The countdown for the second Indian Grand Prix has begun! Vodafone India, one of India’s leading telecommunications service providers, today commenced its activation to the second season of the motor racing event in India – Vodafone Drive into the Big League. It extends an enviable opportunity to small and medium enterprises (SME’s) to get their logo placed on the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes cars that will race at the second Indian Grand Prix to be held in Delhi from October 26-28, 2012.

Vodafone received an overwhelming response to the first season with close to 80,000 entries which resulted in M/s ABC Consultants taking centre stage with the race drivers and having its logo on the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes cars during the racing weekend. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with a turnover between INR 10 crores and INR 250 crores and an employee base of less than 1000 are eligible to participate. Shortlisted finalists get to present their cases to an esteemed panel of experts where they will debate on a television reality series for the coveted top spot. Participants can register themselves on the Vodafone bigleague site.

The call for entry started on July 11, 2012 and will be open till August 31, 2012 and is open to all SMEs across India. Season 2 of ‘Vodafone Drive into the Big League’ will be held at a much larger scale. Over a period of 45 days, the qualifiers will be conducted at 10 prominent SME industry hubs viz. Pune, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Delhi, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Mangalore and Vishakhapatnam. 100 SME’s who have focused on technology as a key driver for growth will be invited for the contest in each of these venues and this would be telecast on a leading business channel during Sept-October 2012. Two winners from each venue will be selected to be the part of grand finale that will be held in Delhi closer to the Indian Grand Prix weekend.

The wild card entry will be chosen through a contest run on a social networking platform between August 1, 2012 and September 15, 2012.

For the Grand Finale, 20 winners from the qualifying rounds and the wild card winner from the online contest will then debate on a reality show on a leading business channel all through September/October 2012 for the coveted spot.