Armaan Ebrahim and Aditya Patel need no introduction. For the uninitiated, they are both Indian racing drivers who have now gotten together and founded the X1 Racing League. Both Armaan and Aditya have been racing for over a decade and the two have been involved with domestic as well as international motorsport championships.
The idea of X1 Racing League was born after they decided to do something “India-centric,” says Armaan.“The league business seems to work for sports,” says Armaan while admitting that their partners are not from the motorsport industry.
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The actual announcement of the car that will be used in the X1 Racing League is still some time away and so while we still have to wait to know more about chassis variants and engine options, Aditya does reveal a few things about the car. “It is a two-seater prototype which weighs about 650 kg and has 230 hp and is FIA (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile) homologated. This car doesn’t rely much on aerodynamics in comparison to an F1 car. It relies more on the driver’s skills which is actually what makes for great racing,” says Aditya.
X1 League Racing will have both Track as well as Street Circuits. However, “in the first year, it will be purely circuit racing at BIC (Buddh International Circuit) as well as at MMRT (Madras Motor Race Track),” says Armaan. “And then, gradually we plan to expand the series,” adds Aditya. “When it comes to street, it is just racing; the slightest mistake and it is game over, as for the circuits, they can be less forgiving, that’s just how they’re designed,” says Armaan.
The X1 League Racing promises a lot of excitement with eight city-based teams and with a bunch of races planned every weekend where each race has a different format. There are 16 cars and each team has two cars with four permanent drivers and one development driver. “A development driver is a young driver who has proved himself in the national championships and the whole idea is to motivate them so that they can also learn from the experience of the international drivers who have been drafted into the teams,” explains Aditya. The four categories for drivers include International Male, International Female, Indian International (Male or Female) and Indian Domestic Drivers.
In order to attract people from all walks of life as well as to ensure that people from various places are not left out, they have gone to the grassroot level and also established the e-sports league. For this, they have franchisees in eight cities, where people can practice on simulators placed in colleges and malls. “People should come there and set their lap times,” says Armaan. “From these eight cities, the top 48 who win compete with each other and then the top two from each city get integrated into the franchisee,” he explains. All of this happens between end of August and October in each of the eight cities. The best part is that the overall winner is contracted by X1 League Racing and trained for a year or two by both Armaan and Aditya and later the winner gets to compete in the nationals and get into the league of drivers. “So, we’re converting a gamer into a racer,” says Armaan.
