“I would love to see a street circuit in Ladakh,” says Akhilesh Reddy, chairman and MD of Racing Promotions Private Limited (RPPL)

Round 3 of the Indian Racing Festival recently took place at Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore, and while you can read about all the action that took place on the race track here in our race reports, we also had the opportunity to have a conversation with Akhilesh Reddy, chairman and MD of Racing Promotions Private Limited (RPPL) on the sidelines of the race weekend.

The first time I met Akhilesh Reddy was in 2022 at the MMRT in Chennai, and while the championship had not caught on with the mainstream audience back then, the Indian Racing Festival has come a long way since. Interest in the IRF has clearly been piqued by the prospect of the upcoming rounds which will take place in Goa and Navi Mumbai, and Reddy explains that this was precisely the logic behind setting up street circuits in these cities. “To be frank, the main reason we actually thought of doing a street circuit in Goa and Mumbai is that it's more about the city, and then the sport. So when we connect both of that, the traction should be good, and the response that I am getting on social media or even outside it is quite good. So I think the purpose of what we wanted to do, I think it's fulfilling that purpose.”

When the Goa street circuit was announced, Reddy had mentioned that he was looking forward to a spectator capacity of 10,000 to 12,000 people at the circuit, which could be bumped up to around 15,000 to 20,000 people with the presence of standing stands for the race spectators. During our conversation, Reddy revealed that the approximate capacity for the upcoming street circuit located in Navi Mumbai would be 9,000 to 10,000 people, but he added that this is still being worked on.

I also asked Reddy about his thoughts on the layout of the Mumbai street circuit which will be hosting the season finale for IRF, and he said, “Basically the circuit layout is going to be a fast track. Lots of people when you see just the layout, you will just see the straight lines. But when you get into the track, when you are actually manoeuvring the car, you have tight corners, you have high speed corners and you have a straight where you need to take a 90 (degree) sharp left. So these are quite physically demanding, technically demanding and also you have to be quite into the thing. I have seen lots of comments, people are like what is this layout and all, because you can only see the lines in the basic outline. but I feel that the Mumbai street circuit would be quite an interesting track.”

As we neared the end of our conversation, I asked Reddy about the challenges of planning and running races on a street circuit, but the RPPL chairman and MD continues to remain confident and unfazed about the project. “Planning is going well and luckily we have the experience of the Chennai night race. So everything is in place. It's just that we have to start the execution.”

My final question for Reddy was which other cities or regions of India would he love to see street circuits in, and he answered it by saying, “I would love to see one (street circuit) in Ladakh, because then we can put India onto the global map. Even Formula 1 would look forward to it because we would be the only country who would do a race at that altitude. That would be the highest altitude at which any race would have ever happened. So we would definitely love to do that. At some point I hope we will be able to do it, because that's the only thing which is left, which is not done by Formula 1 or any other championship.”

Round 4 of the Indian Racing Festival will take place in Goa from November 1 to November 2 and it will be followed by the season finale in Mumbai which will be taking place in mid-December. Stay tuned to this space for more motorsport updates!