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.