An Australian government trade group is discussing the possibility of holding two V8 Supercar races in India next year and including an Indian team and driver on the Australian-based circuit.
Austrade's senior trade commissioner in New Delhi, Peter Linford, says more negotiations will now be held on entering an Indian team and driver into next year's championship and organising back to back races in Chennai and at India's new Formula One track on the outskirts of New Delhi.
"Having an Indian driver with an Indian team racing against all of the other Australians makes a lot of sense because that will give us the opportunity to televise the series more popularly in India," Linford said.
"Then when the series does come to India it will have a fan base already established.
"From the V8 side they're all ready to put up a base sponsorship commitment so the commitment of money has actually come from the V8s themselves here in Australia to the Indians rather than the other way around ... and we don't see that too often.
"The next phase is to get an equal commitment from the Indian side and then to work together with the Indian and Australian commercial entities to bring about other commercial supporters so we've got the budget needed to deliver the first event."
Any Indian team would also need to buy or lease a racing entitlement contract, with V8 Supercar racing limited to just 28 cars - each having its own licence.
"It's not impossible, but there's a bit of work to do, and in fairness to the Indians front of mind for them at the moment is their first F1 race," Linford said.
"To talk to them about V8s is a little bit difficult because they're so focused on getting the track ready, especially as they haven't run an F1 race there before."
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