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India’s Buddh International Circuit anointed

Buddh International Circuit

In a little over six months the Formula One calendar will see the first ever Indian Grand Prix. The world’s latest F1 track is located 25km out of New Delhi in the Buddh district. No surprise, then, to learn the new facility has been named the Buddh International Circuit.

The new racetrack is the latest to roll out from Tilke GmbH and features 16 turns over 5.141km. Expected average speed is a shade over 210km/h and the predicted lap time is around 1 minute 27 seconds.

After the break you can see Karun Chandok preview the Indian track in a clip produced late last year for circuit owners, Jaypee Sports International.

UPDATE 17 October: Click HERE for a new preview of the the Buddh International Circuit from Red Bull Racing and Mark Webber.

Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport

If you think our Luxury Car Tax is bad then spare a thought for those unfortunate Bugatti Veyron buyers in India. You see, the Indian government laughs in the face of our measly 33% rate and says if you can afford to buy one Veyron you can afford to buy two. Only trouble is, you still only get one Veyron for double the money.

That’s right, the Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport, which is about to go on sale in India, gets slugged with a 110% import tax. The final cost is a cool 160 million rupees. If that doesn’t mean much to you, it works out to be around US$3.6 million. Ouch! Other markets charge taxes, too, but none are quite as high as in India; for comparison a Grand Sport would cost you US$2.2 million in America or â‚¬1.6 million in Europe (around AU$2.25m).

Of course, after buying a Veryron, the real problem for Indian consumers is finding some space in their Dharavi mansions to park their new wheels.

[Source: Autoblog]