Sentul race gives a boost to Asian Grand Prix hopes

Sentul race gives a boost to Asian Grand Prix hopes

By Alexander Corne

A successful staging of next week's world motorcycle championship race at Sentul will reinforce Indonesia's campaign to host a round of the world's premier motor sport event, a Formula One car Grand Prix.

With its multimillionaire drivers, multimillion dollar space-age technology cars and 600 million spectators worldwide, Formula One is the world's biggest and most expensive circus.

The 1996 season started this month with the opening races in Melbourne, Australia, and Interlagos, Brazil.

But while the fans were caught up in the action of the new teams and their drivers, the sport's administrators were focused on the potential Asia offers.

The head of the controlling body of Formula One, Max Mosley, said Formula One's future expansion will take place in Asia.

At present, there are only three races in the Pacific Rim region: the Japanese Grand Prix, Pacific Grand Prix and Australian Grand Prix.

The Pacific Grand Prix was only added two years ago, to cater for the huge interest in Grand Prix from Japan.

Mosley and the series promoter Bernie Ecclestone say Asian cities must be better represented on the sport's calender.

While it is unlikely that the season will be stretched to include more races, some European rounds could be replaced by more Asian-based events. Teams said last season's stretch to 17 events was one too many, this year there are 16 rounds again.

China is believed to be close to completing a track outside Hong Kong, while Malaysia's Shah Alam circuit looks likely to host a car Grand Prix soon, having successfully run Formula One motorcycle Grands Prix for several years.

The Sentul circuit outside Jakarta has potential to host a car Grand Prix. The world's motor sport community will watch with interest how the first bike Grand Prix goes off.

Formula One's focus on Asia is driven by the rapidly-growing new car markets and their increasing sophistication. With more disposable income, and greater access to new cars, competition will increase between manufacturers.

As business develops, more potential sponsors will emerge, not all of them the same cigarette companies that presently dominate the Grand Prix scene.

As cigarette sponsorship becomes more and more unacceptable in Europe, some teams may find lucrative sponsors in Asia.

The Sauber Ford team this season carries sponsorship for Petronas of Malaysia.

This is not simply a bid for corporate exposure and image building. When the South African petrochemical conglomerate SASOL sponsored the Jordan team for three seasons between 1992-1994, it quickly turned global exposure into lucrative new business, and was able to recoup its US$20 million investment within six months.

Mosley said growing car ownership levels in Asia and general awareness of cars, brands and competition would nurture interest in Formula One, and this in turn would increase the likelihood of more Grand Prix events being held in Asia.

Formula One is all about speed, danger and cheating death at 300kmh. Technology and rules have become far more complex in recent seasons.

This year, the emphasis is focused on protecting the driver's head during impacts, by providing cockpits with heavily padded collars.

This is a result of the awful injuries sustained by Mika Hakkinen during practice for last year's Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide.

Lessons learned in Formula One have trickled down to passenger cars, though some of the more advanced technology the series has spawned is now banned in actual racing, such as antilock brakes and traction control.

Technology was in danger of removing the driver as a race winning factor, and by outlawing these driver aids, the sport's controlling body acted in the greater interests of the championship.

Construction techniques have changed the world of road-going supercars. Honeycomb sandwich construction, aluminum, Kevlar, carbon and glass fiber composites help designers to create a rigid, protective safety cell that can resist the tremendous forces a race car endures in a crash.

During the 1950s and 1960s more than 30 Grand Prix drivers died in horrific, and often preventable accidents.

Some didn't have seats belts, few wore fireproof overalls and crash helmets were of primitive construction, offering little protection against the all-too frequent head injuries.

In the past 15 years, the toll has been thankfully low, due to better laid out circuits and safer cars.

Advanced construction technologies will find their way into passenger cars soon. With carmakers looking to save weight, the 600 kilogram Formula One race car is the trimmest piece of machinery available. Every component is weighed, pared back, and weighed again in order to keep the overall car's mass as low as possible.

Computers now determine aerodynamic designs, faithfully report and record the car's general health in a myriad of different ways both during testing and the race itself, and are so advanced that accurate predictions of speeds and lap times around even new tracks can help teams prepare for the race before leaving home.

The new track at Albert Park in Melbourne was the season opener, with several teams computer-mapping its layout late last year even before the road was fully laid.

Their computers predicted lap times, gear change points and helped teams choose suspension settings and gear ratios so they could build their cars to cope with a track they'd never driven.

Jacques Villeneuve, who cheekily stole pole from his Williams teammate Damon Hill, benefited from these computer predictions in his preparation for the season.

Williams wanted the up-and-coming young driver to add some zest to its driver line up and felt Villeneuve could provide Damon Hill with an in-house challenge strong enough to get him back to his winning ways.

We're set for a great season. With new cars, new rules and new drivers, the order of Formula One has not been this unpredictable for several years.

And next year, triple world champion Jackie Stewart joins the fray with his own team, led by son Paul, with factory backing from Ford.