POSTED ON October 28th, 2011
Mark flew into New Delhi on Wednesday evening ahead of this weekend’s inaugural Indian Grand Prix. And he got quite a welcome, arriving in the middle of the Diwali festival celebrations.
“There was no way we were missing the runway last night,” says Mark. “The sky was lit up by all the fireworks celebrating Diwali. I’m a pyromaniac, so I love fireworks and I was gutted to miss most of it. I hear they went on for seven or eight hours flat-out! I’ll have to make up for it next week in the UK, when they celebrate Guy Fawkes night.”
His first day on the sub continent was spent mostly at the brand new Buddh International Circuit, where he completed his usual media and engineering commitments, which included a track walk of the new venue.
“The circuit’s good, really good,” says Mark. “They’ve been very creative with the layout and one of the things I really like is the way they’ve played around with the track width. That’ll test us more than having a fixed width all around. Even when we’re not racing, we’ll have to be on top of our game in terms of lines.
“There are some really challenging corners as well, and Turn 3 is quite extreme. It’s very steep uphill on the approach and then it’s as flat as a tabletop as you turn in. I don’t know how good the drainage would be at that point if it rained, but we’re in India and it doesn’t rain often so you can take those sorts of risks on track design.”
The start of the lap features two long straights, along which there will be two DRS zones. Buddh International Circuit is the fourth track this year, after Valencia, Montreal and Monza, to feature a double DRS zone.
“There are going to be overtaking opportunities,” says Mark. “The only concern is going to be the amount of dirt off-line. We could see from the Safety Car going around today that there’s a lot of dust, so the racing line is going to improve dramatically once we start running. It’s going to remain very dirty off-line, so it’ll be slippery and you’ll get a lot of dirt on your tyres.”
Away from the racetrack, Mark is looking forward to learning more about Indian culture over the weekend.
“I got a text message from Steve Waugh as I landed in Delhi about how to survive in India,” says Mark. “He had plenty to say because the Aussies have been coming here playing cricket for I don’t know how many years. There are some funny stories, when the boys found it difficult to run between the wickets after getting upset stomachs. They could hit only fours and sixes!
“It’s just different here, isn’t it? It’s a fascinating country, with lots to see and learn. I’m looking forward to it.”
Credit: Mark Webber (www.markwebber.com)
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