 2,5 hours to get out of Delhi