Winning formula

IN MY MIND
Needless to say, it was nice to see Force India on the podium. I witnessed the birth of the team back in 2007 at Albert Park, Melbourne. Fisichella lasted five laps and Sutil, a handful more.

Vijay Mallya strutted back to the paddock club, addressed the media and said, “That’s racing for you.” Instead of buying advertisement space in a winning car, VJM had bought a whole troubled team and decided to build it up from scratch. Why? Well, history books will tell you that Mallya is a racer’s racer — he likes a bit of competition and he likes to slug it out. He even imported an Ensign Formula One car to drive at Sholavaram when he was younger.

 

Now, with an international airline to promote and one of the fastest billboards on earth to do that, the ‘Good Times’ man is doing what he likes most. He could have named the team Vijay F1 (Ferrari, McLaren, Brawn, Sauber are all names of individuals after all) or he could have named it Kingfisher F1 a la Red Bull and Torro Rosso. Yet he opted for Force India and painted the car in Indian colours. Thank you!

There are many newborn F1 enthusiasts out there who think that there is nothing Indian about a British outfit with Italian and German drivers, so here is the best retort that I heard last week: “After all, it is our hard-earned money spent on Kingfisher lager that is at work.” I cannot deny that!

IN MY GARAGE
What garage? I was away driving the wheels off a brand new car and that too far away from home. Unfortunately, my lips are sealed and I can only say that this ‘facelifted’ machine remains one of the finest cars with one of the finest engines sold in India. So what if the Indian roads cannot match up to it? And I am not talking about our civic sense.

CAR OF THE WEEK
Caught up with Param, ex-colleague and great friend, at Bangalore. He is driving his wife’s Maruti 800 and he swears by it. “Do you really need anything more than this in Bangalore traffic?” he asked, as he slipstreamed past autos, two-wheelers and through narrow lanes where anything bigger would just get stuck. I found it easier to get in and get out than many contemporary sedans and it is well packaged for a small car indeed. Sure there are crashworthiness issues but there is nothing to beat the good old M-800 when it comes to frugal motoring. Okay, excluding the Tata Nano.

BIKE OF THE WEEK
Remember Ideal Jawa? You don’t see many Jawas on the streets these days but Bangalore is as good a place to be if you are a Yezdi fan. Some of the hairiest moments of my riding life were on clapped-out 250 Classics.

I spotted mint condition examples blissfully adding toxic fumes to the still August air of the Garden City. The uncluttered two-stroke exhaust note with intermittent drones and spontaneous internal combustion explosions made each sighting worth it. Czech them out on your next visit!

QUESTION OF THE WEEK
How many people in China are soon expected to reach the economic threshold of car ownership?

Rub your eyes and read this — the answer is 300 million (information courtesy Autocar UK, August 12, 2009).

So if you are in the car business, better develop a taste for Chinese.