Move over cricket. The fast-paced, high-adrenaline, glamorous motor racing sport, Formula 1, considered the most prestigious form of car racing, has finally arrived in India. Come October and Indian sports fans will have another high-voltage spectacle to feast on. Barely 40 km from Delhi, the 5.14-km, R1,500-crore Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida is ready to host the Indian Grand Prix 2011.

Built by Jaypee Sports International (JPSI) and designed by German racetrack designer Hermann Tilke, who has designed F1 circuits in Malaysia, Bahrain, China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and South Korea, the track is witnessing round-the-clock work to get it ready for homologation in July, when the Formula 1 establishment will formally certify the readiness of the track.

Beating more progressive states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra in building a race track to facilitate the international races, Uttar Pradesh has scored some vital brownie points to emerge as the cynosure of all adventure sports enthusiasts and corporate honchos busy scouting for either passes or tickets to view this thriller of a sport.

On the eve of announcing the circuit?s name at a press conference in Greater Noida, Samir Gaur, MD and CEO of JP Sports International, a subsidiary of Jaiprakash Associates told FE: ?The track, spread over almost 1,000 acres, will have the capacity to seat approximately 120,000 people including 25,000 in the main grandstand overlooking turns 10 and 11, 5000 in the high premium paddock, 50,000 people on ordinary stands, 25,000 on natural stands and 10,000 on classic stands. Talks are also on with different corporate houses who have evinced interest for the 50 corporate suites, which will have the capacity to seat 32 people each.?

While the homologation of the track is to take place in July, all other work is being given final touches, including ticketing and sponsorship details.

The track, which will have 16 turns, will see the 12 teams racing cars at an average speed of 240 kmph and going up to 320 kmph, making it one of the fastest tracks in the world, with an estimated one-lap time of 1 minute 17 seconds.

The 12 teams that will participate in the nerve-racking races are Force India, Ferrari, HRT, Lotus, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, Red Bull Racing, Renault, Sauber, Toro Rosso, Virgin and Williams.

?Utmost care is being taken to price the tickets in such a way that people from across all social strata are able to watch the event, be it students or corporate honchos,? says Gaur, adding that talks are also under way with different corporate houses for the title sponsorship and TV rights of the event.

Incidentally, while the revenue from the tickets will go to the hosts, JPSI, all other forms of revenue from the event will go to the Formula One Management. The sprawling circuit is part of Jaypee Green Sports City and after the F1 races, it will also be used for hosting MotoGP championships from 2012.

Though the races are a good six months away, the buzz around the money-spinning event has already started growing, with companies making a beeline for even the slightest thing associated with the event, be it title sponsorship, ownership of the corporate boxes or even sponsorship at the various turns. ?We have been inundated with requests for every small thing, but our topmost priority at the moment is to get everything in order for the event, which will be beamed internationally. Right from ensuring security to managing traffic and other logistics, arrangements are being made for the minutest detail so that the event does not see any hitch,? says Gaur.

The F1 race will be a three-day event and tickets will be valid for all three days. The first day would be practice sessions, the second day would be more practice and then the qualifying session, while Sunday, October 30, would be race day.

While the interest in the sport has been rising dramatically, the fact that Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandhok ?also the brand ambassador of the Jaypee Group ? will be seen in action has added a further spark of interest.

According to experts, the economic and financial benefits of F1 races for a booming economy like India will be immense. Not only would the hotel and tourism industry get an immediate boost with people from all over the world trooping in to watch the races, the country?s profile too would get a lift, especially when viewed in the perspective that Formula One had a total global television audience of 527 million people during the course of the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship.

?The high profile and popularity of this sport makes it fit to be a huge merchandising environment, which results not only in great investments from the sponsors and constructors of the game but also results in increasing budgets and expenditures from other industries which see the sport as a platform to further their businesses,? says a leading industrialist, who is also an avid F1 enthusiast, who did not want to be identified.