STM: India in GP - Welcome to the Future

One of the great pleasures – and I really do mean this sincerely – of writing for MCUSA is that we are blessed with a very active readership which is very ready to let us know their thoughts. Anyone who is privileged to write for what is the world's #1 motorcycling website needs to accept that reader democracy is paramount at MCUSA – and that getting bashed by readers is part of the job. This is very right and proper and keeps us all on our toes.

However, just sometimes readers get led astray because they don't have enough background information on a story – and the Mahindra GP racing effort is just one such example. On the face of it, as Nick commented: “Well someone's got to be last.” This about summed up the general reaction to the thought that a country which is most famous for building Royal Enfield retro bikes is about to go GP racing.

However, dig a little deeper and things get rather more interesting than a bunch of happy-go-lucky Indian bike fans rocking up to a MotoGP with a homemade bike in the back of their motorized rickshaw.

First the company. Mahindra began life assembling Willys Jeeps at the end of the Second World War and has now grown into an enormous concern with interests in everything from aerospace to tractors, real estate and leisure. Already the nascent aerospace arm of Mahindra is supplying the assembly lines of the Boeing 737, Gulfstream G150, and the world’s most advanced fighter aircraft, the Lockheed-Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. And yes, Mahindra still makes the iconic three-wheeled “Tuck Tuck” motorized rickshaws.

Mahindra entered the two-wheeled market in 2009 and eight months later – yes, that's eight months – launched its own range of scooters.

Now, Mahindra is going GP racing with the aim of becoming a major player in the Indian bike market – where there are a potential 1,155,347,678 customers (that's the 2009 figure) and thousands more arriving every day.

Now, good as the Indian engineers are – and the best are very good indeed – no-one at Mahindra yet has the technological expertise to build a GP bike. Note the “yet” caveat. To Mahindra, the solution was straightforward: buy a company who does.

Engines Engineering is based in Bologna, almost within spanner hurling range of the Ducati factory and has an impressive resume covering everything from artists' impressions of possible new products all the way to pre-production engineering. Not only does the factory have all the normal tools of modern design but they also have 3D clay modeling facilities in house – and their own wind tunnel. The company is now 100% Mahindra-owned.

The Mahindra bike is based on the machine which Engines Engineering has been racing, with mixed success, for the last two years. The difference is that this year Mahindra wants success.

The 125cc class is a good place to start GP racing if only because the design parameters are so restricted by Dorna. All the bikes have to be single-cylinder and they are limited to six speeds and a minimum weight of 80 kg (176 pounds). The final thing in Mahindra's favor is that 2011 is the final year for 125 GP racing. Next year will see the introduction of Moto 2 based around 250cc, four-stroke single-cylinder engines.

This means that KTM and Aprilia, the two big players in 125 GP racing, are taking things rather more steadily than in previous years and both companies are using lightly developed versions of last year's bike. This fact puts Mahindra a lot nearer the opposition than they might otherwise have been. By contrast, Mahindra is not backing off and the new bike is four horsepower up on last year – a vast amount in an engine producing only 50 horsepower – and is also four kg (8.8 pounds) lighter. This weight reduction is, again, an enormous step forward.

All this means that the idea of running around at the back of the field is simply not going to happen – particularly with a pair of very talented riders.

Team leader, Danny Webb, has got five seasons GP racing under his belt and is regularly and consistently in the top half of the field despite never yet having ridden a competitive bike. Podium places are a long way from tenth but in my judgment Danny will be there as the season progresses.

His young German teammate, Marcel Schrötter, is also a class act and I am confident that he too will be in the top half of the field.

Critically, Danny has a two-year deal with Mahindra with 2012 seeing the team move up to Moto 2 in 2012 with a brand-new bike which is intended to be a race winner.

Maybe the most interesting part of this story is the speed with which Asian companies can react and innovate. By contrast, the Western world is starting to look very, very old fashioned. Our schools have low aspirations and our kids are inculcated with the idea that the world owes them a living. By contrast, successful Indian children have an immensely powerful work ethic drummed into them from birth and worship at the shrine of education.

If you have kids in particular, you need to be very concerned that they are going to have a future – except for the future as Third World citizens buying goods from the Far East.