Covering motorsport, mostly national level racing and rallying in India and F1, been lucky professionally to have been able to be paid to do what I like including shooting at motorsport events.
Dehradun-born Monisha Kaltenborn took over from Peter Sauber with immediate effect as the team principal of the Swiss-based Sauber F1 team. Kaltenborn had been serving as CEO of Sauber Motorsport AG since 2010 and has been a member of its management board since 2001.
She is the first woman to have ever held such a position in the largely male-dominated world of Formula 1
Earlier this May, Sauber handed over a 33.3 percent stake in the team to Kaltenborn, making her a part-owner of the team that has seen an upturn in its fortunes with Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi scoring four podium finishes between them.
Think back to the goings on in Formula 1 over the past three seasons. 2009 was all about the threat of a possible breakaway series that was averted only once the season got well underway (deals were made by the British Grand Prix). 2008 featured a thrilling and controversial race for the drivers’ championship and seven different winners throughout the season. However, this was almost overshadowed by then FIA president Max Mosley’s seedy private life and the withdrawal of Honda at the end of the season. Honda’s withdrawal sent shock waves through the sport that had people questioning the viability of F1. 2007 also featured a great fight for the drivers’ title but was all about the spying scandal that lead to McLaren being thrown out of the race for the constructors’ title and hit with a 100 million dollar fine.
Now turn your attention to the 2010 vintage of F1. A championship battle for the drivers title that has seen the lead in the points table change hand eight times. The return of Michael Schumacher. The return of Mercedes-Benz as a constructor. Close racing, a comeback for the ages by Fernando Alonso and the addition of South Korea to the F1 calendar. And the controversies? The usual row about Ferrari’s interpretation of team orders and a rivalry between the Red Bull Racing drivers that is the result of Mark Webber catching the more fancied Sebastian Vettel completely by surprise. Speculation is rife about whether Webber will stay at Red Bull next year after his candid comments about the team being ’emotionally behind’ Vettel.
And that’s it. That and the delay in getting the South Korean venue of Yeongam ready (and the issues with race start time that followed) have been what has passed for controversy in F1 this year. It is a state of affairs that F1 fans all over the world should be thankful for as they watch the fight for the drivers’ and constructors’ title go down to, what seems like, the very last race in Abu Dhabi. Five drivers still in it mathematically and no matter who wins there is one true winner; Formula 1.
Should the Jaypee F1 circuit in Greater Noida get FIA approval next year, the 2011 F1 season will feature 20 races for the first time in its history. The most in F1 history and double the number of races held in the 1964 season. Back then of course, F1 drivers would take part in a number of other non-championship races as well as in sports car, touring car and any other category of racing that took their fancy. If memory serves me correctly, drivers like Jim Clark would often take part in 30 or more races in a variety of racing disciplines in a calendar year.
For the last 25 years or so F1 drivers have forsaken multi-tasking. The burgeoning costs and ever increasing logistical challenges of racing in a championship that has truly gone global makes it ever harder to commit to anything other than F1. Teams make it worth the drivers’ time to be specialists as well. The steady addition of new venues has, however ensured that F1 drivers will now be a lot closer to their counterparts from the ’60s and ’70s in terms of number of races in a calendar year. And that would be fine if F1 were still a predominantly European based series which would allow teams to easily get from one venue to another.
The fact of the matter is that 10 of the 19 races on the 2010 F1 season are held well outside of Europe and every one of the 12 teams on the grid are based in Europe. The number of races held outside of Europe will go up to 11 with the addition of the United States Grand Prix in 2012. The addition of the Russian Grand Prix in 2014 may not add to that number but it will mean another long hike for the F1 teams. So clearly one of two things need to happen. Either FOM chief Bernie Ecclestone stops his hunt for new F1 markets (unlikely) or the Formula One Teams Association’s (FOTA) suggestion to permanently cap the number of races in a season to 20 is heeded.
