24 Hours of Le Mans. It is the World's toughest endurance race and India for the First time is going to Le Mans, Racing team India will be the first all Indian Team to compete Internationally in endurance racing. Karthikeyan, Maini, and Rao announced as drivers. Racing Team India, an all-new Indian endurance racing team, will be competing in the 2021 Asian Le Mans in February. This is a Proud moment for all the Indians not just for people who are into Motorsports. These Folks are on the way to make their country proud by targeting the world's toughest endurance championship! Now Gautam Singhania is going to lead the Racing team in India.
Now the reason why getting selected in this is a Big celebration is that only 62 cars from around the world get selected in it and India happens to be a part of those selected 62 cars.
Now you might be interested in knowing the car that our Drivers are going to be driving, so the car is a Ligier JS P217 prototype.
I know most of us might not have heard the name of this car ever before but don’t worry I am going to be writing a separate blog on this car which will be explaining each and every minute detail of it.
But for now, just to give you a basic idea, it’s a racing car made for the LMP2 category of the FIA world endurance championship that was made to meet the 2017 FIA and ACO Regulations.
To summarise it in a Nutshell, the car is good enough to be won championships in. rest is up to the drivers to give their best and win the races.
Now talking about drivers, some of the best drivers/racers are going to be participating in the race and representing India.
So, the drivers are, Narain Karthikeyan, one of the very few drivers from India to make it to F1, then we have Arjun Maini, who has competed in F2 racing and at last, we have Naveen Rao who is an IMSA LMP3 Champion.
So there is doubting the capability of these drivers, the only challenge which I think they might face is driving for such long hours without a break, I know they are professional drivers and they have had a huge amount of experience in racing cars, but Le-mans is a race like no other, even F1 doesn’t come close to it, in terms of testing the potential of the driver to their fullest.
An F1 race lasts 90 Minutes, Le-mans, on the other hand, lasts 16 times longer i.e. 24 Hours, even if we take the ideal conditions of each of the three drivers distributing their time equally, each driver still has to race for 8 hours, which is a driver driving 5.33 times more than the length of an F1 race. Also, the weather conditions and the day and night changes that Le-mans driver's face is no easy task, it’s the toughest and the top-level to which a racing driver can be tested.
And that is why not only do our drivers are going to require that physical endurance to race 8 hours, they also have to be physically prepared to be at their best anytime in those 24 hours, and the rest they are going to receive will be next to nothing.
I might be coming in as a Le Man Fanboy but these are not opinions, these are straight-up facts, this is what the drivers actually go through, I have seen both F1 and Le Mans and I know which one requires a different level of dedication.
So, all I can say at the moment is feel proud to see the Indian flag waving at Le-mans and be even prouder of the rising motorsports culture and fanbase in India, as for the drivers, all I can wish these heroes is all the best, millions are looking at them, and I trust that they will give it their best!
So, yeah everyone, that will be all for this time, I trust you liked this one, if you did then do share it with your friends and do consider subscribing to Motordrift for more such content in the future.
Till then
Ciao
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