Ankush Yeturu and Sarath Uday from Chennai will represent India at the Red Bull Racing can finals to be held in Sao Paulo during the Brazilian F1 Grand Prix weekend in November. The duo who call themselves Team India (they were extremely confident of winning and hence the patriotism) clawed their way up to the top after beating 168 participants from across the country.
Organised by the energy drink major around the world, the competition sees college students build and race radio controlled cars entirely from Red Bull cans. Red Bull provides only the chassis and the electric motor.
Both Ankush and Sarath are professional RC car racers and used this experience to build their winning machine. Speaking on the car, they said that their machine was designed as combination of two vehicles. While the front half was inspired from a pan car, the rear as per a Red Bull mandate has taken its cues from the design of current generation Formula one cars and includes an F-Duct, air dams and a prominent rear spoiler.
In a move straight out of F1, Team India said that they created a mini wind tunnel and used CAD modeling to perfect their design before hitting the track. In terms of strategies, Team India was one of the few participants to effectively use the concept of racing lines to their advantage. The duo said that they will extensively modify their design before they head off to Brazil for the finals next month.
The contestants were judged on their creativity, design and race performance by Joyneel Mukerjee, editor at CNBC Awaz, host of Chalti Gaadi Ka Naam. The second judge was Siddharth Salian, the owner of India’s only professional RC track and founder of Radio controlled Indian National Championship (RCINC).
