From Behind the Glasses
Overall, I found India to boring and bland, just as it has been for the last two years since it started. The result at the front turned out exactly as it has for the last half-dozen races and Vettel took the championship, a formality really. It's a disappointment for Formula 1 that the title has gone this way, and a bigger disgrace that it happened how it did due to tyre changes that unfairly punished some teams for doing a good job. That hardly makes F1 look like a sport when an advantage will be deliberately taken from some to be handed to others part way through a championship. So yet again it is Vettel on top, and we notice that Red Bull have nothing to say about ruining the sport now when they're on the positive side of it. That aside, as we knew it was coming, we can forget about this years title and focus on 2014 and a blind hope for any kind of improvement. The Indian Grand Prix was boring and generally uneventful as people managed their tyres right from the start, with some pitting at the end of lap one to bin the soft tyres. From there it was an endurance race to see who could get what from the rubber, and meant that despite being close there wasn't much meaningful action on track. People were mixed up and spread out so not racing each other on strategy or simply didn't want to burn out their tyres, like Hamilton behind Massa and Rosberg. Perez drove a great race, but was told clearly not to fight with Vettel as he came up on him as they were not racing with him. A smart and truthful call yes, but it depicts what was going on this weekend. Even Fernando Alonso failed to bring us any excitement racing from the back as he struggled with midfield runners. The race calmly jogged to the finish, only eliciting a slight cough in the closing laps as Grosjean worked his way to the flag ahead of Massa and Raikkonen fell prey to everyone behind him, with an exciting moment with Perez and Hamilton along the way, although created by DRS. Ultimately, it was another rubbish Indian Grand Prix. Another terrible circuit designed by Herman Tilke to add to his long list of failures and blights on the Formula 1 championship. The only place for any overtaking was the huge straight after the first corners, a carbon copy of the woeful Korean circuit, where DRS is your only hope for a pass. Even then, against a fast, powerful car like the Sauber or Torro Rosso it wasn't enough for some, leaving the pursuer stuck to their gearboxes through the twisting, off-camber sections that followed with no way around. Thankfully the Indian Grand Prix hasn't made the 2014 calendar, and with any luck we'll never see it again.