Glass-and-steel high rises disappear as the expressway gives way to a potholed, bumpy road, flanked on both sides by paddy fields. The seven-kilometre journey from the heart of Greater Noida doesn’t seem remotely like a place expected to put India on the Formula One map by hosting a Grand Prix in 2011.

Connectivity is expected to improve soon — the Yamuna Expressway is under construction — and the developers have set themselves a deadline of April 2011 to prepare the track where India’s first F1 race will be staged. Right now, it’s just a vast tract of uncultivated land — not fit for dirt-track racing but perhaps for testing four-wheel off-roaders.

No signboard suggests where ground zero is, but a few workers — sitting in the shade of a dumper — indicate that this is indeed the construction site. “The work has begun only a month back,” explains one. The work, so far, is three mounds of earth and a dusty road, with curves and bends like those on a racetrack.

Two years ago, IOA president Suresh Kalmadi, said the association had signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” with Formula One Administration, and armed with a letter of intent from F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, had announced that India would host a Grand Prix in 2009. A month later, it was said the proposed race would happen in 2010 and, last year, Ecclestone put the date further back to 2011. “2011 is what I want,” Ecclestone had said at the 2008 Singapore GP, when asked about the Indian Grand Prix. “We will deliver, otherwise we wouldn’t have entered into an agreement,” he had added.

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