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WHAT’S
with Formula One? Why does everybody talk about it?
What makes it click?
From the man in the street to the
corporate exec, from the CEO to the tycoon,
F1—particularly the race in Singapore—would be on their
lips from today, Friday up to Sunday, when the 14th leg
of the World F1 Championship finally roars off to its
much-ballyhooed hoopla.
For one, F1 is the pinnacle of motor
racing. No car race in a circuit has commanded more
worldwide attention than F1 since its inception in 1950
in Silverstone, the United Kingdom.
Singapore is making history by becoming
the newest country to win the much-coveted dream of
hosting a Formula One race. A big challenge awaits F1
demons as Singapore lays traps and corners hitherto not
done before.
Exactly a year to the day the
International Automobie Association(FIA) moguls approved
Singapore’s bid to host the F1 on September 28, the
nation’s Department of Tourism worked feverishly to give
the world a different kind of Formula One racing.
Almost immediately, Singapore unleashed
its economic might and built, almost in record time, the
Pit Building at a staggering cost of S$33 million.
Impressed, the FIA, through its
president, the super-powerful Max Mosley, decided on
October 25, 2007, to make it official: The first ever F1
to be run at night would be held in Singapore this
Sunday.
It was a victory that rocketed Singapore
into a perch that became the envy of every follower of
world motor sports racing.
Stunning economic surge
WHAT
clinched it for Singapore?
Well, for one, Singapore’s stunning
economic surge the last two decades or so has made it
the model of progress, what with a growth rate that has
no equal on the world stage.
As F1 in Singapore debuts with much
glitz, fanfare and fireworks, the sports world will
become witness to a nation that has no crude oil to brag
about but somehow boasts of owning several of the most
sophisticated oil and nonfossil power refineries in the
world, including technologies for CNG and LPG
processing.
Did you know that for Singapore to
achieve that “miracle,” it had to reclaim much of its
ocean to erect those technological wonders that redound
to the benefit of its people?
Such is the country’s economic boom that
the government now dangles lucrative incentives to
couples deciding to have a second, third, child—a no-no
in recent memory.
In short, the F1 will yet showcase a
nation on the march to an inexorable economic advance
while celebrating, at the same time, Singapore’s
coronation as a First World country. One simply cannot
pretend to be wealthy by hosting a Formula One, which
commands billions of bucks to stage it.
The top guns of the F1 hierarchy do not
just allow a nation to stage a Formula One just because
that country has the money. Character. Prestige. A
reputable image in the world family of nations. These
are the code words to qualify one to apply as host of a
Formula One event.
F1 greats
AS the
14th of 18 nations to host an F1 event this year,
Singapore joins the ranks of F1 greats out to satiate
the hunger of high-speed freaks coming even from the
ends of the earth.
They will come to see Lewis Hamilton
either pad his precarious one-point lead or totally lose
it in the heat of the Singapore F1 in a unique street
race going around the city’s major arteries 61 times.
There will be fewer corners this time as
Singapore opted to build more grandstand seats for the
utter delectation of F1 fans around the world seeing
their first race counterclockwise.
Hamilton, the 23-year-old sophomore from
Great Britain onboard a McLaren-Mercedes, leads
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa of Brazil when the 22-strong
field is flagged on Sunday.
While an expected drama could erupt
between Hamilton and Massa as Hamilton’s 78 to 77
advantage is as brittle as a dry twig, much of the
spotlight could also fall on Sebastian Vettel.
Vettel, the 21-year-old German upstart
onboard the B-Team STR-Ferrari, stunned
everybody—including himself—when he ruled the Italian F1
in a spectacular pole-to-podium victory on September 14
in Monza.
Likened to Schumacher
THE
victory catapulted Vettel, who was quickly likened to
the legendary German, seven-time world F1 champion
Michael Schumacher, to ninth overall from virtually the
cellar.
And, although he was still 55 points
behind Hamilton with his 23 points and virtually out of
contention for the crown, Vettel’s breakthrough victory
should put him in good stead on Sunday.
Not only that. Dubbed as “the new star,”
he should command a good price next year and, already,
offers have come Vettel’s way to become an “A” driver in
2009.
At this stage after the Monza F1, Kimi
Raikkonen’s chances of retaining his crown look dim.
Starting 14th in Monza, Raikkonen, driving a Ferrari,
finished a dismal ninth, 39.4 seconds behind Vettel in
the wet conditions. The Finnish remained stuck at 57
points in fourth overall.
With four legs left including the
Singapore event, Raikkonen now needs a miracle to
overhaul his 21-point deficit against Hamilton, who
would gain 10 more points if he wins his appeal to
overturn the decision to invalidate his victory in
Belgium on September 9 for lane cutting.
But F1 history is replete with decisions
that remain unchanged, so that Hamilton might just have
to exert extra effort to finally reclaim a won- but
blown-up-bid for the crown in his rookie stint last
year.
Dark horse
FORTYpoints are up for grabs for winners in the last
four legs starting with Singapore, including Japan on
October 12, China on October 19 and, finally, Brazil on
November 2 in the season’s last run.
With Raikkonen’s uncertain position in
fourth, 21 points behind, Robert Kubica has become the
dark horse onboard his BMW Sauber in challenging
Hamilton and Massa.
The Polish is just 14 points behind in
third with 64 points. A victory for Kubica, who
finished a strong third in Italy, in Singapore could
jack him up to 74 and, granting that Hamilton and Massa
fail to enter the “Magic 8” on Sunday, the Polish driver
could inch his way to within four points off the lead.
Points distribution is 10 to a winner, 8
to the runner-up, 6 for third, 5 for fourth, 4 for
fifth, 3 for sixth, 2 for seventh and 1 for eighth.
Although Hamilton and Massa are multileg
winners—Hamilton winning four times and Massa five
times—Kubica could not be denied as he had won on June 8
the Canadian leg, the second longest at 70 laps behind
the 76 laps in Monaco won by Hamilton on May 25.
But still and all, in every grand prix,
no one has a lock to a surefire victory. That was
proven once more by Vettel, who insulted
everybody—including his highly rated A-Team teammates of
Ferrari’s Massa and Raikkonen—with his amazing
coast-to-coast win in Monza.
Whatever happens, though, on Sunday, the
one who crosses the finish line first merely survives.
When the checkered flag is finally waved ending the
61-lap race, the real winner is Singapore, the tiny
island-nation “below the wind” with the guts of a
superpower. n |
