Vettel the last star of India? Steve Slater’s Formula One preview

One should never make predictions in Formula One, but this weekend the odds are stacked firmly in favor of Sebastian Vettel to become Formula One world champion for the fourth year in succession. If he does, he will move ahead of legends including Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna, who are all ‘mere’ triple world champions. Vettel is now set to match four times champion Alain Prost.

Only seven-times champion Michael Schumacher and five-time titleholder Juan-Manuel Fangio have won more crowns, and along the way both also claimed four championship titles in successive years. However neither progressed at
such a rapid pace as Vettel.

Vettel is just 26. When Fangio won his fifth championship crown (and fourth in succession) in 1957, he was a venerable 46 years old.

Schumacher’s domination, with five successive titles for Ferrari between 2000 and 2004, followed a five-year hiatus after winning his first two titles for the Benetton team. Schumacher was 37 when he scored his record 91st victory. There is no reason Vettel might not comfortably surpass Schumacher’s totals when he reaches a similar age.

While on rare occasions his mask of affability has slipped, demonstrating a ruthlessly competitive character behind his trademark smile, Vettel remains a popular driver in the paddock. Even given the Red Bull’s current superiority, it is near impossible to find anyone who believes that Vettel isn’t a truly worthy champion.

It is hard to argue against him heading for victory again in India, to seal that fourth title in style. Vettel has dominated in every Indian Grand Prix so far. However there are serious questions about whether this race will be the last at the Buddh International Circuit.

The organizers have already agreed that they will take a sabbatical from the 2014 calendar to allow them to return with an early-season slot in 2015. However, political issues and the sheer volume of bureaucracy could make
Formula One turn away forever.

Unlike say, Singapore, where the government has made it a priority to ease access for people and equipment into the country, India has taken the opposite stance and seen it as a golden opportunity to charge swinging excise bonds and impose onerous visa requirements on teams, organizers and journalists. Teams had to lodge hundreds of thousands of dollars to get equipment out of customs and even when the equipment left the country at the end of last year’s race, it took months of negotiation to gain refunds.

This lack of political support was thrown into sharp perspective on Thursday when news broke that the Grand Prix organizers JPSI were faced with court hearing that could potentially lead to Sunday’s race being cancelled.

The case was due to be held in the Indian Supreme Court on the Friday ahead of the race and is connected to a 2011 ruling that the Grand Prix should be classified as entertainment rather than sport, and should therefore be denied tax exemptions. It would have meant that the organisers would have to hand over 25% of all revenues or cancel this year’s event.

A late postponement of the hearing meant of course the cancellation did not happen, but one can see why it  wouldn’t  be too much of a worry for those in the Formula One paddock if the sport doesn’t come back again. It is also notable that Indian Premier League cricket, which has just as much money, fireworks and hype surrounding it, is still given the ‘sport’ designation.

Home hero Karun Chandhok, who was the first man on track at that inaugural Indian Grand Prix, is desperately concerned about the wider effect on India’s image.

“I think brand India is getting affected. People should not underestimate the power of F1 and power of sport. For the teams and drivers it is a big headache to reach here. They have to make a separate contract because of taxation laws and the paper work involved. You need to hire an extra lawyer, just for the Indian GP.”

“F1 brings a lot of attention to India. For some reasons, government is not acknowledging how much good this attention this can do. I just don’t know how the government does not see the positives.  Look at the companies in the
pit lane. You have airlines, companies like Blackberry, Shell—huge multi-billion conglomerates,” Chandhok concludes.

“So all the CEOs who are here—they will think about these difficulties, then they will discuss whether they should open a factory here and employ 4000 people. Everywhere else in the world, the race gets support from the government. I am not saying that they pay the fee. In this case, they are not even helping the process.”