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| SPORTS TRIBUNE |
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India on
the fast track
New challenge for
Bhowmick IN THE NEWS
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India on the fast track Motor sports was considered a rich man’s pastime in India not too long ago, practised only by drivers from a closed circuit. It still does maintain its exclusivity, with bloodline playing a definitive role in the shaping of new-generation drivers like Narain Karthikeyan, Karun Chandhok and Armaan Ebrahim. The fathers of all three young Grand Prix drivers were famous exponents of the sport themselves, and it was a natural course for their wards to adopt a life on the fast track. Motor sports continues to be an expensive pursuit, but for drivers with skill, drive, dynamism and the courage to wager their lives in the fast lane, there are now more avenues to move up. Sponsors are keenly backing the winning daredevils, no matter how expensive are the deals. (Don’t forget that a consortium of sponsors, led by Tatas, had reportedly forked out nearly Rs 25 crore to buy a place for Narain in the F1 team of Jordan-Toyota in 2005). Now speed not only thrills but also brings in the moolah. The advent of the Force India Formula One team, jointly owned by liquor baron Vijay Mallya and the Mol family of Holland, who bought the floundering Spyker F1 team and rechristened it, and with Noida expected to host a Grand Prix event in 2010, the racing scene looks brighter than ever. With Asia emerging as a lucrative destination for the F1 juggernaut to roll on, the sport is expected to get a big boost in the next couple of years. That Force India, with a free-flowing budget of nearly $120 million ($50 million more than last year) in their first year of operation, have opted for tried and tested drivers like Giancarlo Fisichella (Italy, 196 GP and 12 years on the F1 circuit), Adrian Sutil (Germany) and Vitantonio Liuzzi (Italy, test driver) prove that they mean business, not just a presence. Force India are, indeed, looking for a podium finish when the country hosts the F1 event in 2010 — the year of the hockey World Cup and the Commonwealth Games. Mallya has stated that no Indian driver fits the bill of Force India’s big-goal strategy, and the main purpose of hiring proven drivers is to use their services to scout for talent. “I want a set of drivers who can take the organisation ahead,” Mallya had said at the formal unveiling of the drivers in Mumbai recently. “Force India will pay for everything the potential drivers need after my drivers identify them,” he added. Mallya made it clear that only the best would get his nod, and no Indian driver seems to be in the reckoning. “For the present, the Indians will have to drive in GP2 to prove their worth to merit promotion,” he said. And Narain seems to be not in his scheme of things at all. “Narain is not the ideal driver for my team,” he had noted. With Mallaya making his priorities for Force India clear, Narain, Karun and Armaan will have to scorch the tracks to make the F1 grade. Indeed, Narain, trying for a comeback into the F1 fold, Karun and Armaan are ready for the challenge. They will spare no effort to get that dream start-up from the grid for a F1 team. Force India hope to have an Indian driver by 2010, and the Indian kids on the block hope to make the grade by then, if not before that. Narain is on a high after winning the A1GP race in Zhuhai, China, for Team India late last year, which was the first of its kind for any GP driver from India. “The victory means a lot to me and A1 Team India. This is a morale booster,” Narain had said after his triumph. Narain brought points for Team India in every race, and he hopes to keep up the good work this year too, though it was a setback for him to be out of the ambit of Williams’ F1 plans, after being the test and reserve driver for them for the past two years. But Narain is not perturbed as his think tank felt that it was better to be out of Williams than be “just another test driver.” Though Narain is pushing 31, he has not lost his drive to get back into F1. For the present, however, he is happy driving for Team India. Karun, who has set his sights on a slot in Force India, has been signed up by I-Sports International of UK to race in the 2008 GP2 series, including the new GP2 Asia Series. I-Sport were the driver as well as the team championship winners in the 2007 GP2 series. But more importantly, Karun has been taken on in the Red Bull Junior Team programme, with Bruno Senna, nephew of former world champion, the late Ayrton Senna, as his team-mate. The association with Red Bull will strengthen Karun’s links with the Red Bull F1 team, for whom he had his debut F1 test in November last, and will open up more testing opportunities with the team this year. “Red Bull were pleased with what I did in the F1 car in Barcelona in my first test and they have really been awesome to me since the start of the partnership,” Karun said in Delhi recently. The main European GP2 series will be the most important part of Karun’s programme and the Asian series before that will be a good “warm-up” for him to “understand” the way of working of I-Sport before moving to Europe. Karun feels that with hard work, focus and tough competition, he can make the F1 grade, and his confidence has soared after having had an impressive debut season with Italian team Durango in the GP2 series last year. He became the first Indian GP2 race winner, scoring regular points through the second half of the year. “In 2008, my aim is to have podium finishes, win races and to finish in the top six of the championship,” the 25-year-old summed up. Armaan has been signed up by the UK-based David Price Racing team to compete in the GP2 Asia series. He was the youngest driver to finish in the top 3 of Formula Renault V6 Asia series, national racing, national and Asian karting championships. He finished with five first places, two second places and two third places with most number of wins in the Formula Renault V6 Asia Championship. He also drove for A1 Team India, but was not very happy with his debut. The 18-year-old is the brightest among the Indian trio as age is on his side, and he has so far made the “right” career moves. That he has big potential is evidenced from the fact that Italian shoe company Baldinini has stepped in to sponsor him, though it has no business interest in India. Lest one misses the wood for the trees, it must be put in perspective that the Indian trio will have to work really hard to make their mark among the best in the world. A welcome fallout of the emerging motor sport scenario in the country is that the warring Motorsport Association of India and the Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India have agreed to bury the hatchet and merge to create a new identity — Motor Sports Federation of India — by April 1. It will be headed by who else but Vijay Mallya.
