Toyota India has officially announced that it has selected 25 drivers (and 10 additional reserve drivers) for its first ever Etios Motor Racing series in India. These 25 selected drivers will race at two exhibition races this year in August and October 2012 and next years debut of the Etios Motor Racing (EMR) Series in 2013. The selection process has been quite exhaustive starting from a registration number of 3300 candidates in several rounds and camps which narrowed down on the participants after their constant evaluation by a team of 10 experts. The age of the selected racers is between 15 tears and 24 years and EMR will bring these racers an opportunity and exposure to further their racing career in India and globally in the ever increasing popularity of motorsports.
The driver selection process shortlisted 900 eligible participants out of the 3300 online registrations and invited them to compete in first round in 4 cities – Delhi, Pune, Kolkata and Bangalore. Out of these 900 young drivers, 70 drivers were selected based on their performance and racing skills. The selection process included specially designed test tracks designed by Red Rooster Racing with a benchmark lap time on each track for reference. Each participant drove 8 laps and the lap timings and skills were tested by a team of 10 experts from the field of racing and rallying.
In camp 2 of the selection process, top 70 competitors were individually trained and evaluated by five top evaluators– Leelakrishnan, Ram Narayan, Rahul Kantharaj, Karna Kadur and Anish Rathnam. The camp was held for two days in Bangalore which included several rounds of testing and also based on their go-karting skills.
In the camp 3 which is the final one, 40 drivers were selected out of 70 after extensive training sessions over 2 days at Madras race track and top 25 out of these 40 drivers were selected based on their lap timings and consistency in their performance over laps.
Commenting on the EMR driver training programme, Mr. Sandeep Singh, Deputy Managing Director-Marketing, said,
“We had young aspiring racing drivers from all over India, and it was truly heartening to witness the passion and enthusiasm they showed for motorsport at the various EMR camps.”
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