Meco Motorsport will run 6 cars at Indian GP – JK Asia Racing Series Support Race

Meco Motorsports announced today that it will run 6 cars with Indian drivers at the JK Asia Racing Series (Formula BMW), the main support race for the F1 Indian GP. The 6 young Indian racers driving for Meco Racing Team will be Vishnu Prasad, Rahil Noorani, Shashank Ravishankar, Sandeep Kumar, Mohit Ahuja and the sixth driver is yet to be confirmed.

Akbar Ebrahim, President of Meco Motorsports said "Meco Racing has now taken up the initiative to participate in the JK Asia Racing Series with Formula BMW cars which is the support race for the inaugural Formula One Indian GP. This initiative is being done to give exposure to young Indian driver who can use this opportunity to be part of the inaugural Indian GP which going to be history in the making and know what a Formula BMW car is all about. "

Cost for participation?
"We are doing it at a special price less than 1/3 of the normal price what one would pay if you are signed up for one full year with any international team. JK is supporting us and the boys by covering the entire freight costs and we got a very good deal for the hire of the cars, there has been some spare cars with the team with which Armaan (Ebrahim) first raced when he was 15yrs old. Its team E Rain, they have 4cars and we have done a good deal with them where we are just paying about 2.5lacs for cars as hire charge and the balance 2.5 lacs to cover costs of tires, fuel, oil, mechanic fee, flight tickets and hotel stay so we are basically going zero zero on this we may even incur a loss on this but it´s an opportunity we don´t want to miss. It´s sort of a facility and incentive we want to pass on to them.This is not taken as a business initiative even though this is a normal part of business. It´s more towards providing our youngsters who have been with Meco motorsports for the past 5 – 6 years. It´s our responsibility to give them the opportunity when we are in a position to do so."

What will Meco Racing as a team would benefit from this?
"By doing this Meco Racing will become the largest team with 6 cars on the grid and it´s also historic moment for us operating at the Inaugural Indian Grand Prix for the main support race which is the JK Asia Series. It´s a landmark as far as Meco Racing is concerned. I think this will be a step forward to see whether to continue this in the next round which will be the final round of the National Championship as well as the JK Asia Series which will be in November at the Buddh Circuit. If the boys can do fairly well and get some sponsors, we will offer the same deal for the November race too."

Are you planning to take part in the full championship in 2012?
"This will be a stepping stone for Meco Racing to set up the team to take part in the full championship next year, obviously we will not run 6 cars because it´s not practical to do so. We are looking at running 2 cars or 3. We already got the full structure of the team and with very renowned engineers to be part of the team next year.Based on how we go about and settle down in running these cars in the 2 races this year we will be in a position to showcase ourselves as a strong contending team for the championship for next year, this will opportunity to youngsters who are coming though the system participating in the karting and national racing championships then to try and raise the resources to take part in the full championship for 2012."

What will be the cost for the full championship?
"We will obviously be much cheaper than most of the Asian teams because our cost of operation is much cheaper than theirs. If we are able to offer it at a price just 60% of the price that´s quoted by the International teams, I´m quite confident we will have 1 Indian driver and 1 international driver for sure and I think that would be a good stepping stone for future things to come."