Thursday, July 29, 2010

Watching Formula 1 live

I love cars, driving; my husband and my friend are F1 fans...so were all the thousands of people who were in Hockenheimring last Sunday.

Driving a car is perhaps the one 'so-called unsustainable' activity that I would not give up easily. If it helps in some way, I always drove; will drive a small car; I am driving a car that has decent CO2 emission ratings and engine efficiency; as much as possible, I have atleast one more person riding with me; I primarily use my car for getting around the city. Given its power, fuel efficiency etc, I rarely drive long distances with it.
In future, I would be very open to switching to an electric/ hybrid car when they are more viable and feasible.

Cars are interesting!

Sunday: 25th July 2010
The Ferrari; Mercedes Mclarens...all lined up.
The start of the race was one exciting moment...out go all the F1 drivers - a split second in front of my eyes and they are gone...way past...

The Ferrari's successfully kept the Red Bull car at bay and took the lead...

1st lap...
2nd lap...
3rd lap...
67 laps in all!!!!

By the 4th or 5th lap, I could not keep track of who was in which position.
The binoculars helped to view the large screen display and know what's going on.

Despite all that noise, I caught myself dosing off.

I looked around me...everyone seemed to be hard core followers of this sport. By now, I really really was wondering how VERY UNSUSTAINABLE this sport is. Thousands of people have spent a whole lot of money to come and watch these car drivers literally burn high speed fuel to complete 67 laps on the track.
Phew!

Yes, I confessed I like driving cars...but this was way extreme. I felt guilty for having contributed and promoted (having purchased a high priced ticket) this sport.

Besides, I felt it was so much more interesting to watch it on TV with all the interesting commentary.

Given the industry behind the sport, I would be surprised if it dissappears completely.
When a sport like Cricket can innovate to have 'one day internationals' and now the popular '20-20' matches...why can't F1 do something too? ATLEAST have lesser; smaller laps? Thereby consume 'lesser' of the high speed fuel?

Irrespective of the future of the F1 sport, I told myself, I do not want to subscribe to this sport and/or contribute to its promotion in any way.

1 comment:

Deepak said...

It was one of the hardest things to give up! Join the gang