19/09/2006
NEWS STORY
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George Clooney, Nicolas Cage, Brad Pitt, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ozzy Osbourne are just a few of the celebrities to have graced the Formula One grid in recent years, as Bernie Ecclestone pursued his obsession of attempting to get F1 into the news by any means possible.
This year the celebrities have been rather thin on the ground, other than Owen Wilson who attended the Spanish GP as a guest of Renault, and various members of the Superman Returns cast, who were present at Monaco... at a time the Cannes Film Festival was taking place just down the road.
Ignoring the important fact, pointed out by Mike Lawrence, that in the old days the drivers used to be the celebrities, one has to wonder why there is such a dearth this year.
At Monza the only celebrity in attendance was Bollywood star Gulshan Grover (pictured), who, though a major star in the east is relatively unknown in the west.
According to one of our favourite websites, the Internet Movie Database, Grover has been involved in 270 plus films, almost double the amount that Michael Caine has made.
In reality, Grover was at Monza at the behest of former WilliamsF1 and Jaguar Racing communications officer, Nav Sidhu, who admits to being more than a little frustrated that the teams themselves don't make more of an effort to bring along star names.
Without naming names, Sidhu refers to the manufacturer that will invest hundreds of millions in F1, having now formed its own team, but fails to "connect with popular culture" by going the extra mile when it comes to "glamorising their sponsorship," despite having used one of the world's most famous pop stars for a multi-million dollar advertising campaign in 2005.
"Our agency been working closely with Gulshan, and Bollywood, for over two years now," says Sidhu, clearly referring to an article that Pitpass ran in early 2005. "It's a hugely ambitious project which aims to fuse the world's biggest sport with the world's most prolific movie business. We have quite some way to go yet but progress so far has been very encouraging."
"I brought Gulshan to Monza for his first visit to a Grand Prix," Adds Sidhu. "He was blown away by the sport, the people and the scale. Like Bollywood, it's the perfect form of escapism for fans within a melting pot of passion, war, politics and unforgiving ambition!"
"The project details remain strictly confidential at this stage but suffice to say that it has never been attempted before," he adds. "Breaking new ground and broadening the global cultural appeal of F1 is extremely challenging but there is no better platform today than popular culture. All I can say for now is watch this space."
Therefore, one has to wonder, is Sidhu the only person still pursuing the dream, linking F1 with the bold and the beautiful, furthermore, is Sidhu the one who might finally bring about the return of F1 to the movie screen? As he says, "watch this space"