30th October,2011....A dream has finally come home.
For 15 years I've been following the fast cars zooming around the tracks in the world of Formula 1 racing. The first race I remember, is the last race of the 1996 season, the year and the race in which Damon Hill was crowned champion. Down the years, I've seen Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve tangle in 1997, the biggest pile-up in F1 history in 1998 at Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium (http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=LcAH418Alko), Mika Hakkinen perform perhaps the greatest overtaking move on Schumacher again at Spa in 2000(http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=-eE3gCy5zvM), and his two year stranglehold on the sport, Schumacher and Ferrari dominate the racing world for a good 5 years, a young upstart in Fernando Alonso dethrone the greatest champion in its history, leading him to eventually retire from the sport, two back to back seasons where the title was decided by a single point, a team named Brawn GP rise from the ashes of Honda's departure and blow away the competition, and finally to a German nicknamed 'Baby Schumi' leave everyone in his dust to become the youngest F1 champion and then the youngest 2 time champion as well this year. I think you can judge by the details exactly how closely I've been following the sport. So today just wasn't another day in my sporting calendar. Today was special. The first ever Indian Grand Prix was being held at Delhi. And unfortunately, I was at home, and not at the track. Well, there's always next year...
The race as it turned out wasn't very spectacular. Vettel lead from the start and didn't give up the lead even for a second. He was followed home by Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso. It was nice to see a Ferrari on the podium at 'my home race'. The first couple of corners produced a few coming togethers, leading to three retirements. The 'big' incident of the race was however the coming together of Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton on lap 24. This led to Hamilton having to replace his nose cone, while Massa was handed a drive-through penalty for initiating the crash. This effectively put paid to both of their chances. Massa eventually retired a few laps later, while Hamilton finished 7th. The race didn't exactly go to plan for the home team, Force India, as they managed just 2 points with Adrian Sutil finishing 9th. Paul di Resta managed a lowly 13th. This was definitely disappointing given their better starting positions of 8th and 12th respectively. One got to see a rare glimpse of the old Michael Schumacher as he made up 3 positions at the start, and then consolidated to finish 5th in an impressive race performance, a total improvement of 6 positions, after another disappointing qualifying session.
Catch the race highlights here,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAkTo_zGw-o
As the race comes to an end, I'm delighted to read the positive feedback from all the drivers regarding the track. The race commentator even went as far as saying that this might be the best race on the calendar. That though I'm not exactly sure about, because the older tracks such as Monaco and Spa have a lot of heritage and sentiments attached to them. But I will say this, the first Indian Grand Prix has definitely been a success. We have shown yet again that if we try hard enough, we can pull off any international sporting event in our country. Lets hope that this race becomes a permanent fixture on the F1 calendar for years to come.
So on that very positive note, I hope you all enjoyed the event. Next year, I definitely plan to be there.
Oh and Happy Halloween everyone. Signing off...
For 15 years I've been following the fast cars zooming around the tracks in the world of Formula 1 racing. The first race I remember, is the last race of the 1996 season, the year and the race in which Damon Hill was crowned champion. Down the years, I've seen Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve tangle in 1997, the biggest pile-up in F1 history in 1998 at Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium (http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=LcAH418Alko), Mika Hakkinen perform perhaps the greatest overtaking move on Schumacher again at Spa in 2000(http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=-eE3gCy5zvM), and his two year stranglehold on the sport, Schumacher and Ferrari dominate the racing world for a good 5 years, a young upstart in Fernando Alonso dethrone the greatest champion in its history, leading him to eventually retire from the sport, two back to back seasons where the title was decided by a single point, a team named Brawn GP rise from the ashes of Honda's departure and blow away the competition, and finally to a German nicknamed 'Baby Schumi' leave everyone in his dust to become the youngest F1 champion and then the youngest 2 time champion as well this year. I think you can judge by the details exactly how closely I've been following the sport. So today just wasn't another day in my sporting calendar. Today was special. The first ever Indian Grand Prix was being held at Delhi. And unfortunately, I was at home, and not at the track. Well, there's always next year...
The race as it turned out wasn't very spectacular. Vettel lead from the start and didn't give up the lead even for a second. He was followed home by Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso. It was nice to see a Ferrari on the podium at 'my home race'. The first couple of corners produced a few coming togethers, leading to three retirements. The 'big' incident of the race was however the coming together of Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton on lap 24. This led to Hamilton having to replace his nose cone, while Massa was handed a drive-through penalty for initiating the crash. This effectively put paid to both of their chances. Massa eventually retired a few laps later, while Hamilton finished 7th. The race didn't exactly go to plan for the home team, Force India, as they managed just 2 points with Adrian Sutil finishing 9th. Paul di Resta managed a lowly 13th. This was definitely disappointing given their better starting positions of 8th and 12th respectively. One got to see a rare glimpse of the old Michael Schumacher as he made up 3 positions at the start, and then consolidated to finish 5th in an impressive race performance, a total improvement of 6 positions, after another disappointing qualifying session.
Catch the race highlights here,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAkTo_zGw-o
As the race comes to an end, I'm delighted to read the positive feedback from all the drivers regarding the track. The race commentator even went as far as saying that this might be the best race on the calendar. That though I'm not exactly sure about, because the older tracks such as Monaco and Spa have a lot of heritage and sentiments attached to them. But I will say this, the first Indian Grand Prix has definitely been a success. We have shown yet again that if we try hard enough, we can pull off any international sporting event in our country. Lets hope that this race becomes a permanent fixture on the F1 calendar for years to come.
So on that very positive note, I hope you all enjoyed the event. Next year, I definitely plan to be there.
Oh and Happy Halloween everyone. Signing off...
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