I would go with the latter as F1 needs a serious quality control check in terms of the venues that it makes stops at. For one thing, no country should ever host more than one grand prix in a season. So that would put an end to the European Grand Prix and I’m not sure many F1 fans would be too heart-broken about that. The street circuit in Valencia is thoroughly uninteresting and does not produce good racing. It would not be missed. The Hungaroring is a tight, narrow and twisty circuit where it is all but impossible to overtake even in a fast car. Just think back to 2005 where Michael Schumacher (after scoring a surprise pole position) held off Kimi Raikkonen’s much faster McLaren in his Ferrari until he pitted for fuel and new tyres. Dumping Hungary in favour of the Czech Republic and the fast and challenging circuit of Brno would be a move that F1’s powers that be should seriously look into.
It can also be argued that F1 does not need to make more than two visits to the sandy, featureless tracks of Western Asia. Especially if there is a repeat of the 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix where the organizers added twisty, squirt and shoot corners to the track configuration. Needless to say the season opening race was an extreme let down. So hopefully Ecclestone will not try to rope in Qatar to the F1 calendar. Because once that happens the truly special F1 venues will come under threat. Venues like Spa, Monza, Suzuka, Monaco and and Silverstone. And once that happens then F1 will lose whatever little ties it has left with its rich and unforgettable history.
Formula One Management boss Bernie Ecclestone has been throwing a hissy-fit of late. In a push to implement a medals system in F1 where the driver with the most wins (gold medals) at the end of the season wins the title, Ecclestone hinted that this year’s title race has not been that exciting.
Jenson Button laughed off that assertion on Thursday in Singapore and the racing prowess of Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber and Robert Kubica made it look downright ridiculous on Sunday. Fernando Alonso’s 25th career win has all but ensured that the race for the 2010 drivers’ world championship goes down as one of the all-time great title races in F1. The way things are going it could end up surpassing the 2008 and 1964 title battles for drama. It has also further vindicated the adoption of the new points system that Ecclestone wants to replace with his idea for awarding the title to the driver with the most wins at the end of the season.
Had such a system been implemented and there was only one race remaining this year, three drivers would be in contention for the title instead of four as there currently are. As it stands, with four races remaining, there are eight drivers with a mathematical chance of winning the title. Although only the first five drivers have a realistic chance of achieving success. So much for that great idea by F1’s coercer-in-chief.
As far as predictions for the title goes, I stand by my pre-season pick of Fernando Alonso. However, I must confess I didn’t think the Spaniard would be able to pull himself back into contention after scoring just 73 points (out of a maximum of 225) between his first and second victories of the season. Two perfect weekends after a second place in Hungary and a retirement in Belgium have secured Alonso’s reputation (in my mind at least) as the best driver in F1 today.
That is not to say he is the driver I would like to see win the title. That would be Mark Webber. The Aussie has proved himself in no uncertain terms against two much younger drivers tipped to be the greatest of their generation. Lewis Hamilton (nine years younger than Webber) and Sebastian Vettel (eleven years younger than Webber) have both committed errors unbecoming of title aspirants. Vettel’s latest was losing time during a crucial pit stop at Singapore when he tried to get the car moving while in second gear. The time spent shifting down to first could very well have cost him a chance to jump Alonso in the pit lane (the two drivers had pitted together). Hamilton tried to pass Webber on the outside of turn 8 and ended up getting punted off the road by the Aussie who held the inside line. Webber had managed to get ahead of Hamilton despite starting the race two places below the McLaren driver by pitting early for his mandatory tyre stop.The retirement was Hamilton’s second in as many races and his third in the last four races.
Webber finished the race in third place and has retaken the lead in the championship that he had lost to Hamilton after the latter won the Belgian Grand Prix four weeks ago. Webber has definitely come a long way from 1997 when his motor racing career was all but over because he couldn’t find anyone to sponsor him during his rookie season of British Formula 3. A 50,000 pounds-sterling loan from former rugby international David Campese allowed him to keep pushing on his quest to reach motor sport’s pinnacle. A title win for Webber come November 14 would be a win for anyone who has found the strength to dig deep, and with a helping hand, achieve the goal they set out for themselves.
News has emerged of talks between Tony George, founder of the Indy Racing League (IRL) and former CEO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) and Formula One Management and Formula One Administration President and CEO Bernie Ecclestone regarding the United States’ return to the F1 calendar.
While nowhere near the viewership figures for NASCAR, there remains a hardcore following for F1 in America. Hardcore indeed considering the fact that the majority races are broadcast live at a fairly inconvenient local time. One to eight in the morning for the European and Asian races on the East Coast and Eleven at night to five in the morning on the West Coast.
