Buddh International Circuit (BIC) is located approx. 60 km east from the hustle and bustle of New Delhi in Noida (UP) with a fabulous 8 lane concrete Yamuna Expressway forming the last 12 km stretch leading up to the circuit giving you the feeling as if you are going to take off (as in an airplane) any minute. However, getting to the Yamuna Expressway proved to be quite a task thank to the huge traffic jam because of the number of cars that were all heading for BIC.
The concrete runway (it literally looks like that in the night with the reflectors illuminated) runs through a barren and dusty patch of land on either side with very heavy haze in the air. You can make out the outline of the grandstand only after you have come within 1-2 km of the circuit due to the haze though if the air would be clear, you'd be able to see the circuit from 3-4km away. There are various entry points to the circuit, each meant specifically for the stand that you have purchased your ticket to. I continued to enter through the VIP/main entry that led straight to the centre of the circuit into the paddock club above the pit lane, bang opposite the grandstand :) :)
The first (of many) breathtaking view of the circuit is when you look at the start finish straight from the paddock club [I will say paddock club a lot in this article because I was in the paddock club for the race and a) it is THE MOST happening place on the circuit as it is right above the pit lane and all the action is happening below you and b) paddock club is also the place where the who's who of everything freakin thing in the world descends to watch the race...but more on that later].
The track itself looked really awesome (and that has been corroborated over the weekend by the drivers and the teams alike). It is really huge (5.125km makes it one of the longest circuits in the calendar). It is a real driving challenge (something that the drivers admit not many circuits have offered in recent years). The biggest compliment that the circuit itself has received (in my opinion) is that the drivers rate it in the same league as Spa (Belgium) which has since long been the ultimate drivers circuit. Mr. B (Bernie Ecclestone) has admitted that until two weeks before the race he was not even sure if the race would go ahead (given the abysmal state of affairs at the track) the but the pace of work in the last 10 days had made the race possible thought there were plenty of things that showed that the track had been completed in a hurry, some improvements are still required (the unfinished ceiling on the 2nd floor of the paddock club with the concrete still visible).
We reached the circuit at 1:30 in the afternoon on Saturday, just in time for me to settle down and watch qualifying from 2-3. The weather was pleasantly warm, not at all a cause of concern for the teams or drivers or even the crowd. We went straight into the paddock on the first floor (ground floor being the pits itself and I could smell the burning rubber when the cars left the pits, so close, so close!!!) After all the years of watching the race on television, hours and hours of videos and pages after pages of reading of reports on various websites (and publishing a couple myself, check out: http://www.wheel2wheel.com/featuresdetail.asp?featureid=44) it was now time to witness the spectacle live. The Lotus was the first to leap out of the garage and we happened to be right above the Force India pits at the time (which was right next to the Lotus garage). I think it'll take a lifetime of watching races live from the paddock for me to forget the noise the car made on it's way out of the pits. These cars are SO FREAKIN LOUD!!! I realize now that what we watch on the television is a much smoother and balanced out noise that the car makes. In reality, these cars are very very loud (since that is the only area they don't have restrictions on, they have restrictions on fuel consumption, engine capacity, emission restrictions but nothing on noise) and they are very very rugged. When the drivers come down the gears either in the pits or when approaching a turn, the engine backfires just like a ill-maintained Indian two wheeler, but every single backfire sounds like a bomb blast.
Post that it was the usual, a lot of cars pouring out onto the track one after the other putting up lap times after lap times. I must admit, it is very hard to keep track of what is actually happening on the on the circuit in terms of drivers standings if you don't have access to the live telemetry that is available on F1.com. There wasn't a lot of celebrity spotting during qualifying on Saturday. And the action was quite limited since we did not have cars actually racing but lapping really quickly one after the other.
Post qualifying it was time to explore the track after the crowd (the few thousands of them who had decided to show up for the qualifying had left). We went into all the teams clubs (the boxes that the teams themselves reserve for their guests in the paddock club (so basically, the paddock club is nothing but the complete first floor of the building booked by teams for their guests and the ground floor of the building comprises of the pit garages with the pit lane in front. The point I am trying to make is that I was really so freakin close to all the action that I could look inside the cockpit and identify the smallest of buttons on the steering wheels of the cars as they were being pulled into the garage. We then moved to the top of the building above the 2nd floor which was more or less the roof of the building to get a nice look at the empty circuit and the grand stand (this was at around 5 in the evening and it was beginning to get a little dark) and the view was fantastic. The media centre (a 3 floor building with complete glass walls) looked absolutely beautiful lit up with a thousand lights. We left the circuit in anticipation of an amazing race, lots of celebrity spotting on Sunday and extremely heavy traffic back to Delhi on Saturday.