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New challenge for Bhowmick Call it arrogance, daredevilry or foolhardiness, Subhas Bhowmick is not the one to shy away from a challenge, whatever may be the consequences. For someone who earned his stripes both as a footballer and a coach in Kolkata, he knows how to dribble his way out of danger. Not many Kolkata footballers can think of leaving the maidan despite all the allurements. But Bhowmick chose to move out and travel to Goa in search of a new challenge. When confronted with the task of lifting Goa’s Salgaocar Club from a morass, he jumped at it. It is an uphill task because the former National Football League (NFL) champions are on the verge of being relegated from NFL’s reincarnation, the I-League. As the technical director of Salgaocar Club, he is now battling it out. For someone who has guided East Bengal to the NFL title twice and also to the prestigious ASEAN Cup in 2003, Bhowmick feels re-energising the Goan club should not be all that difficult. He told IANS that he is confident that Salgaocar will improve consistently in the next couple of years. “It is a major task for me to take Salgaocar to a respectable position in the I-League. I have never developed cold feet facing challenges. I am grateful to Shivanand Salgaocar (club president) for showing faith in me.” For all his soccer credentials, Bhowmick seems to go out of his way to court controversy. His many enemies in Kolkata call him arrogant and much worse. When he was an officer in the central excise department, he faced a criminal charge and lost his job. Football rehabilitated him when he got the job of coaching Mohammedan Sporting. Bhowmick saved Sporting from NFL relegation in the first year, but could not repeat his feat, and hostile club officials sacked him. “I don’t live in the past. It is a new place and a new beginning for me. That’s what I can say now. The environment is conducive for football in Goa and that is the reason why the game is thriving here,” said Bhowmick. But his club has just five points after the 11th round of the I-League and are languishing in the last spot in the 10-team event. Bhowmick’s job will be to sort out the team’s technical problems and help coach Savio Medeira. “I have seen the team in just one match. And I can’t change it overnight. I still believe that Medeira is a good coach and we can turn things around. I have seen the league table very closely and I feel that if we can win a couple of games the complexion of the team will change,” said Bhowmick. However, he pointed out: “We are midway through the I-League and if we try to do something different we will end up making matters worse. I have to just fine-tune things to make sure that we end the league in a respectable position.” He has identified two major problems in the team — “the lack of tall players and a prolific goal scorer. The guys are not well built and that is the reason they are having problems in tackling in the air.” Bhowmick knows that he cannot buy Salgaocar a goal scorer at this stage in the league. “We have to find ways to score goals with the talent available. I think they should be able to do it with minor changes in strategy.” Asked about the showing of the two top Kolkata teams in the ongoing I-League, Bhowmick confesses his disappointment with the performance of Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, but says it does not indicate the decline of Kolkata football. “I refuse to think so, only ignoramuses who do not understand Indian football make such an assessment. In the 10 NFL editions before the I-League, Kolkata teams have won six titles. What does that prove?”
— IANS |
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IN THE NEWS Never lose hope” is his mantra. It was evident in the fourth edition of the Premier Hockey League in Chandigarh, where Arjun Halappa helped Bangalore Hi-Fliers win their second title in two years. The icing on the cake was that he was declared the Man of the Tournament. The Hi-Fliers had earlier clinched the title in 2006, when Halappa was also in the thick of things. Sidelined from the Indian team for the past year or so, Halappa is far from despondent. Instead, he is eager to make a comeback sooner than later. Strangely, despite a superb show in the recent PHL, he has not been considered for the upcoming five-match series against Belgium in Chennai. His name also did not figure on the list of probables for the Olympic qualifier to be held in Santiago (Chile) in March. Talking to The Tribune, the 27-year-old Athens Olympian said, “I always want to play good hockey. It is not in my blood to give up.” During the PHL, the Karnataka-born player won the Man-of-the-Match award only once, against Sher-e-Jalandhar, but his ability to initiate moves and feed the forward line made much impact. On being asked whether he expected a call from the Indian Hockey Federation for the qualifier, the midfielder-cum-forward said, “Of course, every player wants to be part of the team in major tournaments. I have done my job in the league. Now, it’s up to the selectors to pick me or not.” Certainly, the Indian team can benefit from the experience of this veteran, who has played over 200 international matches since his debut in 2001. |
