Mahindra Racing ties up with Aspar team for MotoGP

Mahindra Racing, which disbanded its two-wheeler racing team from the 2015 Moto3 season, has tied up with Aspar Team to supply its bikes to other teams.

The home grown major will be a constructor during the season with four teams, including Aspar, which will also be a factory team.

"We will not be running the Mahindra Racing factory team on our own this year. Instead, we have decided to focus on design, development and supply of the MGP30 to other racing teams in the Moto3 World Championship and other national championships. The role of our factory team will be performed by Aspar team," informed Mahindra Racing CEO Mufaddal Choonia in Mumbai on Monday.

Under the new structure, Aspar Team will concentrate on running the team and developing the riders, while Mahindra Racing will focus on developing the bikes and offer better support to its customer teams.

The other teams using Mahindra bikes are French team CIP, team Italia and Ambrogio Racing and this year nine Mahindra MGP30 bikes will feature on the grid this year.

After being part of the racing circuit from 2011, Mahindra Racing will be focusing on making bikes.

Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra said, "We are still at a relatively early phase of our journey in motorsport, but the technological challenge and learning that we achieve through our racing programmes are of major importance to the whole group."

Mahindra Racing recently opened a technical base at Besozzo near Varese in Northern Italy and Mahindra said, "We are going to see some exciting things coming out of that centre."

The Aspar Team is owned by four-time World Championship rider Jorge Martinez. The Spaniard said, "We have three talented young riders in the World Championship and some exciting new prospects in the Spanish Championship and I am confident that together with Mahindra we will enjoy a lot of success on track."

Dorna Sports, which owns the MotoGP rights, said there is a possibility of the Superbikes race in India in the future.

"Regarding the possibility of having a MotoGP or a Superbike race in India, there is a fantastic circuit in Delhi but there has been some logistics and some more problems. But still we are discussing with them, specially for Superbikes and in the future MotoGp," Dorna Sports CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta said.

Ezpeleta further said, "We have definitely seen a surge of interest in MotoGp from India since Mahindra joined the series in 2011. I think the changes put in place for 2015 should make Mahindra even more successful and that can only be good for MotoGP in India."

Image: Anand Mahindra (Chairman, Mahindra Group), Carmelo Ezpeleta (CEO, motoGP) and Jorge 'Aspar' Martinez (former winner and CEO, Mahindra Racing)

Photograph: Sanjay Sawant/Rediff.com