Should the talks be successful the venue for the race would almost certainly be the IMS. Stands to reason that with George involved in, this would be the case. An infield section was added prior to the very first race held there in 2000. While receiving mixed reactions from drivers and fans alike the location was ultimately given the thumbs up by the F1 community at large.
It was, at any rate a greater success than any of the other venues that tried to give F1 a home following the end of F1’s stint at Watkins Glen International in upstate New York from 1961 to 1980. 1981 and 1982 saw the race move to the parking lot for Caesar’s Palace hotel in Las Vegas. A race was even held on the streets of Dallas, Texas in 1984. Detroit had a fairly good run, hosting the race from 1982 to 1988. The knockout blow to F1’s aspirations came in 1991, at the third running of the US Grand Prix in Phoenix, Arizona. Just 18,000 spectators turned up to watch the race. A number claimed to be beaten by the attendance figures at an Ostrich race held on the very same day.
In excess of two hundred thousand spectators turned up at the IMS to watch Michael Schumacher claim pole position and victory in 2000, much to the delight of George and Ecclestone. The race even managed to survive the fallout of the 2005 race where 16 of the 22 starters failed to take the start of the race due to safety concerns with the Michelin tyres they were using.
Indianapolis hosted the last US Grand Prix in 2007, following which the race was canceled after George and Ecclestone could not agree on a commercial partnership. It was a pretty big blow to Ecclestone’s plans of establishing a long term presence for F1 in America, where unlike a lot of the other new venues on the F1 calendar, people can actually afford the ticket prices.
I for one am in favor of the IMS returning to the F1 calendar although I have my doubts about Ecclestone’s plans to also add a street race in New York city. Street races, as a rule, are boring and processional affairs due to the lack of overtaking opportunities. There is also the matter of the ever expanding F1 calendar. Expected to hit 20 races for the very first time, with the addition of the Indian Grand Prix, there is a real possibility of the calendar hitting the 25 race mark that Ecclestone joked about.
I don’t know about you but I find the two week gap between races (sometimes even three weeks) helpful in building anticipation for the upcoming race. The last thing I would like to see is a bloated calendar that makes it impossible for drivers to recuperate. You may argue that it is the drivers’ and teams’ job to race but treating them like circus performers doesn’t seem to be in the sports’ best interest.
Ultimately it seems inevitable as resentment to Ecclestone dropping races at traditional European venues in favor of new venues grows. With the construction of new tracks at Portugal and France (both former rounds on the calendar) and upgrades made to Imola and Silverstone the chances of European venues hanging on to their races seems likely. That being said, I wouldn’t mind in the least bit if the Hungaroring was booted off the F1 calendar.
Well, about four months shy of two years since I got a chance to spend a day training alongside Karun Chandhok, India’s second Formula 1 driver for a story for Autocar India. The resulting story was one I got plenty of flak for from the magazine’s editor in chief, Hormazd Sorabjee (creative differences). It still sticks in my mind as the assignment for which I prepared vigorously with mixed results. There’s a still a bittersweet feeling whenever I read it (published in the magazine’s September, 2008 issue) and I was reminded of it when I saw Overdrive and CNBC TV-18’s effort to do a training story of their own just two days ago. Here for the first time is the story behind the story.
Back in 2008 Karun was still just one rung below motor sports’ top echelon. He was racing for the iSport team in the GP2 series and had been doing fairly well (had won a race and scored two podium finishes). Not since Narain Karthikeyan (India’s first F1 driver) had an Indian driver managed to attract media attention in cricket crazy India.
Opinions were divided amongst the elite of India’s motor sport press regarding his talent as a racing driver but there was no question about the amount of work that Karun put into achieving the ultimate goal of breaking into F1. I was in the middle of my two year stint at Autocar India, the nation’s top selling motoring publication. Autocar India was and still is chock-a-block with motor sports enthusiasts and anyone who has ever read it will know that with the limited amount of pages set aside for motor sports coverage, the magazine does a solid job of giving readers their motor sports fix. I had returned to the magazine after a brief study break when a colleague who was in charge of motor sports coverage for the magazine suggested that we do a fitness related feature on Chandhok who had famously lost over 20 kilograms as a teenager in order to pursue a career in motor sports.
