FMSCI enters 40th year; Vicky re-elected president

David Bodapati January 20, 2012

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By David Bodapati

Chennai: January 20: Following what was an iconic year for Indian motorsport in 2011 which included the success of the first Indian Grand Prix and 336 other events under their banner. The FMSCI, at their 38^th AGM in Chennai on 22 Dec, has unanimously re-elected Vicky Chandhok to continue as President according to a Press Release from FMSCI on Jan 17.

Karnataka Motor Sports Club’s president Bharat Raj is elected as Vice-President. Bharat has made a great contribution to bring professionalism into the Indian National Rally Championship after his company IMG took over as promoters along with PSP, headed by Annabelle Manwaring.

Having been involved with International motorsport, the President has been pushing very hard for people from India to get involved in various commissions of global motorsport and not just as members of the World Motorsport Council with Dr. Vijay Mallya as the delegate and himself as the Deputy. The FIA, taking recognition of the FMSCI and of India, has for the first time ratified the nominations of eight Indians to the various global commissions of the FIA. The nominees that were carefully hand-picked have all contributed and can significantly contribute to the growth of Indian motorsport in the future.

President Chandhok said, “2011 was a historic year for Indian motorsport as we hosted our first ever Formula One Grand Prix and the year ending FIA AGM and Gala. It is imperative that we continue to develop the sport and the infrastructure. It is very important for India now to be seen as a team player and therefore all people nominated to the commissions are delegates with experience and people that can contribute to the running and administration of global motorsport. While it’s important to contribute to global motorsport, our delegates however need to strike a balance to ensure India benefits as a motorsport destination from the appointments of various Commissions. This worked very well in the case of Formula 1 where years of solid interaction finally resulted in the Olympics of motorsport coming to India. Similar are the goals for our various delegates in these commissions.”

The FMSCI, at its 38^th AGM chaired by Dr. Vijay Mallya in Chennai elected its Office Bearers for the year 2012 with Mr. Chandhok continuing as President and Mr. Bharat Raj from the KMSC being duly elected as Vice President.

For the first time in 2011, the Annual FIA Awards Ceremony was held outside of Europe, in New Delhi. Also, for the first time in its history the Annual General Assembly Gala was combined with the Awards Ceremony, making it the largest contingent of FIA delegates, with over 750 delegates from 120 countries marking their presence in our capital.

The FMSCI AGM also marked the end of a successful three-year contract with Rally promoters, IMG Sports& PSP. The JK Tyre National Racing Championship also completed 14 years and 2011 also saw the emergence of the MRF 1600 Championship. The Gulf Dirt Track, MRF Supercross, National Drag Racing, MRF National Two Wheeler, Honda Two Wheeler Racing, Yamaha Two Wheeler Racing and the JK Tyre Rotax Karting Championships have all established themselves as annual features on the FMSCI calendar.

The Formula 1 event at Noida was a success in itself but it also saw full feature grids in the Delhi Championship with MRF and the hugely popular JK Tyre Asia Series which ran as a support event to three Formula 1 races in 2011. 2012 will hopefully see the materialization of the i1 Super Series which will give no less than 9 Indian drivers the best platform to showcase themselves on the International racing scene.

“The FIA flagged off their Action for Road Safety campaign in 2011 as well and were very keen that the FMSCI align with some of the aspects of road safety in India. To make further rapid strides in Indian motorsport, involvement from vehicle manufacturers is of paramount importance. The last fortnight has been hectic in meeting with International Auto Manufacturers such as Audi, VW, Toyota, Mercedes, Maruti, Yamaha, TVS and Honda to further the growth in all forms of Indian motorsport”, President Chandhok concluded.

Nominated delegates and respective Commissions:

Single Seater Racing – B. Vijay Kumar

Drag Racing – J. Balamurugan

Historic Motorsport – Manvendra Singh

Rally – Shivu Shivappa

Cross Country Rally – Manjeet Bhalla

CIK Karting – Vicky Chandhok

Circuits – Farhan Vohra

Officials & Volunteers – Prabha Shankar

The following clubs were elected to the council for the forthcoming year:

o MMSC (Madras Motor Sports Club)

o CASC (Coimbatore Auto Sports Club)