Mahindra Racing to quit Moto3

India’s first and only MotoGP manufacturer, Mahindra Racing announced that it will leave Moto3 post the 2014 season. Mahindra Racing would only leave the sport as a factory team as it will be present in Moto3 as a constructor providing Mahindra MGP3O Moto3 motorcycle to other teams for racing. According to Mahindra officials, this decision has been taken to concentrate its effort on machine development as a full-scale constructor. 

Apart from the factory team, Mahindra Racing has been providing the MGP3O Moto3 motorcycle to various customer teams such as Ambrogio Racing, Team CIP and Team Italia. In fact, Brad Binder riding for Ambrogio Racing finished second at the 2014 German Grand Prix which is Mahindra’s best-ever result. The Indian racing outfit had also recently signed an agreement with the renowned Aspar Team, owned by former world champion Jorge Martinez to supply the 2015 MGP3O racing bike.

Mufaddal A. Choonia, Chief Executive Officer Mahindra Racing, said, “Working with experienced customer teams rather than having their own factory outfits is a model successfully employed by our manufacturer peers in the Moto3 series. We have a great group of people in the Mahindra Racing team and we are extremely grateful toall of them for the contribution they have made. We know we have more work to do to make the MGP3O the bike to beat in Moto3 and we are confident that this new approach will be the best way forward.”

Mahindra Racing made their debut in international racing by participating in the FIM MotoGP Motorcycle Road Racing World Championship series in 2011 thereby becoming the first ever Indian constructor to participate in the championship. In the following year it switched to the newly formed 250cc, 4-stroke Moto3 class. Mahindra Racing registered their first podium in 2013 becoming the only non-KTM machine to finish on podium in the 2013 season of Moto3. Talking about the 2014 season, the Indian team finished third at the 2014 Dutch GP which was bettered by Binder’s second place at Sachsenring.

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