The importance of being fit is often overlooked by people with a cursory interest in motor sports but anyone with even a little experience in single seater racing at the highest level will tell you that it pays to be strong and have enough endurance to withstand the punishing beating that you get in a car with high cornering speeds, vice like brakes and extreme acceleration. Think about this little stat; an F1 car can accelerate from a standing start to 200 kmph (124 mph) and decelerate back to a standstill in at or under nine seconds. Imagine experiencing forces like these lap after lap for nearly two hours and then add to that cornering forces that can at times exceed four times the force of gravity. Then add factors like heat inside the car, seat belts so tight that when you breathe in you are pushed further into your seat and you get the idea of what it takes to be able to withstand such punishment.
A GP2 car while not at F1 levels was still a pretty mean machine. The 2005 spec car was capable of accelerating from zero to 200 kmph in just under seven seconds and could reach a top speed of 320 kmph (198 mph). The new car introduced in 2008 was an improvement over the preceding model. So suffice to say I would be up against a pretty fit driver. The colleague who suggested the story warned me that I’d better be prepared as Karun starts his mornings with an eight kilometer (4.97 mile) run.
But before I could start preparing for the story I had to get around the prevailing notion of what made a feature like this worth reading. The magazine’s, opinionated, motorsports mad, pudgy yet likeable deputy editor, Shapur Kotwal, immediately chimed in saying that he wanted to do the feature. I had feared someone pulling seniority on me (I was just a correspondent) but it was his take on approaching the story that got me really worried. He stated that it would make a great read and look good on TV too if he were to go there and start huffing and puffing and struggle to keep up with Chandhok. In other words, your usual stereotypical story of an average person being left in the dust by a well conditioned athlete who trains day in and day out. Well obviously that would happen, but what if the average guy had time to get himself in shape and then take on the athlete? I incessantly kept hammering this point home as I pleaded my case to be allowed to do the story. “Come on, he’ll still beat me”, I said. “I only have a month”. After much nagging he finally let me go ahead and do the story.
Determined to not show up completely at sea (if you keep reading you’ll get why its ironic I use that expression) I set the goal of being able to run at least 10 kilometers (6.21 miles) by the time I met him in Chennai around mid-August. I also started to look for articles in which Chandhok discussed the importance of fitness and his training regime to get some idea of what I’d be up against. I also knew that there would almost certainly be a weight training segment in his routine so I had to be prepared in that department. Weight training for racing drivers, however lays a greater emphasis on muscle endurance rather than outright strength. Hence the reason you don’t see any beefy F1 drivers. A “heavy” F1 driver these days weighs in around 80 kilograms (176 lbs). Diet too would have to be taken into consideration as I needed a fairly high-protein diet with ample carbs as well to have the energy to workout. All this would, however, have to be tailored to my typical workday which started around 9:30 AM and end anywhere from 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM if there were last minute print deadlines.
Fortunately I was able to leave the office no later than 8:00 PM during my training period and was able to get to sleep by 10:00 PM everyday. This was critical as I would get up at 4:00 AM to start stretching and warming up. Highly critical as the last thing I wanted to do was to pull or tear a muscle in the name of a story. By 5:30 I was out the door to start running. Having not worked out at all for a year prior to starting my regime I was understandably winded and could only manage two kilometers on the first day. It was not a terribly promising start considering I had just under a month to go before trying to keep up with a pro. Slowly but steadily though I managed to not only hit the 10 km mark but also follow the run up with a fairly intense weight training session too.
As the assignment approached, this was how a typical day looked for me:
4:00 AM: Wake up begin stretching and warming up by spot running.
5:00 AM: Drink water and eat a banana.
5:30 AM: Start of 10 km run.
6:30: End of 10 km run. Drink a glass of coconut water.
