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Formula E CEO Jamie Reigle believes making the Hyderabad E Prix race a success is not pressured by F1’s simultaneous interest in the sport.
The Canadian feels that Formula E has a unique business model which can be replicated by F1 but is unique in its own way to generate its own interest.
Asked by Sportskeeda if the Hyderabad E Prix succeeding was pressured by F1’s interest in the market, Reigle replied:
“If you look at Formula 1 in the last five years, they haven’t done one new race in the city. They talk a lot about sustainability and those are Formula E stories. When you are a disruptor and an innovator, people come and sometimes copy your business models and that’s Ok, welcome that. I think for us, Formula E owns the positioning around pure electric."
"I don’t think anyone doubts I the world that electric is gonna happen at different paces in different countries but certainly in my lifetime, middle aged, you know it’s happening. There’s no doubt about it. So we have a great positioning, question is can we seize that opportunity, so do we feel more pressure because Formula 1 is replicating a little bit of what we are doing?"
"No. Do we feel more pressure coming in India for the first time to make it a success? I mean we want it to be a success because it’s important to us as a championship, to our teams, to our sponsors, hopefully to fans in India who are excited about motorsport, not because I am worried about what F1 is doing.”
The success of the Hyderabad E Prix event is not pressured by F1’s interest but is one of the business models that can be replicated by its gasoline counterpart, according to the Formula E CEO.
Reigle feels that despite F1’s talk about sustainability and its mission to reduce its carbon footprint, the pinnacle of Motosport does not have sustainability in its DNA, the way Formula E has imprinted in its business model. Reigle felt they wanted to succeed in India for their own reasons irrespective of F1’s interest in the market or its failures in the past.
Formula E CEO believes India is an important market for Formula E
Jamie Reigle feels India has its own uniqueness for Formula E considering there are two Indian-owned teams on the grid. According to the electric series CEO, their manufacturers and teams have a significant role to play in expanding their own electric vehicle markets in a country like India.
With a prime purpose of addressing climate change, Reigle believes FE has its own in furthering the electric dream and sustainability cause on Indian shores. On whether a country like India made sense for Formula E as a potential market, Reigle explained:
“When we think of new markets we enter, we think the level of passion for sport in general, the importance of the market to our teams and our manufacturers. In case of here (India), we have Tata Jaguar and of course Mahindra."
"And we think of what does the country represent in means of the story overall championship. We go racing in London, in Rome, in Berlin, we want to be big cities around the well, if you don’t have a city in India that’s a big gap."
He added:
"We recognise where transport, electric mobility, where infrastructure is in different markets is very different. You have Norway, where 60-70 percent of the cars sold every year are already electric, big give rent subsidies, lots of infrastructure, relatively small country. And then you have other markets where the GDP per head is disposable income, where the automotive dream is a long term one.but it’s till an important one."
"Formula E has a purpose at its core which is addressing climate change. Climate change is a global problem, where people are consuming cars, it has an impact all around the world. That clean air story is also a part of the narrative and that’s how we think about India as well.”
With the importance of a cleaner environment and spreading the need to use electric vehicles being the core of promoting an electric racing series, India has its own value to add to the cause, according to Reigle.
The electric series is the first global Motorsport event to grace Indian shores since the departure of the F1 Indian GP in 2013, therefore FE becomes an important event, particularly due to the Indian entities involved in the sport such as TCS Jaguar and Mahindra.
