MARK Webber won the British GP and joined Fernando Alonso as the only other repeat winner for the 2012 Formula1 season. Vettel claimed the third spot on the podium, while Massa achieved his season best finish of 4th place.
While tyre strategy mixed up positions closer to the end of the race, Red Bull and Ferrari did emerge as two teams who seem to understand their tyre behavior better and hence are the teams to beat!
Had the forecast for Silverstone come true, the race could have well been a washout! Barring the race itself, no other session on track was dry and we had a red-flag during the qualifying session due to bad weather – yet another first for this season.
I was in Silverstone for the race and while the track is an absolute beauty to drive on, the roads leading to and from the track need much of an upgrade! Well, after attending last year’s Indian Grand Prix which has a six lane expressway to and from the circuit, I might be sounding like a spoilt Formula1 fan! However, British Formula1 fans who attended the race would certainly have been disappointed with the hour long traffic jams and inadequate parking facilities on offer. In fact, travel advisory on Saturday asked nearly 30,000 fans to stay away from attending the Grand Prix and were also offered a refund on their tickets. However, media reports did claim an attendance of nearly 125,000 fans on Race Day.
Given the numerous issues fans, team members, drivers and sponsors faced while entering and exiting the circuit this weekend, I wouldn’t be surprised if the all-favourite talk to move the race to another circuit with better facilities overall surfaced again. The new team facilities at the circuit are world-class; however, the circuit now needs an upgrade in its connectivity.
Dani Clos replaced Narain Karthikeyan in the Free Practice 1 session at Silverstone. This substitution didn’t hamper Karthikeyan’s progress last weekend as he managed to qualify 23rd and a spot ahead of a trouble-ridden Marussia of Charles Pic. However, he was out-qualified yet again by his team-mate Pedro de la Rosa. As we near the half way mark of this season, Karthikeyan has been out-qualified in all qualifying sessions and has been a staggering 9 tenths (approx.) off Pedro’s pace.
In the race, both HRTs were unable to repeat their qualifying pace and finished 2 laps down on the leaders and behind the Marussias. In the battle of the newcomer teams, HRT lies 12th and last in the Constructors’ Championship table and are yet to score a championship point in their entire Formula1 career. The only way the team can progress forward is by investing in developing the car to make it go faster, but in the world of Formula1, this is easier said than done!
The Indian-owned team, Sahara Force India, has their factory based at Silverstone itself and the team refers the British Grand Prix as their ‘home away from home’. The team narrowly missed scoring points in Silverstone as Hulkenberg finished 12th after defending for 9th place in the last few laps, whereas, British racer Paul Di Resta suffered from an early retirement after suffering from a puncture in the opening stages of the race. The team is engaged in a fierce mid-field battle with Williams and Sauber for 6th, 7th and 8th position in the Constructors’ Championship table and ended up conceding two points to Williams this weekend.
Indian Motorsport made some headlines in the last few weeks as the JK Racing Asia Series debuted in Europe last weekend with Chennai born Aditya Patel as their star racer. The series went racing at the famous Paul Ricard circuit in France, adding yet another feather in the cap for the tyre manufacturer and their contribution to Indian Motorsport.
Arch rivals MRF too seem to be preparing to announce an ambitious new championship in collaboration with Italian manufacturers Dallara. This championship will sport the Renault-powered Formula 2000 car and will commence from September and run as one of the support races for the 2012 Indian Grand Prix. The Chennai based tyre company also bid a good-bye to their motorsport head of two decades, Anthony Rodricks; the man who guided the company as one of India’s leading promoters of motorsport.
It is great to see automobile and tyre companies invest in newer and faster racing championships in India to increase the level of motorsport in the country. While still bleak, a path for an Indian racer to embark upon to become an international level racing car driver does seem to be appearing. The missing link in this path would be the welcome addition of companies willing to sponsor driver careers!
And talking of driver careers, I would like to pay my respects to Jatinder Shukla and his co-driver Ashish Mahajan who lost their lives while participating in last weekend’s Jammu & Kashmir Mughal Rally. As they say at every circuit around the world in English and in the local language – ‘Motorsport is Dangerous’!
