India’s first GP is a hit, Vettel wins
Vettel celebrates his win, holding the trophy presented to him by UP chief minister Mayawati (not in the photograph).
Watched by 95,000 spectators, the inaugural Grand Prix of India might have been a Sebastian Vettel-led procession on track, but there was plenty of chest-thumping gloss all around.
Despite the massive line of cars converging on the Buddh International Circuit, the event went off with clockwork smoothness. Other than the clog-ged Noida-Greater Noida Expressway — caused mostly by lack of lane discipline — it was plain sailing on most fronts. Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar made himself part of Indian motorsport history, flagging home the finishers as teammates Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh graced the paddock too. For once the attention was rarely on them and a flock of other celebrities.
As 24 V-8, 2.4 litre engines howled into life and went screaming off for the first of 60 laps, covering 300 km, it signalled India’s entry into one of the two most exclusive (and expensive) sporting clubs. Estimates of how much it cost vary between `1,200cr and `1,700cr.
No one, at least among the 95,000-plus at BIC, was complaining. The race itself followed a pattern set early in the season, with Vettel streaking away for a flag-to-flag victory, but Coimbatore-born Narain Karthikeyan brought his HRT home in 17th place; even as India’s lone F1 team — Sahara Force India — logged two points with Adrian Sutil’s ninth-place finish.
At the end of the day, it was more than the race and its buildup. The GPI could well go on to become the sort of shot in the arm a flagging Indian economy so desperately needs, a success story amid a raft of bad news on practically every other front. Even cricket.
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