The Indians are no less in any field you may consider and their talent is known all across the world. As far as the Formula One or F1 is concerned, the Indians are showing off their potential. Narain Kartikeyan, whom you must be knowing was the first Indian driver in the F1 and the success was later shared with Vijay Mallya with the introduction of Force India team.
Performance wise our Indian team is doing a wonderful job in the F1 and is aiming at going a long way. The only thing that pinches us is that we don’t have any Indian drivers driving Force India machines but now that Force India has set up a new academy for hunting down the best drivers in India, chances of our very Indian skilled drivers sitting in the Formula 1 car cockpit have increased.
Industrialist, chairman and team principal of Force India Formula One Team, Vijay Mallya recently said ,“The idea behind setting up a training academy is to create a talent pool and groom those showing racing talent by providing them necessary corporate funding.”
He further added, “his academy is a ‘historic milestone’ in India’s sports arena and was conceived with a vision to inspire young Indians who have the talent but lack a serious platform to showcase their abilities,”
He also emphasized on his plans and said that Force India will not ask government for any promotional funds for F1 sport in the country. Raymond Wong, chief executive officer of ExxonMobil Lubricants who is in partnership with the same has reportedly said, “The academy will fully support the winner over the next three years and a career path will be drawn out depending on the progress made in 2012.”
From April 25th 2011, the academy will start off with its first initiative named as ‘Hunt for 1 from a Billion’ and will comprise of a couple of stages. Firstly the hunt is aimed at finding racing talent in the age group of 14-17 years and all this will be done by conducting Go Kart racing. Trials will take place across 7 cities and can participate in the selection rounds at subsidized rates.
At the end of each round the academy will choose 14 finalists from each city who will head to the next round immediately. Like this 98 finalists along with 2 wild card entries will be chosen to compete against each other in September 2011. Out of these 100, 10 will be finalized and will fly to UK and will be go under am intensive training program conducted for a week.
The training program will comprise of the following sessions:
- Tution in Dmax Karts
- A visit to Porsche Human Performance Centre
- Media training with Goodman Media
- Two days at the Silverstone F1 circuit with sessions on safety
- Car control training
- Driver assessment and
- Race procedure briefing
At last 3 will be chosen after the end of this program of which one will be select after a head to head competition. The name of that ultimate driver will be announced at the Indian Grand Prix debut on October 30, 2011.
The winner will get a chance to practice for one full session in a championship in UK and will also get a 3 year sponsorship from F1 India academy and will also help the driver in grooming his skills. The runner-ups will not be deprived from from goodies as the first runner-up will be practicing for a championship in India while the second one will be honored with special racing tuitions at an Asian Racing School.
