Formula 1 In India: A Winning Formula?

to have a minimum crowd of 120,0002011 is set to be a big year for Formula 1 in India with the inaugural Indian Grand Prix scheduled on 30th October 2011. The circuit is being built by JPSK Sports a company of the Jaypee Group. Considering the growing fan base and the presence of an Indian owned team (Force India), the race will certainly make a major impression on the calendar.

The track design is by Hermann Tilke, renowned Formula One circuit designer. JPSK has planned to have a minimum crowd of 120,000 which is certainly an aggressive target. The contractors for 95% of the work have been appointed and the initial earthwork is already completed.

Indian Grand Prix:Visualization

Indian Grand Prix: Track Simulation

The excitement generated by ex-F1 driver David Coulthard when he drove a Red Bull Racing F1 car on the Bandra-Worli Sealink was immense.

While the event promises to be exciting, the organizers have to focus on the following two points:

• Ensuring plenty of overtaking opportunities to prevent yet another processional race
• Reasonable pricing of tickets

Force India F1 Fourth Fastest in Winter Testing

Formula 1's winter testing season came to close with McLaren's Lewis Hamilton recording the fastest time at Catalunya. Hamilton set the fastest lap time of 1m20.472s in the morning. Last year's runner-up, Red Bull emerged as Hamilton's closest challenger on raw speed. Mark Webber was just 0.024s behind Hamilton.

At this point all eyes were on Michael Schumacher, however the real sensation of the afternoon was another German, Adrian Sutil who went on a string of qualifying runs and set a superb lap time of 1m20.611s only 0.139s slower than Hamilton.

Force India's pace has been acknowledged even by their rivals. After the close of testing Lewis Hamilton said, "McLaren's biggest rivals are Ferrari (Alonso and Massa ), Red Bull (Vettel and Webber), Mercedes GP (Schumacher and Rosberg), and Force India (Sutil).

After last year's successful performance on low-downforce venues like Spa and Monza will Force India graduate to being a consistent point and podium scorer?

For that we will have to wait till the 5 red lights illuminate at Bahrain on 14th March !!

Testing times from Barcelona (Sunday 28 February)

1  HAMILTON    McLaren      1m20.472s (134)

2  WEBBER      Red Bull     1m20.496s (59)

3  MASSA       Ferrari      1m20.539s (105)

4  SUTIL       Force India  1m20.611s (99)

5  VETTEL      Red Bull     1m20.667s (76)

6  SCHUMACHER  Mercedes     1m20.745s (122)

7  BARRICHELLO Williams     1m20.870s (83)

8  KOBAYASHI   Sauber       1m20.911s (67)

9  BUEMI       Toro Rosso   1m22.135s (87)

10 KUBICA      Renault      1m23.175s (106)
11 KOVALAINEN  Lotus        1m25.251s (65)

11 DI GRASSI   Virgin       1m26.160s (47)