Friday, October 2, 2009

F1 Diary






25th September
Singapore

SCB's events around the F1 started with a party for clients at the Asian Civilization Musuem in the evening. Got to interact with most of SCB's top management - Jaspal, Shankar, Ashok Sud, Bala, Lenny, Daniel Koh, Sean Wallace, Arup, Prahlad, Seshan among others. Seshan (from SCCG singapore) introduced Sid and me to Sunny Varghese, chief of Olam. Narien Kartikeyan was the celebrity in the party, we tried to engage him with a big smile, but failed to get into a conversation with him. Live music, both western and indian was awesome. In the backdrop, cars were zooming past in the circuit during the practice session.

Tomorrow is a big day with the qualifying races to take place. We are elated to get an opportunity to be in the Box (Sky Suites) stand, right behind the pit stop.

26th September
Singapore

Started the day with a client event for karting. Met Rahul Bhatia, owner of Indigo Airlines and Chris Bush, Ceo of Tesco Malaysia. Rahul was boasting of his airline being the youngest and largest low cost airline. There was a karting competition for the scb guests, in which kartikeyan's team won (obviously).

Went fully charged for the qualiying races in the evening. It was a spectacle to watch the races, that too from bang opposite the pit lane. Met Saurabh Chawla and Gaurav Monga from DLF and Vaidi from ICICI Pru. Gaurav is a racer himself, and he gave all the techinal fundas to me about cars and races (as much as I could consume). Vaidy was pleseantly surprised to hear that the G3 markets are opeining up for indian issuers. Kartikeyan was hoping he will get a sponsor for the next F1 season. Steve Waugh was also present.

With Hamilton qualifying for the pole position, he has a good chance to win. Looking forward to the action packed finals.


27th September
Singapore

The final evening was star studded with Anil Ambani and Sekhar Kapur too in SCB stands. Ruias from Essar, Manoj Tirodkar from GTLI etc were few other top honchos. The 3 storied suites as well as the nearby stands were packed.

The circuit was looking stunning and the pre race parade was cool. Hamilton was expected to win, and he did. But Vettel and Rosberg disappointed and Brawn GP players were the real winners, almost securing the championship.

Scb's post race "pit stop party" was rocking with a live band. Juntha danced well past midnight.

It was a life time experience for me, and I have taken lot of photos and videos to capture the memories.

Hope you enjoyed reading these notes as much as I enjoyed writing.

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