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View point: Funding for Rio: is it necessary?
Rio Haryanto is the only Indonesian so far to race in the GP2 Series
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Rio Haryanto is the only Indonesian so far to race in the GP2 Series. He is aiming to become the first to race in the Formula One (F1) racing competition.
In the past decade, Rio has cleared his way to reach where he is today. The 23-year-old driver started his career when he was only six in the national and international Go-kart arenas. Nine years later, he joined the Formula Asia 2.0 racing competition and at 16 he took first place in the Formula BMW Pacific 2009 racing competition.
At the age of 17, Rio qualified to get the super license F1 from Virgin F1 racing in a test-drive F1 in Abu Dhabi in 2010. He races in the GP2 Series with the EQ8 Caterham Racing Team.
What Rio has achieved so far only happened due to the hard work and commitment of his parents Sinyo Haryanto and Indah Pennywati. Sinyo, a former racer, started to teach Rio at an early age not only about driving techniques but also about what it takes to be a good sportsman: discipline, hard work and humility.
Rio still has a week before the final call is made whether he can enter this year's F1 Grand Prix. He is looking to the UK-based Manor Grand Prix Racing team as a possible access point to take part in the F1 race.
The team, however, has requested that he bring in ¤15 million
(US$ 16.35 million) worth of sponsorships to secure a 2016 season seat, should he be selected as its driver. Rio is facing tough rivals: Will Stevens of the UK, Spain's Roberto Merhi, the American Alexander Rossi, Dane Kevin Magnussen and Germany's Pascal Wehrlein.
This year's F1 season will kick off in Melbourne, Australia, on March 18-20. Racers will have pre-season tests at the Catalunya circuit in Barcelona, Spain, on Feb. 22-25 and March 1-4.
So far, Rio has only pocketed financial support worth ¤5.2 million from state-run oil and gas company Pertamina and Rp 100 billion ($7.2 million) from the Youth and Sports Ministry via the Indonesian Sports Council (KONI).
Ministry spokesman Gatot S. Dewa Broto said that Rio would need to deliver ¤3 million to Manor as a down payment to show his seriousness in taking part in F1.
F1 is known as one of the most expensive sports today. According to autoweek.com, each car is approximately worth $2.6 million in material costs with the engine as the most expensive item.
However, funding is always the big problem in sports, especially in automotive sports that require considerable investment without any guarantee of reaching the top and being successful.
When a child starts his go-karting career, the parents need to invest between $50,000 and $100,000. The investment can double or triple according to the level of competition.
F1 is a different story. It is the tip of the pyramid in the hierarchy of automotive sports. It is where the crème de la crème race.
Is Rio ready for F1?
Rio is on the right track to become an F1 driver. From the time of go-karting as a child, he has consistently upgraded his skills to race in the higher levels of competition. He is one of just a few Asians to have raced in the GP2 Series over the past four years. His overall ranking, however, was not that good between 2012 and 2014, where he finished 14th, 19th and 15th, respectively. He made a huge leap last year by finishing fourth overall after three wins.
Is this enough for him to jump into F1?
Last year's standing showed that the top three teams ' Mercedes, Ferrari and Williams ' placed their two drivers each in the drivers' standing. Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton topped the championship followed by teammate Nico Roberg. Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen were third and fourth respectively, while Williams' Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa finished fifth and sixth respectively.
With Rio's achievements so far, he can join the F1, but it will be very unlikely that he will stand on the podium. Finishing a race is already an achievement for him.
Is it worthwhile for the government to financially support Rio?
It will be a prestigious thing for Indonesia if Rio is the first citizen to race in F1. But there are other considerations to think about regarding sports development.
A sum of Rp 100 billion is a huge amount of money for developing sports. KONI is the umbrella for all sports organizations in Indonesia, and the body must set its priorities. There are sports whose athletes have contributed medals at the international level but these sports still need more funding.
Indonesia has set its eye on the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, the 2017 Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur and then the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, South Sumatra.
Of course, Rp 100 billion will never be enough to groom athletes for these three major sporting events. But the figure can help some sports organizations prepare their athletes better for those games.
With the Olympic Games as the pinnacle of sport, Indonesia definitely needs to improve after its failure to win any gold medals four years ago in London.
Badminton is definitely the national squad's backbone but the sport is financially sufficient, relatively speaking, compared to other medal hopefuls in weightlifting. Our lifters ' Triyatno and Eko Yuli Irawan ' saved the face of Indonesia four years ago by winning a silver and bronze medal, respectively.
As Rio already has Pertamina to financially back him up, perhaps the government should allocate their funds to other sports that need more attention and which cannot at present find any sponsors for their long-term development.
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The writer is managing editor at The Jakarta Post
