India's very own racing league

Is India ready for its own international racing series?
We talk to a man who thinks so:

How do you leverage the post inaugural Indian GP buzz? Well, you take a proven formula – i.e. the Indian Premier League (IPL) – and apply it to motorsport. And that’s exactly what the i1 Racing League has done.

In case you haven’t heard, the i1 Supercar Series is an all-new motorsport racing league promoted by Machdar Motorsport. The series will consist of 10 races with 9 teams representing different Indian cities. The inaugural i1 Supercar Series season will start in the last week of January, and will be held in India, the UAE, Malaysia, Bahrain, and Qatar.

The teams will race identical Radical SR3 roadsters, and each team will be represented by two drivers in their quest for the $2 million USD prize. The best part is that the i1 series pairs some of the most well known names from the world of Formula 1 with young Indian talent – as each team must have one international and one Indian driver.

We sat down with Darshan M, CEO, i1 Super Series, and here’s what he had to say:

How did the idea of an Indian racing league originate?

I wouldn’t say that we weren’t inspired by IPL. I mean I have been personally involved with IPL since its inception – I used to head sports marketing at Group M, and was a consultant with Deccan, and then I was heading the Deccan Chargers.
So, we were very inspired by what IPL has created, and we went looking to see if we could create something similar. If you break down IPL and study it hard, you’ll realize that it’s not the cheerleaders, it’s not the Shahrukh Khan’s, it’s not the 20:20 format. I mean all that does add to it, but the core content is king. The quality of cricket being played is still world class, and around that you have all the paraphernalia to make it what it’s become.

So, if you have to take another sport, the core has to be world class. And I can’t see any other sport where you can do it in India. So, we realized that once you have world class infrastructure, get world class drivers, get world class equipment, you have a core fixed – then you build the model, get the city teams, get right people to buy the teams, get the right star, and from there it has the potential to grow forward.

When I was studying Formula 1, and when I was studying motorsport, I realized that, as human beings, we want heroes to follow. And if you look again, going back to IPL, after Sachin, I think the favourite child of Mumbai is Malinga. So, we realized that it’s okay to get some international names, but you give them to a local city, and the city will embrace it. We are very nationalistic about our city and our origins. If you can give the city a hero to follow, you can build a following for motorsport in India. It’s not like there’s no motorsport following. I mean you can see it at every traffic signal where every guy is trying to go faster than the other guy, right? But you need to give them something to follow.

What do they follow? I mean, as a motorsport fan myself, I know that while you followed Senna, you also followed his team and perhaps the car company providing the engine. But you never had any association with them. So, when we started putting this together, we looked at other series around the world, and realised that they first find a car and then build a series around it. In our case, we built the series, and then went looking for cars that suit the series at this stage.

Is 500 horsepower-per-ton enough to excite an ex-Formula 1 driver or a current F1 driver?

Yes, it’s good fun. At 560 odd kilograms and 260bhp it is quick enough and fun enough. Radical even has a V8, but we’ve chosen a model that’s more manageable and provides adequate power-to-weight ratio. So it’s good fun, and it’s a paddle shift – you can go flat out on corners and you actually experience up to 3g’s in this. So in the right hands, this is a fun car to drive. And we’re not married to this car for the rest of our lives, but we believe at this stage of our series, this is the car that suits us.

What kind of funds to do you think a city or a team needs to raise to successfully compete in year one?

As a business model to run a team, the way we structured it should cost a team about $2.5 million USD, which would cover everything from the cost of the car, to the driver’s salary, travel, shipping, spares, fuels, tyres, etc. I think it should suffice, and what you do extra on your own for promotions is an added cost. This would be sufficient for a whole season, which I think is very reasonable for motorsport. So, we’ve designed a business model where the teams don’t keep losing for too long, otherwise you’re not going to develop the sport at all. The idea is to create a viable model that can survive and grow – it can then start developing the whole business in the country.

And I know, personally, more than 30 people who want a team, but we have been a bit choosy about getting people who are passionate about motorsports and automobiles. Because we race only from December to March, from March onwards till next December we want to do festivals of speed in each city. So we want somebody who is enthusiastic, passionate, who will be there, bring his drivers, put up a show, participate, and get people excited enough to develop motorsport. Most people who have come on board are keen to develop racing academies – some are even talking of putting up their own infrastructure.

Could you have envisioned something like this in a pre-Indian GP world, or did it have to come after?

We conceived the series before the Indian GP, and we just tried to time it around the Indian GP because we realized that the Indian GP will act as the catalyst that will lift the entire industry up. The media have done an incredible job. I mean all of you guys have gone out and educated so many people. I think the base people who understand motorsport have nearly tripled – earlier it was only the enthusiasts who used to come, hardcore auto magazines like yours used to come, and go on to websites. But now, I mean even my mom talks about Formula 1 – so it’s incredible that the media has done that to motorsports.

