Formula one’s travelling circus has offered a mixed reaction after touching down ahead of the first ever Indian grand prix.<\/p>\n
Tax, security and circuit construction issues made headlines many weeks ago, but a couple of drivers this week were still grumbling about the difficulty of obtaining a visa to the burgeoning south Asian country.<\/p>\n
“I had a bit of a feeling that the Indians didn’t really want to see us,” Virgin driver Timo Glock is quoted as saying by Germany’s T-Online.<\/p>\n
“I hope the fans take us closer to the heart than the local immigration authorities did,” he added.<\/p>\n
It has emerged that fellow German Nico Rosberg, who arrived in Delhi on Tuesday, was initially denied entry to India.<\/p>\n
Also grumbling is Finn Heikki Kovalainen: “I had to fill in about 70 pages of paperwork.\u00a0 It’s unreal how complicated it was.”<\/p>\n
But Speed Week correspondent Mathias Brunner revealed that once his visa was in his hand, he was surprised that actually entering India was easy.<\/p>\n
Then came the smog and his taxi journey to the hotel.<\/p>\n
“If you’re thinking of yourself driving a car in India — don’t do it!” he jokingly warned.<\/p>\n
“The typical Indian driver honks with one hand and talks on the phone and gestures with the other.\u00a0 There’s not much capacity left to steer,” said Brunner.<\/p>\n
“And I have never in my life seen such a dirty city.\u00a0 The rubbish lying on the streets beggars description, as though the garbage men are on continuous strike.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Formula one’s travelling circus has offered a mixed reaction after touching down ahead of the first ever Indian grand prix. Tax, security and circuit construction issues made headlines many weeks ago, but a couple of drivers this week were still grumbling about the difficulty of obtaining a visa to the burgeoning south Asian country. “I …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,5340,2326],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14051"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14052,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14051\/revisions\/14052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}