My tryst with Formula 1- A Tale of an Indian Fan

These are exciting times for Indian Formula One fans; we have a race driver, a test driver, an Indian team and finally an Indian Grand Prix itself in the sport. The Indian Grand Prix is to be held at Greater Noida later this year as the 17th race in this year’s calendar. For people who are already big fans of the sport, these are super happy times. Now that the sport is finally making a big impact in the nation and win hearts, it makes me reminisce the reasons why I started following Formula One in the first place.

The Indian Grand Prix in Noida is a chance to rejoice for F1 fans of India

So why did I first watching Formula One, when all my other friends were cricket fanatics like any archetypal Indian? The very first season I followed completely was the 2001 season which was won by Michael Schumacher quite easily. The Finn, Mika Hakkinen who drove for McLaren then went into semi-retirement but eventually retired all together from the sport.

During that season I distinctly remember Michael Schumacher winning pretty much everything. The Man with the Midas touch from Germany was one of the main reasons I started following Formula One.Every sport needs big stars to grow and gather more fans. In Formula One, you can’t get anyone bigger than Michael Schumacher. I can recollect loving the German and Italian national Anthems which were played back to back on numerous occasions whenever Schumacher won a race. I loved them so much that I learned to play both of them on my keyboard. I was quite young at that time and we used to have a Maruti 800. I always used to dream of racing with that and overtaking other mean cars. Before I started following Formula One,the only sports car company I knew was Ferrari and I S used to think they only manufacture red cars. Such was the extent of my fascination with the Italian giants who could not stop winning.

If one doesn’t understand what is going on, F1 is a boring sport.People at my home couldn’t quite understand why was I watching the boring cars which were going round the same place for hours together with nothing ever happening. They didn’t understand things like qualifying and pit stops. But every race weekend, I tuned into Star Sports to listen to Steve Slater and Chris Goodwin who were absolutely brilliant. Steve who is still going great guns on Star Sports, was of the energetic type as he let the rush of adrenaline out of his mouth quite literally where as Chris was the soft spoken type speaking more about the technical aspect of the cars, thus making the two the perfect combo.

Steve Slater: The Voice of F1

And so continued my fascination for fast cars, pit lane babes and Ferrari. But my love for Ferrari took a beating at the Austrian Grand Prix, 2002 where Rubens Barrichello was ordered to slow down to let Schumacher pass and eventually claim the first position, which was crucial in the German’s bid to win the Championship. Even though Schumacher asked Rubens to climb the top podium during the post race celebrations, I was left disgusted by Ferrari’s unsporting behaviour for tweaking the rules in their favour. Here was a good man from Brazil who was perennially in the shadow of Schumacher and when he finally was about to get his share of the limelight, it was taken away from him in the name of “team orders”. I was just thinking what would have happened if Juan Pablo Montoya (who by the way I hated very deeply at that time) was Schumacher’s team mate.My respect for Barrcihelo grew but still was not able to stop myself from supporting the great man Schumi who won another title.

Schumi and Barrichello: The days when they ruled F1 in the red Ferrari

The 2003 season was the most exciting season till that point of time. The emergence of McLaren with Kimi Raikkonen at the helm and with Montoya at Williams made for a three way fight for the title but eventually Schumacher won it again. The best Grand Prix that I watched was the Brazilian Grand Prix which was raced in heavy rain. Rubens Barrichelo set the track on fire with his astonishing back to back to fastest laps and his overtaking of David Coulthard, the crowd were going wild and it was like Senna himself had comeback. But as always luck didn’t favour Rubino and a fuel system failure ruled him out of the race.

To my great delight, the 2004 season continued the same old story of Schumacher and Ferrari winning the Driver’s and the Constructor’s championships. Next came the 2005 and 2006 season which were disappointing for hardcore fans of Schumacher and Ferrari like me. Fernando Alonso replaced Montoya as the most hated driver and what was all the more saddening was that 2006 was the last season for Scumi and he failed to win the Championship which would have been his eighth, thus missing the chance to set a new World Record. In the 2006 season, it was bad luck which prevented Schumacher from winning the title as an engine failure at Suzuka, where he was leading gave the overall lead to Alonso and more bad luck followed him at Interlagos. One great moment from this season was that Felipe Massa who replaced Barrichello at Ferrari became the first Brazilian to win at Interlagos after the great Ayrton Senna.

Is Baby Schumi going to rule F1 like his predecessor?

Michael Schumacher retired from the sport as his bid to win a record eighth World Championship was thwarted by fate and I lost interest in the sport, after crying bitter tears of disappointment for the great man. Formula One these days is disappointing. It is no doubt more competitive with the rule changes which are designed to bring all the teams up to the same level, but the days of the big stars which captured my imagination are long gone. I was too young at the time of Prost and Senna but was lucky enough to see Schumacher. Sebastien Vettel seems to be next big thing, often dubbed as the next Schumacher given his German background, but only time will tell as Lewis Hamilton is no doubt in the reckoning very much.

Edited by Zico