6:40: Start of weight training which consisted of spot jumping with 10 kg (22 lbs) dumbells held with arms slightly bent just above waist height. Three to five sets of one hundred repetitions. This was followed by shoulder press jumping jacks. Pretty self-explanatory, an exercise where I would do shoulder presses with the 10kg dumbells while performing jumping jacks, five sets of 20 repetitions. This was followed by the steering wheel exercise in which a 10 kg dumbell was held up as a steering wheel and turned to simulate a lap of the Monte Carlo street circuit (one I knew by memory after years of watching F1) and done in the time it would take a GP2 car to complete the circuit (one minute twenty seconds). The exercise was performed while sitting on an inflatable balance ball so that my core would get a workout along with my shoulders, forearms and wrists. The weight training segment was followed by crunches (three sets of 20) and push-ups (three sets of 20).
7:30 AM: End of training, start getting ready for work.
Wanting to make sure that I kept to a low-fat, high protein diet, my breakfast consisted of three boiled eggs (white only), three slices of whole wheat bread, muesli, a glass of protein shake and whatever fruits were in season. Lunch was cottage cheese, three boiled eggs (again, white only), some sort of vegetable and whole wheat bread. And frequent trips were made to a juice stall near my office to get a glass of carrot juice. And of course I drank as much water as I could throughout the day. More stretches would follow just before lights out at 10:00 PM.
And then came the bombshell. With three days to go I finally called up Karun to discuss the logistics of the story and also asked about the workout. He confirmed that he ran 8 km (evil chuckles in my head ensued when I heard that), but only every other day (??!!) and that on the day we would be meeting he would be swimming 2.2 kilometers to start the day. WHAAATTT???!!!!! Where on earth did this come from? Why didn’t the guy who suggested the story to me tell me in the first place? He chats with Karun on Gmail and on the phone practically every day for crying out loud! I could swim but not two kilometers! I haven’t swam for over ten years!!
Ultimately I knew I had only myself to blame for not researching properly and not calling Karun much much earlier than I did. I resigned myself to my flop show to come but vowed to swim as much as I could and not stop until Karun left the pool. The day finally arrived and after filming the first interview with Karun (the story also ran on UTVi News’ Autocar India Show) I got ready and sure enough after the first two laps of the 22 meter pool started to fall behind. Plenty of breaks followed but I kept going even though I was out of sequence with Karun. I think I only managed just under 500 meters while Karun did the full 2.2 kilometers. Fuming at myself I waited until the afternoon when we would start the weight training segment in the gym.
And thankfully the cameras were there to catch me making up for earlier by matching Karun rep for rep during his circuit training segment. Although even there lay a couple of stumbling blocks. The shoulder dips and sitting on a fitness ball with out any support whatsoever were out of my league but the only two blemishes in an otherwise perfect performance. I was able to leave pleased with myself and even managed to get Karun to sheepishly admit on camera that overall I did a good job especially in the gym. I wrote the story as a blow by blow account of my day of trying to keep up with a professional fitness freak. It did the usual editing rounds, was approved, layed out and sent to the press. Job done.
Or so I thought until I got a call from Hormazd while I was returning from one of the rare occasions that I accompanied the magazine’s road test editor for performance testing (the automatic transmission variants of the Hyundai i10 and and the Mahindra Scorpio). “How could you write that story Vinayak?!”, Hormazd fumed. “It sounds like you’re trying to beat him, and by saying that you used heavier weights than he did to train you’re implying that you’re fitter than him!” I pleaded my case by stating that ultimately I fell short (very badly at that while swimming) and that it just proved that an average person can’t keep up with a pro. “But you’re not average Vinayak, you’re fit!” (well anyone would be if they trained as much as I did I wanted to tell him). “You shouldn’t have gone for the story at all, someone out of shape should have gone, it would have made for much better reading then!”. It was hopeless arguing my point with with him and as the road test editor pointed out, since the story had already gone to press, nothing could be done anyway.
As if by magic, however, the next morning Hormazd had mellowed and said the story came out well on TV and didn’t bring up the magazine article. People around the office asked me in jest if I was planning a career in motor sports. I started to daydream on a grand scale of one day beating not only Karun but every other driver at their own game but eventually reality and lethargy got the better of me. I continued on the training regime for another two weeks before slipping back into a sedentary lifestyle.
It was a rare glimpse into the hectic life of a professional racing driver and while I rued the chance to spring a surprise on him I ultimately thanked my stars that I got to do such a story in the first place. And since one of the pictures of me got a female colleague to ‘notice’ me, it wasn’t a complete loss!
The paid spectator 
