With the last year having ups and downs in motorsports, the dramatic sport has more to enthuse the riders
last year was a very dramatic one in motorsport; we had a new Formula 1 Champion in Nico Rosberg after a controversial season inside the Mercedes-AMG F1 team with garage swaps and allegations of favouritism. And then a day after he won the Formula 1 title, Rosberg surprised the entire motorsport world by retiring from the sport, and will remain like his father Keke Rosberg, a one-time Formula 1 World Champion. And the politics inside the Mercedes-AMG team wasn’t even the highlight of the season in Formula 1. That was Max Verstappen stamping his presence in the F1 World.
Technically, this was Max Verstappen’s second season and like his first season he started behind the wheel on a Toro Rosso car. The Italian team, once Minardi, is the feeder team for Red Bull Racing (Toro Rosso is ‘Red Bull’ in Italian, you see) but after Russian driver Daniil Kyvat screwed up at the Sochi Grand Prix. And what did Max Verstappen do when handed a competitive carIJ He promptly won his first race at Barcelona, even though Red Bull did muck up Daniel Riccardio’s race plan.
Unlike most other ‘sons’ in Formula 1, like Nico Rosberg, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve, Max Verstappen’s father Jos could best be described as a journeyman racecar driver. This does not in any way mean to belittle him, because driving very fast for extended periods of time is genuinely more stressful than you will believe. But Jos Verstappen is best known as being Michael Schumacher’s teammate during his title-winning 1994 season where his car famously caught fire during a refuelling pit-stop at the German Grand Prix. When Toro Rosso signed Max as a 17-year old, people asked ‘WhoIJ’, but Max is already more successful than his father, not only by virtue of his win (Jos never won a F1 race) but a stunning drive at the Brazilian Grand Prix, where he drove like a legend in almost undrivable wet conditions.
So will 2017 be the year of Max VerstappenIJ It would be awesome to see the dynamics in the Red Bull Racing team between Verstappen and Riccardio, but with Mercedes probably still expected to dominate despite major aerodynamic changes on the cars next year and Scuderia Ferrari potentially catching back up after a woeful 2016, things might not change all that much at the top. But after three seasons of domination by Mercedes-AMG and their drivers, I do feel that some competition will be a good thing for the sport — a truly competitive series where there is a bit of unpredictability. But I will be rooting for the Dutch kid this year.
Indeed, it were other categories of motorsport that proved that Formula 1 needs to do a lot to retain their cutting-edge. I was fortunate enough to be watching one of the most dramatic car races of 2016. The 84th running of this, the most excruciating of all car races - where men and women, not just drivers but the entire team are put through immense pressure for a whole day and night of racing. While I watched the race from the comfortable environs of Audi’s enclosures and for 23 hours and 57 minutes it appeared that the Toyota racing team’s car #5 would finally break their hoodoo and win this most storied of races.
But it is a 24-hour race, and as reliable as your Innova or Fortuner might be, the leading Toyota suffered an inexplicable failure handing the race to the Porsche team who, like all of us staring with our mouths agape at the screens watching the stricken Toyota on the back straight of the Circuit de la Sarthe. This proved to anyone watching that it isn’t over till it is over. Unpredictability. What was also unpredictable was Audi Sport, the winningest constructor over the past decade of the World Endurance Championship also withdraw from the sport, some say as a direct result of the financial constraints on the Volkswagen Group after the disastrous ‘Dieselgate’ scandal.
And then there is the rising Formula E electric racing series which also features Mahindra racing. That had a dramatic ending to its season when the two leading drivers Sebastien Buemi of Renault and lucas Di Grassi of Abt-Schaeffler Motorsport crashed at the last race of the season around london’s Battersea Park. I’m not terribly enthusiastic about the way Formula E manages its season, the current season has already started and Felix Rosenqvist of mahindra Racing is already making an impact but there is a two-month gap between the second ePrix that took place in Marrakesh in mid-November and the next race in Buenos Aires followed by another six-week gap till the Mexican ePrix and so on. It is a growing series with jaguar joining the championship and Audi increasing their involvement with Abt-Schaeffler, and will eventually expand to new geographies and while I don’t like the ‘sound’ of the racing the fact that Formula E holds their races in cities does make for compelling viewing. I genuinely hope that a Formula E race makes it to India soon, because on the face of it Formula 1 isn’t coming back to Greater Noida anytime soon. And I will definitely be keeping an eye on Rosenqvist this year.
The 2016 season on the premier two wheeled championship was not as exciting as most series on four wheels, but after the drama of the 2015 season between the top three riders Jorge lorenzo, Marc Marquez and Valentino Rossi, a more predictable season and a championship victory for Marquez allowed us to catch our breath. The Italian Rossi who will be 38 this year is aiming for his eighth championship and with lorenzo, his rival and teammate for the last few years leaving the Yamaha team to join Ducati, things should be interesting at the front yet again.
With over twenty dedicated sports channels with nine broadcasting in High-Definition and online streaming of racing events — Hotstar streams Formula 1 races, this should be another great year for watching motorsport, maybe a few races where Indian drivers like my friend Aditya Patel compete such as the Audi R8 lMS Cup could even be shown. And believe me, motorsport is an extremely demanding physical and mental activity, going round and round might seem like drudgery but adapting to changing car and weather conditions and adjusting overtaking at high speed can take a toll. Fifteen laps around the Budhh International Circuit at speed in a sports car with all the safety devices is exhausting, doing this for a livingIJ It is difficult.
So here is to happy racing!