No.4, 2005
Alexander Seleznyov
CLOSE TO JOINING FORMULA ONE
The LUKOIL Racing team is getting ready to start a revolution in car racing
Investments into sports are often made for publicity or image-building purposes. However, they may also be made to address more pragmatic tasks: for instance, to improve the sponsor company's products or help create new ones. This is possible if the sponsor selects as the sphere of its investment a sport linked, in one way or another, with the company's core activity. JSC LUKOIL, the leader of Russia's oil industry, did precisely that when in March 1997 its Board of Directors decided to create its own car-racing team.
The LUKOIL Racing team adopted the Company's corporate colors - red and white. Actually, the team became one of the structural divisions of the Company: aside from its sporting activity, it was to test LUKOIL's petroleum products - different grades of gasoline and lubricants. In conditions close to those of real racing competitions, the team's specialists test the Company's products, issuing their recommendations concerning possible improvements.
However, they never lose sight of real competitions, either. At present, LUKOIL Racing is Russia's leading professional car-racing team. It is engaged in pilot training and promotion, complex engineering research aimed at designing, constructing and testing racing cars and preparing them for competitions. The team has nine successful car-racing seasons to its credit, and the year 2005 was no exception. LUKOIL Racing's drivers mounted the honors podium 300 times, including more than 130 times as first-prize winners of various competitions. No other racing team has achieved such a success in the entire history of the USSR and Russia.
In 2002, the LUKOIL Racing management developed a program for the promotion of young drivers. Its main purpose was to train a Russian pilot capable of competing successfully in the world's major car-racing events. The first pilot to be trained under that program was Mikhail Alyoshin. He was a 14-year-old go-kart racer when he was enrolled in the LUKOIL Racing team. During the next two years Mikhail took part in all major karting championships and Russia's Formula Three competitions. Last year, he was among the prize-winners in German championships and won Italy's Winter Cup in the Formula Renault 2000 class.
After his victory in Italy the local press carried articles headlined: "LUKOIL is Starting a Revolution." The Russian edition of the British F1 Racing magazine declared Mikhail Aleshin the most promising young driver who would probably represent Russia in Formula One competitions very soon. And the Russian magazine Avtosport, for the first time in the country's history, proclaimed the 17-year-old pilot "the racer of the year."
His success attracted the attention of foreign companies engaged in sponsoring talented racers throughout the world. One of the leaders in that field, the Austrian company Red Bull, considered the results achieved by LUKOIL Racing to be excellent. In 2005, it joined JSC LUKOIL in sponsoring the LUKOIL Racing team as a whole and Mikhail Alyoshin personally.
So what precisely is the program for the promotion of young drivers which was worked out by the LUKOIL Racing team and which yielded such excellent results so soon? The program starts in Russia: young people get their first experience of driving a racing car in the Formula Rus championship - the junior-class competition of the Formula series. Later on, with the help of special auxiliary programs devised by the racing team management and including physical, technical and theoretical training, they become experienced professional racing car drivers. After that they pass on to the next stage which, depending on the results achieved, may be the European Formula Renault 2000 or the Russian Formula 1600.
At present, LUKOIL's program for the promotion of racing car drivers embraces, besides Mikhail Alyoshin, four other young talented sportsmen: Sergey Afanasyev, Ivan Samarin, Yury Bayborodov, and Sergey Romashchenko.
Today, this unique program is a project which has already proved its efficacy. This is evidenced not only by the results scored by the young racer Mikhail Alyoshin but also by the achievements of many other young racers of the LUKOIL Racing team. In fact, since it began taking part in the Formula Rus competitions, the LUKOIL team's racers have always been the winners. It seems certain that in time this program will achieve its main purpose - bringing up a Russian pilot to the top of the world motor racing. If Formula One is to be regarded as such a summit, it will not be long before it is scaled by Russians. According to some European car-racing experts, it may take Mikhail Alyoshin two or three years to accomplish just that.
