Romain Grosjean won the Race of Champions competition, held this year at the Rajamangala National Stadium in Bangkok. The Lotus F1 driver beat Tom Kristensen in the final on Sunday night.
In order to get to the final Kristensen beat David Coulthard and Grosjean defeated Michael Schumacher.
In the quarter finals Kristensen defeated rally star Sebastien Ogier, while Coulthard beat Ho Pin Tung. Grosjean triumphed over Sebastian Vettel, while Michael Schumacher was given a relatively easy run against former biker Mick Doohan.
In the Nations Cup on Saturday Vettel and Schumacher took a relatively easy victory over Ogier and Grosjean. It was the German team’s sixth victory in a row. Before beating France the German pair defeated India (Narain Karthikeyan/Karun Chandhok), Thailand (Tin Sritrai/Nattavude Charoensukawattana) and Australia (Jamie Whincup/Mick Doohan). To get to to the final France had beaten an All Star team of Jorge Lorenzo and Tom Kristensen, after defeating Team Americas (Ryan Hunter-Reay/Benito Guerra) and Britain (Andy Priaulx/David Coulthard).
I watched the two days of the Race of Champions for the first time this year, catching the coverage on Motors TV via sky in the UK… Very enjoyable format and one thing very noticeable was how relaxed and happy the drivers appeared in interviews, presumably under fewer commercial pressures than normal. Schuey in particular seemed almost euphoric, until he was beaten by RoGro!
One thing which was maddening to me was the amateur-hour TV coverage, with the cameras frequently cutting away from the action at crucial points (eg right at the moment the lights turn green, world feed cuts away from the cars to a shot of the lights…! WHAT??). The Motors TV secondary commentator was frequently utterly inaudible, and standard definition TV pictures just look so fuzzy now we’ve been spoiled with HD F1 coverage.
Overall though, a very entertaining motorsport event, packaged with the TV viewer in mind. F1 can learn lessons here…
Why Whincup & Doohan for Australia. Seriously, are they kidding? Whincup I agree with. What about Bayliss or Stoner? Where was Webber? I like Mick but come on
The weakness of the Race of Champions is that it requires champions. It has been a while since Michael Schumacher was a champion, but you don’t argue against him. And Doohan is like Schumacher. Whincup is a four time V8 Supercar champion. When was the last time Mark Webber won a championship? Admittedly some of the Asian drivers involved are not big names and one struggles to remember Coulthard being a champion, but the promoter needs some cannon fodder as well as the stars.
Maybe the former no hope A1 telecast team found a new gig?
Nice to see you being so positive…
It may not have looked good on the telly, but I went to Brands a couple of times for the A1 GP (08 and 09 I think) and it was always a cracking day out. A reasonable price and you could even sit on the inside of druids and watch as 75% F1 cars were screaming past. Fabulous.
Now of course, they’ve put catch fencing in the way in case someone breaks a nail or something else awful….
In your opinion does this type of a ‘victory’ mean something, does Grosjean’s stock go up as a driver because of this? Certainly a feel good lift for him personally by beating Vettel & M.S after the mistake riddled season he had.
I think it shows that he can beat Vettel and Schumacher. You may recall that Heikki Kovalainen’s win did wonders for his career
It shows how tight the F1 field really is on raw pace, when car disparities and set up jiggling is taken out of the equation.
And if I’m feeling cynical I’d say that it shows that Grosjean is a competent driver, when there aren’t other cars nearby to distract him…
I like the ROC although here in the States you have to search to find it..this year it was on YouTube. It seems like the drivers have fun and the unpredictability of who wins the champions add something. Schumacher in particular seems to like doing it after staying away the first half of his career.