Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan co- promoted KKR will own the Mumbai team for the upcoming new motorsport racing league,i1 Super Series,the organiser of the event Machdar Motorsports said. "We are today announcing the first team for the i1 Super Series which will be owned by Shahruk Khan and Jai Mehta,who together own KKR," Machdar Motosports CEO Darshan M said. KKR is also the owner of the Kolkata franchise of the T20 cricket Indian Premiere League. The i1 Super Series is scheduled to start in January 2012 and nine city-based teams in India will participate in the racing competition that will be held in India,UAE,Malaysia,Bahrain and Qatar. Next week Machdar Motorsports will announce,other teams and owners mostly probably for Delhi,Hyderabad and Bangalore,Darshan said. "We are currently holding talks with atleast 2-3 potential suitors in each of the nine cities for every team," he said without disclosing names. It has been speculated that for the Delhi team Dabur India promoter Mohit Burman and IIPM Business School Dean Arindam Choudhary are in the fray. Darshan,however,declined to comment on it. He said each team owner will have to shell out a minimum USD 20 million over a period of 15 years for team acquisition. "There is no auctioning in this case. We will select team owners on the basis of their commitment and passion for the sport. Machdar Motorsports,which is a private entity will pay back 60 per cent of the revenue earned from the series to the respective team owners," Darshan added. Besides,Delhi,Mumbai,Hyderabad and Bangalore,the company is looking at other cities such as Chandigarh,Pune,Ahemadabad,Kolkata and Chennai. "The series,charted on the popular city based franchisee format will have 8-9 teams with each team having an Indian and an international driver per car," he said.
