Life as a sports fan in India - Cricket, tennis and F1

For someone who was following the NBA, NFL, tennis and a bit of golf in the US, I needed replacements in addition to cricket and tennis in India. I love cricket, but there is just too much of it and you get saturated. I withdraw myself every few months, and come back to it refreshed.

I am on one such break now and I have discovered the joy of Formula 1. F1 features the most advanced and sexiest looking cars in the planet, super-talented egotistic young drivers with the maturity level of teenagers, challenging tracks (not the boring curved rectangles of NASCAR) and  plenty of on-track strategy (pit stop, tyre and fuel strategy).

On top of this, the intra-team dynamics between the engineers and the two drivers creates lot of intrigue. Clearly it doesn't matter to the team which of their drivers wins as the total points from both contribute to the team's points for the Constructor's championship. However, the drivers are also after their individual glory of winning races and the annual driver's championship.

So what's not to love? There was one little problem. There was not much overtaking. Too often, it seemed like the car with pole position ran away for a coast-to-coast victory.

This season, they have tinkered with the rules and there is lots of overtaking - I don't yet understand which changes caused it. One significant change is the no-refuelling rule which means that there is no need for a  "fuel strategy" . Fuel tanks have been enlarged to fill enough fuel to last the whole race. This implies that the cars get progressively  faster as they consume fuel and get lighter through the race. The pit stops are now only for tyre changes (or to fix any number of issues that can crop up in the car) since tyres don't last the entire race. Fewer variables and simpler racing.

This year there are two teams  (Red Bull Racing and McLaren Mercedes) that have the fastest cars and probably the four best drivers - Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel for Red Bull; Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button for McLaren. The Red Bull cars are faster in the corners, while the McLarens have better straight line speed. Any one of these 4 drivers can win on any given week. When one of these cars somehow falls behind in pole position or ends up behind because of a slower pit stop, they are certain to overtake everyone and come up front. Further there is a weekly battle within these four that makes for some seriously competitive racing.

Take for instance last week's Turkish Grand Prix. Webber and Vettel (the Red Bull drivers) were #1 and #2 going into lap no. 41 (it was a 58 lap race), when Vettel overtook Webber on the inside but inexplicably moved to the right, making contact. Vettel's car spun out of control and he retired from the race. Webber managed to rejoin the race as #3 behind Hamilton and Button (the McLaren drivers) who by now had taken the #1 and #2 spots. Vettel made a "mental" gesture as he walked out of his car, clearly blaming Webber for the incident even though the near-unanimous verdict from the pundits was that his move to the right (into Webber's way) caused the contact.

Then in lap 49, it was the McLaren drivers' turn for a duel. The McLaren crew radio-ed instructions to both drivers to "conserve fuel", so Hamilton slows down a notch; Button disregards the instructions, speeds up and overtakes a surprised Hamilton; Hamilton now furious, battles back and retakes the lead soon after. The McLaren crew is now in a panic as they don't want a repeat of what happened to the Red Bulls and repeat the instruction for conserving fuel, effectively asking them to stop dueling. The race ends with those track positions with Hamilton's first victory of the season.

As you can see from these videos, a lot of the action is now telecast with on-board cameras which is probably the best way to experience the race. I can't wait to watch this in HD when it does eventually come to India.

Talking of HD, Indian consumers have been getting conned into buying HD TVs for the last few years while there is no HD programming; finally Sun started HD service on some select channels (including coverage of this year's IPL) a couple of months ago. Tata Sky (which is what I have) promises to have it by end of year in time for the Commonwealth Games.

- Balaji