Speeding fine = Rs 14 lakh?

We had history in the making this past weekend with retired F1 veteran David Coulthard driving the pants off a Red Bull Formula 1 car on the Bandra-Worli Sea Link in Mumbai. For a country looking to host an F1 venue in the near future, the sheer importance of this event is unfathomable. It obviously must have taken a whole lot of planning to finally implement the plan in a country like ours - where logic gets beaten down by stupidity and beaureaucracy. Well, here's what happened.

 The organisers wanted DC to run the F1 car as he has done so many times before across the globe, across a prominent bridge in the country. What better place than Mumbai and the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, right? It's a fairly long stretch, and can be cordoned off rather easily - plus gives a great view of the proceedings as well. But there was a problem. With the number of cars running up and down the Sea Link everyday, toll collection is a major revenue booster, so if the Sea Link was to be closed off for a day to accomodate the preparations and the actual run itself, the organisers had to pay off an equivalent of the projected toll amount for the day - which by some methodology of calculation, deliberation or estimation came to about Rs 21 Lakh. Fine, acceptable.

But here's the catch. The authorities didn't want 'speeding' on the Sea Link. Now David was supposed to b driving an F1 car mind you, surely he couldnt be sticking to the 50 km/h speed limit, right? So they upped the limit to 100 km/h for DC. Now, anyone who knows anything about F1 will know that 100 km/h is like the pit lane speed limit on most tracks on the f1 calendar - and doing the distance of the pit lane at that speed itself can be a cause of overheating of an F1 car's engine. You see, F1 enginies are designed to run optimally at higher speeds, when the air flow through the side pods is enough to cool the radiators down. Anything low, and the engines overheat. add to that our extreme levels of humidity in Mumbai, and you've got the perfect recipe for a F1 car killer.

 Which is what happened. With DC sticking to the 100km/h limit, his car was overheating and he simply had to floor the pedal to get enough air to flow to his radiators. Eventually he crossed twice the limit he was permitted to be at. So since DC was technically 'speeding', the authorities decided to fine the organisers and keep the Rs 14 Lakh deposit that was made before the event. Rs 14 Lakh! Talk about plain ignorance! This is just one of the reasons why it is probably taking so long for proper motorsport to hit Indian shores - beaureaucracy. Well, eventually, DC's engine did die due to overheating as he was pulling doughnuts for the crowd. Regardless, it was a great show indeed. We just wish the authorities could have been a little more broadminded and let it all end on a happy note. I'm sure DC wouldn't have minded signing a couple of autographs for the authorities' family in exchange!