A sad sad day for motorsport enthusiasts in India. Mahindra racing has announced that it won’t be participating in the 2015 Moto3 championship. Apparently, this will help them concentrate on just creating a better race bike, which then other teams will use. I can’t seem to understand the logic behind this, but then again I’m just a regular 5 foot 8 inches bloke with an itch near his ass.
I like Mahindra, they do bold things. Apart from the unmitigated disaster that has been the still-not-launched Mojo, their products are nice and value for money. Mahindra started their stint with racing in 2011 with FIM MotoGP Motorcycle Road Racing World Championship series and FIA Formula E Championship, becoming the first Indian company to do so. Mahindra Racing entered the Italian National Motorcycle Racing Championship (CIV) in 2012, and their historic 2012 victory in the CIV Constructor’s Cup made Mahindra the first Indian team to win an international motorsport championship. They won the constructor’s title next year as well!
They switched to Moto3 next year, with a bike called the Mahindra MGP3O, developed with experienced Swiss firm Suter Racing Technology AG. Experienced Spanish rider Efrén Vázquez (26) was teamed with exciting Portuguese teenager Miguel Oliveira (18). The team scripted history at the Malaysian Grand Prix, when Oliveira claimed the team’s first-ever podium finish, which was also the first ever podium for an Indian manufacturer in the World Championship! The team recorded consistent top five finishes and achieved a pole position and three circuit lap records. Mahindra finished third in the Constructors’ Rankings, which is pretty awesome! In 2014, the team got third place at Dutch GP, which was then bettered by Binder’s second place at Sachsenring.
The news isn’t entirely sad though, as the Mahindra marque will continue to show face in the international motor racing scene. The bikes constructed by Mahindra are so well liked by people, that many racing teams have used it to race their own riders on. Ambrogio Racing, Team CIP and Team Italia have been using the bikes with good results, with Brad Binder from Ambrogio Racing finishing second at the 2014 German Grand Prix. They have also recently signed an agreement with the renowned Aspar Team to supply the 2015 MGP3O racing bike. Really commendable stuff!
It’s good to know that an Indian company is going head to head with global racing giants, and coming out really strongly. My only compalint is that Mahindra looks really lazy to apply their racing knowledge to their street-legal bikes! Their fastest bike is called a Centuro Rockstar, and makes 8.5 horses. So if someone at the corporate head office of Mahindra is reading this, get off your ass and give something exciting to us Indians too!
With my limited experience of watching different racing sports for years, I came to understand that ” Win on Sunday, sell on Monday ” is true. That sell may include bike, car, oil, energy drinks etc. Otherwise it’s not different from gambling in casino (or burning money). Every now and then teams appears and disappears. Mostly because once the passion of racing wears out, team owner does not see any profit on their race results (i.e marketing investment). I am not a fan of Erik Buell but I think Hero has better reasons than Mahindra to have a racing team. Still very proud that our Indian team came and made some noise. I hope once they’ve some products they’ll return to the track.
Hopefully Swadhin! But they should also give something back to the mango people of India, some performance oriented machine, something that gets inputs from their racing experience.
LOL Mango People. Mahindra needs to stop that stupid ‘mojo’ thing first, we’ve already seen 3 mojos till now. They should take over “Benelli” and move the manufacturing to India. Crazy suggestion but it will work. 😀
Haha! I really doubt Mahindra has the balls to take over Benelli, but I would be the happiest guy on the planet if they do start selling those pieces of art in India.