Formula One takes note of Asian draw
Formula One takes note of Asian draw
Alan Baldwin, Reuters/London
The confirmation of Narain Karthikeyan as India's first Formula One driver is an important step for the sport, even if he is unlikely to trouble world champion Michael Schumacher too much.
Jordan's own press statement spelled out the true significance on Thursday.
The signing, it said, gave Formula One "exceptional appeal in India with the potential for an enormous new audience and business market associated with a national racing hero known as 'the fastest Indian on wheels.'"
Formula One's commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone, who played his own part in last week's takeover of Jordan by the Midland Group, will be delighted.
India has long been on the 74-year-old Briton's radar, with the southern city of Hyderabad considered as a potential race venue until the chief backer of the project was voted out in regional elections last year.
"In the next 10 years, Europe is going to become a third world economy," he declared in 2004 as Formula One looked forward to breaking new ground in China and Bahrain.
"There's no way Europe will be able to compete with China, Korea, India."
If Asia's third largest economy is not yet ready to be included on a calendar already stretched to an unprecedented 19 races with the addition of Turkey in 2005, then a driver is the next best thing.
China, with its debut race at the $325 million Shanghai circuit last September, has brought the world's most populous country into the Formula One fold, and Karthikeyan can now deliver another huge headcount.
The Indian is a good promotional fit for Midland, with their extensive interests in old fashioned heavy industries throughout the former Soviet Union and Asia.
Karthikeyan's main sponsors are the Tata Group, India's second largest business conglomerate, and state-run refiner Bharat Petroleum Corp.
Formula One has moved a long way from its old European heartland in the last few years, spurred on partly by a desire to escape European Union anti-tobacco legislation and partly by the desire of major sponsors to be present in key emerging markets.
Bahrain now caters for the Middle Eastern market while Turkey, with a race at a brand new track on the Asian side of Istanbul, fills another geographical hole.
Next year it will be Mexico's turn, returning to the calendar after a 14-year absence with a race scheduled for a $70 million circuit to be built near Cancun on the Caribbean coast.
Minardi, which gave Alex Yoong the chance to become the first Malaysian Formula One driver in 2001, also announced another first this week by signing Israeli Chanoch Nissany as its official test driver.