Promise of a tight finish

People who doubt if the championship race this year will actually go down to the wire need to have a rethink, for Formula One history is replete with spectacular swings in the fortunes of teams and drivers, fortuitous championship finishes and wretched misses. Even in the last season, the championship changed tack, quite dramatically too, in the final race, writes G. Raghunath.

The scrap between Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa — the top two drivers in the World Championship race — in the early stages of the Singapore Grand Prix, both gloriously twinkling and bouncing around the dazzling Marina Bay City Circuit, showed signs of developing into another classic McLaren versus Ferrari contest. At least until the 17th lap that is, before the Italian team’s embarrassing pit-stop fiasco (Massa was wrongly signalled to rejoin the race with the fuel hose still attached to his car. He promptly took off, knocking over a crew member and wrenching the hose off the fuel equipment. He then had to wait for some time at the end of the pit lane as the Ferrari crew struggled to yank the hose free) and a run-through penalty for Massa for dangerous driving while leaving the pit lane banished the Brazilian driver to 18th place in the field. Thereafter, Massa only had as much chance of getting amongst the points as a car running on three wheels.

While Massa finished the Singapore Grand Prix in the 13th place after revving off from the pole, Hamilton, starting from the second place on the grid, drove a calculated race to take the third place and with it six points that put him ahead of his Ferrari rival by seven points (84-77). So, with three races to go (in Japan, China and Brazil) and 30 points to be had, the McLaren driver has the advantage.

Hamilton, pretty happy to garner six points from the Singapore GP, also felt that the championship this year is poised for a close finish. His main challenger, Massa, rued Ferrari missing out on what he thought was a potential one-two finish. (Defending World champion Kimi Raikkonen was close behind Hamilton in the third place early in the race, but soon dropped down to fifth before crashing into the side wall with four laps to go.). Massa was also distraught with the way his fuel stop was botched up. He, however, refused to hold his crew culpable. “We lost six points today so we are seven behind. We could have been first in the championship because we had fantastic pace and could have finished first and second and things could have been different now. Racing’s racing and these things can happen. We are all human beings and everybody can make mistakes,” he told the website autosport.com. “I’m not the kind of guy who goes to the guy and fights with him, so I go to the guy and give him even more motivation because we need him and we need everybody together for the last three races of the season. Seven points is seven points but we have 30 in front of us and we have a quick car.”

Now, that leads the championship into a very interesting phase. A phase where both Hamilton and Massa will be expected to go flat out in quest of their maiden Formula One World title; a phase that could perhaps see one of the fiercest rivalries in Formula One in recent times. True, it would have been a different story had the stewards not slapped a penalty on Hamilton by adding 25 seconds to his time at the end of the Belgian GP for an infringement (the decision meant Massa, who came in second, was crowned the winner and Hamilton, who finished first, was pushed to third place). But it makes sense to look beyond this in the larger interest of the sport. It’s not very often that one gets to see such a close finish to a Formula One season.

Another interesting facet of Formula One this season, the night race in Singapore, has taken the sport to a different realm. Initially there were a lot of apprehensions. What if there was a thunderstorm? Racing in the rain against light reflected by sheets of water on the track and with cars in front spraying could be uncomfortable, some argued. And there were the others who feared a power shutdown. But on the race day, there was neither a thunderstorm nor a power failure. In fact, the problems encountered by the drivers were totally different, such as the perilous pit lane entrance and a bumpy track.

Racing under lights, perhaps, could be the way forward, as the officials attempt to maximise Formula One’s exposure commercially, keeping in mind Europe’s prime time viewership. The Formula One supremo, Bernie Ecclestone, is already thinking in terms of having the Japanese GP under lights. In fact, he is keen on turning the Asian leg into a night theatre.

* * *Vital Statistics

Singapore underscored the growing trend of street circuits in Formula One World Championship by staging its Grand Prix on public roads. Earlier this season, the European Grand Prix was run on the streets of Valencia. These are in addition to the already existing street circuits in Melbourne (Australian Grand Prix), Montreal (Canadian Grand Prix) and Monte Carlo (Monaco Grand Prix).

The race on the 5.067km track was run anti-clockwise, just as in Istanbul (Turkish GP) and Interlagos (Brazilian GP).

Singapore is the first circuit in the history of Formula One to stage a GP under lights.

The lighting system used for the GP was an engineering marvel. Two-hundred and forty steel pylons, 108,423 metres of power cables and nearly 1,500 light projectors were deployed to beam out light nearly four times brighter than that used in a football match. And the total power used was 3,180,000 watts.