CHENNAI: People have been billing it as the ‘fastest’ Sunday that India saw, in a while. For Chennai’s Formula1 fans, a usually lazy Sunday morning couldn’t have passed more quickly, considering the flag-off time was set at 3 pm. The first Indian Grand Prix might have set the asphalt at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida alight, with thousands of cars clogging the Delhi-Noida Highway, but the roads in Chennai were calm and uncluttered, bordering on empty, a little before noon.
“Everybody must have been sitting at home in front of the TV, waiting for the grand prix to begin,” shrugs Sandeep M, an ardent racing fan who couldn’t make it to Delhi. But beyond the city’s modest pocket of speed-lovers, for most other people, it was just another day.
Much like any cricket match involving Team India or European club football, most city hotels cashed in by playing the 90-minute-race on large screens. Despite very little publicity, the turnout at pubs surprised bar managers by their own admission.
“We’ve got quite a few reservations after which groups of fans kept coming in to watch the race,” said Resi Michael, manager of Bikes and Barrel at the Residency Towers. One of three other clubs that managed a huge draw, he felt that doing up the pub in an F1 theme, with contests and F1 costumes made the difference. Arasu Dennis, Manager at Zara-Tapas Bar, said that though they hadn’t made elaborate plans, their brunch crowd stayed on to watch the race.
For F1 fanatic V Mohan, who works in advertising, not being able to watch the first Indian F1 race live was a huge disappointment, expense and time being the constraints. “Next best thing was to watch it on a large screen somewhere,” he conceded. A majority of Chennai’s F1 fans followed suit, either by grabbing some popcorn and settling down at the house of a friend with an XL-size flat screen TV or heading to a pub.
Even as Sabestian Vettel clocked in first, cheers began to ring out from sports junkies at Dfuze Gaming Lounge in Adyar. Suresh, who owns the lounge, said, “It was just our regulars, but the energy was fantastic today.” The biggest irony though, was that Chennai’s sports cafes and bars, when contacted, wryly said that they had no special plans for the F1. One person even asked what channel it was on.
There is another reason why people who had no clue about racing made sure they tuned in an hour before it started — to watch Sachin Tendulkar meet Schumi and wave the checkered flag.
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