Are we really ready for F1?

The essence of this post sprang up when I was driving from the International Airport in Mumbai to my home in New Mumbai. Adil had just landed from Abu Dhabi after having a blast of a weekend at the Yas Marina Circuit witnessing the final round of the 2009 Formula 1 season and an absolute entertainer of a last lap thanks to Jenson Button and Mark Webber fighting it out for second place. Quite obviously the conversation in the BMW X3 that I was driving was more or less limited to the Bossman’s experience at the racetrack and how awesome a spectacle it was to watch F1 cars racing as day turned to night.

The kind of investments, resources and dedication required to pull off a project as big as the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix can be possible only in a place like the Middle East. No, that’s not a biased view of a man smitten by the wealth in that Asian region, but a rather calm, collected and consequential view of an F1 fanatic. The kind of preparations that were made not just for the race but the whole event in general were breathtaking to say the least. Those guys thought of everything – walkways merely 20feet above the race track, colour-changing lighting on the Yas Marina hotel, run off areas that went under the grandstands, a marina filled with richness and yachts, completely covered grandstands throughout and lots and lots more.

F1 is slated to come to India soon, and that’s a great thing indeed. But the question is, are we really ready to host an F1 race. Let’s face it, Formula 1 isn’t really the biggest sport in the land despite having gained a whole lot of popularity in recent years. Can India really produce an Indian Grand Prix that will compete with world class events like Singapore, Monaco, Hungary and Abu Dhabi. Before all you patriots stand up in arms and beginning the slogan shouting asking me how I could have held the abilities of the motherland in such poor light, think again. I am not doubting that we can do it, just merely speculating whether it will be done.

Why the question? Well, as many of you will remember, David Coulthard was in the country a while back, driving a Red Bull F1 car across the Bandra Worli Sea Link. Well, Mumbai’s governing civic body, the BMC very ‘generously’ raised the speed limit on the Sea Link from 50 to 100 km/h for DC, but as anyone with even an inkling of knowledge about F1 knows, those engines are designed to run at speeds over 200 km/h – anything below and they overheat. Which is what happened. Despite DC’s sincerest attempts, he eventually had to break the speed limit for which the event company that made it all happen was fined a whopping Rs 14 lakh in damages! If we can’t adjust our thinking for events like these, then questions on whether India should really be hosting an F1 race in the years to come do arise. All we can do, is hope for the best!