Company behind F4 and Indian Racing League to launch F3 by 2026

Owners of the Racing Promotions Pvt. Ltd, which set up a Chennai-based Formula 4 and Indian Racing League, has also acquired the rights to launch F3 in India by 2026, according to its co-founder.

The IPL-style racing league with six teams added an F4 event in its second year in 2023. The circuit will now add an F3 race, approved by the global motorsport governing body Federation Internationale de L'Automobile (FIA).

“The intent was to have our own league and also licence other important events like F3 and F4 to build the sports ecosystem. We don’t just want to look at it unidimensionally and create just one league by adding a bunch of sports and cricket stars,” co-founder Abhinandan Balasubramanian told Mint in an exclusive interview. “The idea was to build an ecosystem of motosports and not just a flash in the pan league.”

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Formula 4 is an open-wheel racing event intended for junior drivers. It is a stepping stone for an aspiring motorsport driver to go from karting to Formula One. It then proceeds to the next category of F3, which prepares drivers for the higher F2 and F1 levels.

“Since the league's inception, we have deployed ₹200 crore into it. We recently concluded a racing event in Chennai in August which received a lot of interest from viewers in the city,” he said. “It will take 5-7 years to break even,” he said.

“The intention is to invest further. We will need a new set of cars for F3. We also got interest from companies who want to partner with us, who are not necessarily in the automobile sector but other consumer-focused companies where we see an avenue of revenue coming from,” Balasubramanian said.

The league is sanctioned by FIA and the Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India. The organisers include majority investor Akhilesh Reddy, director of Telangana-based infrastructure company, Meil Advanced Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Dabur chairperson Mohit Burman, who has a minority stake of about 5%, and racers Aditya Patel and Armaan Ebrahim are among the founders.

The league has paid about ₹40 crore to the federation for acquiring the rights for a decade. The rights for F4 and subsequently F3 have been accorded “on merit owing to our ability to have conducted the league itself”, Balasubramanian said.

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“Outside the IPL, no company can say that it has successfully managed the media rights business,” Balasubramanian said. “We are going to look at stability before we go for a rights cycle and focus on sponsorships till then. We also earn money from payments from our team franchise owner.”

Exposure for racers

Balasubramanian said there was no platform in the country that provided racers any kind of exposure other than Formula 1 which, too, has not returned to the country for some years now. 

“It is a prohibitively expensive sport, and we wanted there to be a platform for racers to shine and make the sport more accessible to them by bringing in the F4 and F3 leagues here,” he said. “They are a build-up to the F1 league as racers collect points in them to further be able to participate in higher racing categories and build towards an F1 career.” 

The league will organise five races across two rounds, including a night-street contest that took place in Chennai in late August. It has six teams--Chennai Turbo Riders, Shirachi Rarh Bengal Tigers, Goa Aces JA Racing and Speed Demons Delhi, Hyderabad Blackbirds, Bangalore Speedsters. To reach F1, racers will go through an inverse race cycle of F4, F3 and F2, collecting super licence points to qualify for F1.

Racing Promotions began operations in 2018, with the founders investing across fixtures, cars and other equipment needed for street and other races. The Madras International Circuit hosted the first round 1. A season lasts about four months.

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“The company spends anywhere between ₹30 crore and ₹40 crore on building a street circuit over a weekend but some of this includes fixtures like safety panels and instruments that it can reuse,” Balasubramanian said. The Tamil Nadu government, which in the past has hosted the chess world cup and a surfing championship, has also invested about ₹30 crore in the night race circuit in Chennai.