Man...........motorsport is one section that i was always interested in ....
but conditions prevailing in india was not in favour for us........but now the conditions have improved rapidly,,,,,,,,
all happening because of indias stride to become a global economical power......
One motorsport mogul has banknotes cast in bronze, faced heat over a £10 million (Rs 800 crore) donation to the British Labour Party and was quoted as saying, “I hate democracy. It stops you getting things done.”
The other pit boss was accused in the British Parliament of defying United Nations sanctions and supplying fuel to Angola’s UNITA rebels, charges he denied saying that the accused was another businessman with the same name.
Bernie Ecclestone, CEO of Formula One Management and owner of the bronzed banknotes, would upend the contents of an entire Formula 1 garage if it were even suggested that he had anything in common with Tony Teixeira, chairman of A1GP.
F1 and A1 are distant cousins. In motorsport’s family tree, F1 is the aristocrat, getting all the fawning attention, finance and glamour. A1, only three seasons old, is an arriviste that has grated on the nerves of the motorsport establishment. But at this moment in time the two codes share one ambition: to manoeuvre their way into the minds and wallets of the biggest audience their sport can reach in the next decade—India.
For F1, India is an untapped oil field. For A1, it is an empty stage, where putting up the first show could pull in a huge following that could become loyal.
Late last year Ecclestone signed a deal with infrastructure major Jaypee Group and an Indian F1 Grand Prix race is planned for 2010. When the 2008 F1 season opened at Albert Park in Melbourne, the name India echoed over the growling of the waiting engines as Vijay Mallya’s Force India F1 team began its campaign alongside Ferrari, McLaren and Williams.
A1 is putting its foot on the floor too. In mid-April, A1GP Asia-Pacific region CEO David Clare will visit proposed sites for an Indian A1GP race targeted late in the 2008-2009 season. A1GP Team India won its first victory in China last December with Narain Karthikeyan behind the wheel. Young Indian driver Karun Chandhok, who now races in the GP2 series, was invited to test drive for the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team.
Force India is launched in Mumbai
A distant roar of engines draws closer. This race to reach India comes with the opportunity for its motorsport to capitalise, but only if the Indians stall their own insidious power struggles. Clare eyes the plan for the 2010 Indian F1 GP and says, “We’d love to get in there first. We can hold a race in a simpler, more economical manner.” An F1 GP in India would cost around $300 million (Rs 1,200 crore) whereas A1GPs get their tents up for little more than $20 million (Rs 80 crore).
India’s long and unsuccessful flirtation with a home F1 race means Clare’s targets could be realistic. Over the last five years, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad were named Indian F1 venues. In June 2007, Indian Olympic Association (IOA) chief Suresh Kalmadi announced that the IOA had signed a deal with Ecclestone for a race in Delhi. The deadline for the payment of guarantee money around that deal came and went; all Kalmadi did was play host to F1 track designer Herman Tilke.
In November 2007, F1 announced it had signed a deal with JPSK Sports Private Ltd, (a Jaypee Group subsidiary) to construct an F1 track in Noida outside Delhi. The Jaypee Group have made no official comment since then, though a spokesperson said, “the letters of credit are in place and we are at a very initial stage”. No site has been chosen nor has Tilke been contacted about a track design. Everything looks generously fluid when compared to the planning around this season’s F1 debutantes, Singapore.
Early discussions around the Singapore GP, which will be held on September 28 over a street circuit, began as early as mid-2006. Other than installing a temporary lights system for the first-ever F1 night race, Singapore GP officials are building 1.2 km of new roads and a permanent new pit building.
Fiona Smith, Singapore GP communications manager told India Today that Singapore’s timescales were considered tight, “We are achieving in 18 months, what many Grand Prix organisers work for two years to create.” In fact, China took 18 months to build an F1 track in Shanghai with 20,000 men including 3,000 engineers working around the clock. India should probably be slightly further down the road than letters of credit. Jaypee executives though, believe a year is enough to get an F1 track race ready. “We’ve done hydro-electric projects in the hills, an F1 track is essentially a flat road,” one said.
The idea of a home F1 GP is a seductive one for it promises to bring this most glitzy and glamorous of sports up close and into the neighbourhood. But the closest an average racing junkie will get to the bling will be through binoculars from a public stand. Because F1 is an exclusive sport—exclusive as in about exclusion.
