India is all set to host Formula E

The city will join the elite club of New York, London, Berlin, Rome, and Seoul which have already been hosting the event.

Formula E in India

India is set to host a Formula E race in 2023 after the city of Hyderabad announced today that it has become an official FE candidate city with a plan to get on the calendar next season.

The country’s fourth-largest city is the capital of southern India’s Telangana state. A major center for the technology industry, Hyderabad has been working on plans to get an E-Prix event together since mid-2021.

That was when plans were announced for the first Formula 4 and Formula Regional cars to race in a street event in the city using a track on the banks of the Hussain Sagar Lake. This area is close to the city center and features a famous monolithic Buddha statue.

The proposed track was designed by British company Driven International, which has previously worked on the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi.

The initial 1.47-mile design starts with a lengthy pit straight before a tight right-hand hairpin.

The following straight runs parallel to the Hussain Sagar Lake before the car negotiates a quick chicane.

A long turn then takes the cars below a flyover and into another hairpin. Another straight follows before the final corners of the lap, a slow speed left and right-hander that will lead back onto the pit straight.

The Race understands that an inaugural E-Prix in January or February 2023 is most likely and that the chances of the city being on next year’s calendar are currently very strong. A ‘letter of intention’ between Hyderabad and Formula E has been signed.

Formula E deputy CEO and COO Alberto Longo, Mahindra team principal Dilbagh Gill and Formula E’s track overlay expert Agus Delicado Zomedo all attended Monday morning’s launch of the Hyderabad plan.

Also in attendance were industries and IT ministers KT Rama Rao and Arvind Kumar, the special secretary for the Telangana region.

The main partner for the event will be the Greenko Group, one of India’s leading renewables companies.

A race on the sub-continent has been sought by Formula E since the beginning of the championship in 2014.

Possibilities of races being held in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai have occasionally been rumoured but never materialised.

-by AmaanAttar