And we are hoping that the city passion will come through, and the right kind of team owner will take it to a larger audience, and it will develop. Because the hardcore motorsport enthusiast is a very small audience, and you can’t create a venture only focused on them, it has to become larger than life. I know of somebody who said it will be incredible if my son could drive for Shahrukh Khan. It’s very important that you get these aspirational values created, so that the talent pool can start getting developed.

So, is the sponsor money flowing in based on the fact that the base has grown by virtue of just one GP?

We have just started meeting sponsors, and it’s been very encouraging. Sponsors have realized that 65% of India’s population is below the age of 30, and that the audience is not going to be stuck to one sport. Today’s generation is one-touch away from what they want, and they get it through global exposure. They have an interesting outlook, and follow other sports. So, there is room in our country to have more than 3 or 4 sports. We believe that the time is right – some sponsors understand that and some don’t. Some will take the wait-and-watch approach, and some will be pioneers and will take the leap. But we have been encouraged by what we are seeing from sponsors.

What is Tendulkar’s role in the series?

He is going to be the brand ambassador of the whole series. He is more like, as I would phrase it, India’s greatest motorsport fan. He has been always a big fan of motorsport, and he is very keen to see this sport develop.

The calendar has now been confirmed, but there seemed to be some issues with Delhi as well as with Bahrain?

Regarding Bahrain, what we read versus what the reality seems to be is poles apart. It seems to be a peaceful place with a lovely track – we would love to go there. As far as Buddh goes, to be honest we haven’t received any official communication from them about everything that we’ve read. Sameer and I have shaken hands, and we have agreed to race there. As an Indian series, our dream is to race in India – and we don’t think that should be a problem.

Part of why IPL worked, as you said, was the paraphernalia and the entertainment.
So, what do you have in mind from that point of view?

We realize that all F1 tracks have been built far outside the city. So people are actually making a journey out of town, which means that you can’t just invite them for just two 30 minute races. So, we’re trying to build a whole entertainment package alongside the racing, with everything from bungee jumping to a gaming area – so it’ll be like a carnival atmosphere.
There will be something for everybody in the family. We’re looking at some entertainment acts. For instance, we’ve already closed a huge deal with a Tamil Act for Malaysia. We are talking to a Bollywood act for Abu Dhabi, so we will take something exciting with us when we go to these places. We have also asked some of the smaller series to come in as feeder races and use the facilities, because our races are all scheduled for Indian television timings. But, because its winter, there are not too many series happening at this time of the year. Also, one of the reasons why most F1 drivers are excited is because they get to stay fit and also make some money during the off season.

What kind of audience do you foresee, both on television as well as live?

We are not expecting it to be huge, but we are also not expecting it to be small either, because we realize that it’s a mixture of both the stars who drive as well as the stars who own the team – and how we merge the two is really going to make it work. We are going to tracks where an Indian diaspora exists, so we are going to places where Indian cities, stars, and owners, are all recognized by the fans. It’s not like going to Spain and saying Mumbai versus Delhi, where they don’t understand the rivalry. So we expect a good turnout, and that’s why in the Middle East all our races are on a Saturday not on Sunday. In India and Malaysia, the races are on a Sunday to ensure that local fans get the chance to come.

Post our interaction with Darshan, the i1 Super Series announced their much-awaited driver line-up and racing calendar. And, as promised, there are a number of ex Formula 1 drivers in attendance, as well as a few current F1 pilots. Karun Chandhok is among the Indian drivers, while Narain Karthikeyan is conspicuously absent.

International Drivers: Jacques Villeneuve, Giancarlo Fisichella, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Karun Chandhok, Jean Alesi, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Alex Yoong, Sakon Yamamoto, Mika Salo, Pippa Mann

Indian / International: Neel Jani, Armaan Ebrahim, Parthiva Sureswaren, Zaamin Jaffer, Mathias Lauda, Aditya Patel, Akhil Khushlani, Phiroze Billmoria, Cyndie Allemann

Indian drivers: Gaurav Dalal, Ashwin Sundar, Vishnu Prasad, Chirag Malhotra, Abdul Ahmed, Raj Bharath, Ameya Walavalkar, Sahil Shelar, Amritajit Ghosh, Sailesh Bolisetti.

A successful pre-season test was also held at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, and it was three-time Formula One race winner Heinz-Harald Frentzen who topped the time sheets, followed by Giancarlo Fisichella and India’s Karun Chandhok. Indian drivers Armaan Ebrahim and Parthiva Sureshwaren also impressed finishing in 7th and 8th positions.
Stay tuned for the first race in Malaysia on the 21st and 22nd of January, after which the series goes to Bahrain and Qatar, before coming to India on the 25th and 26th of February, and then concluding in Abu Dhabi. So, don’t miss it because the Indian racing scene has never had it so good!