Chandhok Speaks

I don't really know much about Karun Chandhok the racer, but I am pretty impressed by Karun Chandhok the commentator.

There are many talking points in the Australian Grand Prix, from Brawn GP being the first team since 1954 to achieve a one-two finish on its debut, to the double non-scoring finishes for Ferrari, which happened only once last season. Since everyone is talking about them, I am not going to get into details here.

While it was a fascinating race, there was nothing noteworthy in the commentary during the early part of the race. But it all changed when the safety car came out following Kazuki Nakajima's crash. Amidst the chaos, the safety car somehow picked up Sebastian Vettel as the leader, with the real leader Jenson Button having left the pits just seconds before the safety car did. When his over-anxious partner Steve Slater said that the safety car has just picked up "Vettel, the race leader", Chandhok's response was a swift "No", and immediately pointed out that the safety car had made a mistake by picking up the wrong leader. Spot on.

Later on, when Vettel and Robert Kubica collided with each other while fighting for second, he commented that there was nothing else Vettel could do as he had no way to go to avoid the collision, as proven by the helicopter footage. Ironically, Vettel would later be penalized by the FIA due to this incident, a decision which I totally disagree with.

I didn't stick to my TV for the entire race, but these two incidents have given me a lasting impression about Chandhok. In a world of "Political Correctness", people tend to distance themselves from their own thoughts by uttering phrases like "I think" and "it appears that". Chandhok was right to the point without using these semantically meaningless phrases while telling us clearly what has happened on the track and what he really believes.

I think I'd better go remove these phrases from my vocabulary, as it appears that I am using them a lot.