On Sunday, we made a wise decision and left a couple of hours early hoping to avoid the traffic and we just about managed to beat the traffic as we saw heavy traffic building up heading towards the track (all roads led to BIC on Sunday afternoon). The security at the track was mirroring the security at Heathrow with checks and double checks and triple checks (though lets face it, we were in India). The weather was slightly cooler, but the air around the circuit was just as hazy as on Saturday. The crowd was already beginning to build up and we went to the best place in the circuit, the paddock. The MRF series had just gotten over when we reached the track and we were busy clicking pictures of the circuit when we thought it would be a good time to take a short round of the paddock before we settled in for the race itself.
Now, they say that the best things happen when you least expect them to. We were exiting the building to go behind the pits and take a look around and Sachin Tendulkar (wearing a plain white shirt and blue jeans donning brownish shades) walked in from the very door that we were opening to leave the building. Nothing much to add, it was it an amazing experience to the legend from so close (15 inches!!) we stood with out mouths wide open, he asked my cousin standing next to me, "which is the way to the paddock" and the people waiting to received him gently gave him his pass and showed him the way. I saw God from 15 inches away, heard him speak (mera jeevan safal ho gaya). Please refer to attached pic. We decided to not go anywhere from the paddock since now the celebrities had started to pour in.
We hung around in the paddock above the pit garages facing the grand stand and saw the likes of Sehwag, Mallya, Subroto Roy, Richard Branson, Priety Zinta, Arjun Rampal, Suzzane Roshan, Shah Rukh Khan, I think I am forgetting a few, all of them roaming around in the pit lane during the pit tour before the race.
Next on the agenda was the drivers lapping the circuit in vintage cars. That was nice but not as exciting as we got a view of the drivers from about 20-30 meters away (video coming up soon). This was followed by the grid girls making their way to the pits (video coming up soon). The atmosphere around the paddock was building up, big hotshots who had paid 3.5 lakh (and upwards) to get into the paddock were beginning come in.
You could hear a lot of continuous chatter, news reporters covering every single square in of the paddock (and no there was no NDTV, no Aaj tak, no IBN and all that. The FIA has their own international media team that covers all the races all round the year). All this interspersed with the various teams firing up their cars every now and then setting up the cars to get them out on to the track. Next the cars leaped out of the pits one by one to make their way to the track, this was really really awesome and for me was one of the best parts of the entire weekend. I positioned myself at the end of the pit lane right at the exit and got to see the cars come and line up one by one at the pit lane exit and rev up the engines and making a butt load of noise and jump onto the track before taking taking their positions on the grid. It was 6-7 minutes of sheer power and deafening levels of noise (the awesomest video coming up soon). This bit of cars exiting the pits is one the most blatant display of power that these cars posses and the teams sometime also try to one up each other by getting their car out first, just watch the video and you'll know). The cars then lined up and made their way for the warm up lap. The noise levels were high, but the best was yet to come.
The cars then lined up for the start of the race and as the 5 lights went out, the Indian GP was gooooooooooooo!! All 24 made a clean start and dove down the straight like 24 rockets taking off for the heavens. Seriously, they really are that fast and loud. Watching them on TV does not actually give you an idea of the speeds that these cars achieve. Lap after lap they look like rockets speeding down the track breaking just in time for the turns. Each time you'd be inclined to think that they just to fast to be able to break in time for the turn but lap after lap the breaking distances get shorter just by inches and the cars turn in. Once the race was go, it begins to get a little dull in the paddock as the cars are now just lapping one after the other, you begin to a little used to the noise (even though it is still quite deafening), interspersed with one odd car pitting. The pit stop is quite exciting but the fact that they don't refuel any more adds a dampener to the 6 odd seconds of "organized chaos". You also have seen all the celebs by now, got yourself clicked with them (refer to the pictures) and you now just want to let them stand there and watch the race in peace. Towards the last 10 laps of the race we saw a few of the high profile guests leaving, we thought of standing near the VIP drop off area (where their phantoms, and mercedes and jaguars were dropping them when they arrived at the circuit since we knew where were standing we'd not be able to see Sachin wave the chequered flag for the race anyways). We saw Robert Vadhera , Omar Abdullah, Mayawati and a few other celebs I couldn't quite recognize leave. FYI, Mayawati presented the winners trophy.
Post that, it was time to just hang around and watch the entire spectacle/circus that is formula one wrap up and leave for the next race. Even as the prize ceremony was being carried out, behind the paddock we could see forklift after forklift (being operated by the own individual team members) had already started picking up huge crates containing every thing from machinery, equipment, car parts, tyres, food, fuel, and I don't know what else towards the loading docks ready to be transported to the next destination by Sunday night or Monday early morning. I was told that the logistics are so precise that the circuit would be wearing a deserted look by Monday afternoon with the race just having been completed on Sunday evening.
As you can see, I really have no words to explain what an amazing weekend this was.
Link for the photographs (https://picasaweb.google.com/103710697533927474654/PaddockClubBIC2011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIOU-bWLpuiAew&feat=directlink)
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