Indian Racing League

It is co-founded by Indian professional drivers, Aditya Patel[1] and Armaan Ebrahim. The X1Racing follows the X1Racing eSports Racing season 1, a digital-simulator based racing competition which was held in Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Delhi.

For the first season in 2019, the series operated decade-old Formula BMW machinery having originally planned to run Radicals. Just two events were held having scheduled four, and track-time at the second and final round was condensed due to travel constraints. A number of the cars suffered from mechanical problems, halving the field from 12 cars to 6 at the second and final event.[2] A number of drivers also abandoned the championship between the events on safety grounds – including Christina Nielsen and Mathias Lauda, who reported that their race-suits had been soaked by a fuel leak during a qualifying session.[3] The Bangalore Racing Stars team were crowned champions.[4]

After delays due to the coronavirus pandemic, the championship returned in late-2022 having been re-named the Indian Racing League. The series was scheduled to be held alongside the Formula Regional Indian Championship before moving to a standalone schedule, whilst organisers imported a fleet of Wolf GB08s to avoid the technical issues that beset the first season.[5] Despite this, all of the races at the first event in Hyderabad were cancelled after Vishnu Prasad broke his leg in a practice crash.[6]

Teams are franchise-based and represent major Indian cities. Each team has two cars and four drivers – two drivers must be Indian, one a professional from outside of India and one female driver. Two drivers are assigned to each car, one Indian driver and one international/female driver.

In 2019, each event consisted of three 30mins + 1 lap races. The races were relays, with a mandatory pit-stop for a driver change in each.

In 2022, three races will again be held per round – but the first two of these will be 25min + 1 lap "sprint races" and the third is a 45min + 1 lap "feature race". As there are two drivers per car, for Race 1 Driver A will qualify and Driver B will start, for Race 2 Driver B will qualify and Driver A will start, and the feature race will see the grid determined by aggregate event points with both drivers competing by way of a mandatory driver change.[7]

Official website