Fully endorsed by the International Motorsport Association (FIA), the inaugural Series was scheduled to run from February 11 to April 1 with the intention of further supplanting motorsport into the minds of the country’s sports fans on the back of Formula One’s Indian Grand Prix last year. However, the Series’ promoter, Machdar Motorsports, has made the decision to postpone, citing a number of different factors.
The announcement of the electoral poll dates in Uttar Pradesh had resulted in the postponement of the race scheduled for New Delhi’s Buddh International Circuit and this had a knock-on effect on the availability of the other race tracks, as well as some of the key drivers. Team owners also felt that it would be better to spend more time educating the fans about motorsport and building the city level support.
“It is unfortunate that we have had to postpone the i1 Supercar Series to next year but in the long term we feel this will benefit not only the series but motorsports in the country as well,” said Darshan M, CEO of Machdar Motorsports. “The change in race calendar due to polling in Uttar Pradesh was already affecting the availability of the international circuits as well as participation of the key drivers in the series. This, along with the team owners’ request for more time, made this decision unavoidable.”
Darshan added: “We have taken this hard decision of postponing the series with the consent of all stakeholders involved in the series. They have extended their full support towards this decision as they realise that this has been taken with the league’s long-term interests at heart.”
Machdar had announced an impressive roster of international drivers to compete in the series, including 1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve, 2011 F1 drivers Vitantonio Liuzzi and Karun Chandhok, and former race winners Giancarlo Fisichella, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jean Alesi. However, the Series has struggled to find owners for its nine city-based franchises with only teams in Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore having been finalised.