Photo: Racing Promotions Private
The Indian Formula 4 championship has revived its plan to run a night race on the city streets of Chennai, and it will take place in a month’s time.
Chennai Formula Racing Circuit will be located just 450 metres from the Bay of Bengal using roads encircling the Island Grounds fairground as well as going around the Chennai’s Victory War Memorial and crossing four bridges.
The 2.17-mile lap will run in an anti-clockwise direction and feature 19 corners, with the pitlane and paddock located on Island Ground. Driven International, the design group behind the track, also created the Hyderabad street circuit that – instigated by preliminary conservations with Alejandro Agag set up by Formula Scout – brought Formula E to India.
Chennai’s street circuit was supposed to be inaugurated on December 9/10 last year, but a cyclone ripped into the city and many others in the Tamil Nadu state which meant the event was called off a few days before and Indian F4 instead raced at the permanent Chennai track (also known as Madras) which is west of the city and less exposed to extreme coastal weather.
A schedule for Indian F4’s 2024 season was unveiled this April, with pre-season testing on August 21/22 followed by five rounds on August 24/25, August 30-September 1, September 13-15, October 19/20 and November 16/17. No venues were listed, and it was confirmed that Dutch team MP Motorsport will continue to run all the cars.
At an announcement event in Chennai this morning, it was revealed that the Indian Racing Festival (which contains the open-wheel Indian Racing League sportscar series and Indian F4) will be visiting the city on August 30-September 1 for the country’s first ever night races on a street circuit. That means it will be round two of the F4 season.
“The infrastructure is growing. The barriers which restricted the entry into the sport is slowly becoming better and better,” said Narain Karthikeyan, India’s first Formula 1 driver, at the event. He was pleased to not only see the Chennai street circuit now become a reality, but also that motorsport was being better promoted “to the grassroot levels” at time.
“Over time we’re going to see a lot, young drivers, not only coming out of Chennai but from [across] India. The Tamil Nadu government is taking a bold step forward to put this night race together. It’s a fantastic show of their committment to the sport. Motor racing is very, very small, miniscule compared to cricket, football in our country. But having the support encourages all of us, the motorsport fraternity and the young drivers who are going to be coming up through the F4 and IRL racing. I’m delighted to be here and to be supporting this event.- We all hope to have a very successful event.”