Racing Promotions Pvt. Ltd, promoters of the FIA-certified Formula 4 Indian Championship and the franchise-based Indian Racing League, has also acquired the rights to launch F3 in India by 2026, according to its co-founder.
“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. “The idea was to build an ecosystem of motosports and not just a flash in the pan league.”
“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 told the business daily. “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 further said.
Formula 4 is an open-wheel racing event intended for junior drivers. It is the first step of the ladder for an aspiring motorsport driver to go from karting to single-seater racing. It then proceeds to the next category of F3, which prepares drivers for the higher F2 and F1 levels.
The league has paid about ₹40 crore to the FIA 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 told Mint.
“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 owners.”
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.
“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, has also invested about ₹30 crore the racing league, Mint reports.
