Feel of F1Hyderabadi F1 fans provide an online forum for all the motor sport enthusiasts
Left to right: Gautam Srivastava, Himanshu Shrivastava, and Pinnamaneni Sumanth sharing the `formula'
IN RECENT times Formula One racing has gained a lot of popularity among the youth. This is not surprising since F1 racing is all about speed and car control. Moreover Narain Karthikeyan's feats seem to have generated considerable attention in the media.
In Hyderabad a group of avid F1 fans like Chandrashekaran, Himanshu Shrivastava, Gautam Srivastava and Pinnamaneni Sumanth, all members of the Channel Formula One club have compiled a lot of information, which is available on
http://www.themavericks.net/f1. Their objective is to help other fans and enthusiasts of the sport to enhance their knowledge, exchange views and opinions and stay in touch with the sport and with each other.
Chandrashekaran who works in a leading BPO is in charge of site content while Himanshu Shrivastava is the F1 domain expert. Gautam Srivastava is a graduate of IIM Bangalore and Pinnamaneni Sumanth has just completed his BE. They are all in their early twenties and all immensely interested in the various aspects of F1 racing.
Having been drawn together by a common interest they now hope to establish contact with other young people especially newcomers seeking more knowledge about the sport.
"We want to reach out to like minded people throughout India and in fact all across the world," says Chandrashekaran. "Our love for this sport has prompted us to do extensive research on every angle and now we are in a position where we have piled up a huge amount of data which can be of a lot of help to all enthusiasts," he adds.
For Sumanth, it was a love for the engineering aspects involved in the manufacture of F1 cars, which first drew his attention towards this sport.
"The F1 technology attracted me," says Sumanth. "Being from an engineering background I and my friends were very interested in understanding what went into the manufacture of F1 vehicles and what enabled them go so very fast."
But not all types of motor sports have caught their fancy, says Gautam Srivastava.
"Having taken up a liking for F1racing, which is the ultimate as far as motor sports is concerned, we do to find the same attraction for other categories. No doubt a lot of research and effort also goes into the other categories and they also have stiff competition. But F1 stands at the top," explains Gautam.
Himanshu Shrivastava who is a software engineer has been following the sport for more than ten years.
"When my friends and I became interested in this sport, getting information was very difficult since there was not much interest for the sport in India. We had a tough time in getting information about races, schedules, details of the participants and so on. But now all that has changed. The sport has gained a big image in India. Also thanks to internet we can get a lot of information very easily now," says Himanshu.
"We are totally non commercial. Our only aim is to get response and feedback from more people. We want to have the satisfaction of regular interaction with like minded people who share the same passion for this sport as we do," says Chandrashekaran.
ABHIJIT SEN GUPTA