Circuit
The race is currently held at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida, 24 km (14.9 mi) from Delhi. The circuit, designed by circuit architect Hermann Tilke, is 5.141 kilometres (3.194 mi) in length. The track is spread across an area of 875 acres, and is a part of Jaypee Green Sports city. The 10-year contract for the race has been given to the Indian construction company Jaiprakash Associates.
The track in all has 16 largely medium speed corners where Formula One cars lap at an average speed of approximately 210 km/h (130 mph). The back straight lets cars reach a top speed of around 320 km/h (199 mph). The current Formula One lap record, set during the 2011 event, is 1 minute 27.249 seconds. Prior to the first race organizers received feedback from teams who performed track analysis using simulators, leading to modification of Turn 7 in order to maximize overtaking opportunities into the banked Turn 10. A grandstand with a capacity of 13,000 overlooks Turns 10 and 11. According to Ashok Khurana, executive vice-chairman of JPSI, the cost of the circuit was planned to be between 12 billion and 15 billion (US$309 million/£188 million/€216 million, at exchange rates of 21 August 2009).
In January 2010 Mark Hughes – former second in command at the Bahrain International Circuit for five years and also advisor to the Yas Marina Circuit for their first Grand Prix at the end of 2009 – was appointed to run the circuit. However, on 24 January 2011 Hughes confirmed that he had resigned due to "personal reasons". His post later went to Azhar Rehman, a former race organiser in Sepang, Malaysia.
Read more about this topic: Indian Grand Prix
Famous quotes containing the word circuit:
“Within the circuit of this plodding life
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring strews them
By some meandering rivulet, which make
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievances.
I have remembered when the winter came,”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We are all hostages, and we are all terrorists. This circuit has replaced that other one of masters and slaves, the dominating and the dominated, the exploiters and the exploited.... It is worse than the one it replaces, but at least it liberates us from liberal nostalgia and the ruses of history.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“each new victim treads unfalteringly
The never altered circuit of his fate,
Bringing twelve peers as witness
Both to his starry rise and starry fall.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)