'King of good times' promises F1 race in Delhi

NEW DELHI: After entering into the high-profile Formula One circuit as official partners of Toyota, Kingfisher Airlines chief Vijay Mallya now wants to bring the race to India.

Mallya said on Tuesday that he would present a proposal to the Delhi government in the next two months for hosting Formula One racing in the capital.

"I bet India must have Formula One and Delhi is the most feasible place to hold it ... also because of the upcoming Commonwealth Games for which lot of preparation was already underway," he said.

Mallya said Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit was "positively inclined" to host F-1 car race in the city in 2009 and talks were on with the city government.

Mallya said the proposal could be either to build a brand new dedicated track for the prestigious motor race or have it on wide roads of Lutyen's Delhi including the majestic Rajpath.

For the second option, the investment would be less as "you will only need to put up barricades and resurface these roads," he said, adding that building new tracks would entail large investment.

"Both these proposals will be presented to the Delhi government for consideration. We will submit the proposal before the end of the next part of this session," Mallya said.

Mallya said "we have invited experts who design race tracks to come and take a look."

Mallya refused to quantify the amount of investment that would be required, saying it was finalised, the cost would be calculated.

Kingfisher entered into a multi-year partnership with Toyota Motorsports to be the official partner of Toyota F1 team.

Last week, racer Ralf Schumacher was in India to unveil Toyota's new car TF 107.