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Showing posts from 2015

Jules Bianchi: A champion at heart and motorsport's next victim

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Justice isn't for the ones who race in the cruel and unfathomable world of motorsports. It claims the lives of the ones so young with so much ahead of them and leaves behind nothing but a bitter memory in the minds and an unthinkable but forced phrase 'we move on' on the lips of the people of motorsport. Today, the next victim of this merciless sport is Jules Bianchi. Anyone associated with the sport, or seen him drive a race will shed a tear or send up a prayer for Jules. He was a champion at heart with an unbelievable ability which puts some today's front runners to shame. He was young and he had miles to go before he could sleep. The only driver who could bring home points for a back-running Marussia at the most feared circuit on today's calendar: Monaco and the driver whose talents were too much at times to be recognized by his short period. Rest in peace Jules Once again, this isn't a proof, rather a glimpse of how motorsport continues to be a s

Where are Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso?

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Mark Thompson/Getty Images Some say Formula 1 had peaked in the 1980 ’ s and ever since, the sport has seen nothing but a decent in its graph leading to a straight-line hit below on the x axis today. Racers of the yesteryear are unable to keep up with the way things are run; slowly letting that passion fade. And the new kids on the block, who are filled with relief and joy having made that final big step to join one of the crown jewels of motorsport, are being battered by the golden eyed racers of back-then. It is fair enough to say, two drivers who fit into this category are Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso. Japanese grand Prix is one of the stand out races of the 2005 season. It was one race that cemented Alonso and Kimi ’ s names in the prestigious ‘ greats ’ book of Formula One. The former Ferrari teammates who ’ d qualified at the back of the grid in P17 (Raikkonen) and P16 (Alonso) due to hostile weather conditions sighed a breath of relief to know the race on Sunday

No pessimism, just the truth: Canadian Grand Prix

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Murray Walker once said ‘Anything can happen in Formula 1 and it usually does’. Probably if you were watching the 1980’s races, you wouldn’t have been so wrong, but this today, it is definitely one quote distant from delineating the reality of Formula 1. An F1 fan in India had to stay awake up till 1am to watch the grand prix du Canada. With hindsight, Canada never fails to provide a good show. In 2011, the race went on for 4 hours with Jenson Button pitting 6 times, being thrown back to dead end of the field but finally taking the win. And who could forget 2014 when Daniel Ricciardo snuck his car ahead of the Mercedes to take his first win in what was a fantabulous race overall? Evidence is in the bag, nothing could go wrong with the thrilling competition around here. Unfortunately, 2015 was the beginning of may one-offs. The race was comfortably won by Lewis Hamliton, who as such as already pretty much sealed his world title this season, followed by Rosberg and Bottas. The

Austrian Grand Prix - Qualifying

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Starting on the front row for the Austrian Grand Prix are the two Mercedes drivers - Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg alongside Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel.  Here's how the grid is set for tomorrow's race! 

Level of unreasonable: Bernie Ecclestone

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Bernie Ecclestone has been all over the news lately; making comments that he shouldn't be making and suggesting ideas that could potentially destroy the sport and evaporate the fanbase. I admit, I used to be a big fan of Ecclestone.. I would say a bigger fan of Bernie than F1. But the guy has shown his true colors in the media, parroting certain hypocritical statements which wasn't well received by the fan base or the audience. Either he is showing signs of REAL old age (he's 84, mind you!) or he is on the verge of developing something called cranial rectosis which basically means crap for brains/ head up your rear end (you can substitute any other word you want for that..) A conservative, hypocritical genius  I have always been a fan of Senna. He's an epitome of 'man and machine in one body sharing the same soul' (probably because the cars back then could have a soul) And what better picture do you need than the whole 1988 season or the 1993 European GP

Malaysian GP in pictures

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Red bulls fighting for 10th and 11th positions. Daniel Ricciardo and Kvyat both faced brakes issues and also got lapped by the race leader! Exhaustion after 56 laps of chasing and fighting, Vettel and Hamilton are seen sitting on the podium and having a chat as Eddie Jordan interviews Nico Rosberg. Pepe Jeans displaying their special edition 'Middle-age leisure swag' line. Not much of a celebration going on in the McLaren garage.. nevertheless, JB and Kevin Magnussen seem optimistic. Drivers standing for the Malaysian anthem. Maurizio Arrivabene, Ferrari team principal, often nicknamed Ironmauri for his emotionless character is seen getting emotional seeing his driver up on the top step of the podium.  A good Sunday for Italy after Vettel's first win for Ferrari followed by Valentino Rossi's win in Qatar for Yamaha after a thrilling battle

The sizzle of Malaysia.. in 5 or more points

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Formula One fans who have grown with the sport might have reminisced back to those good old days when Michael Schumacher won with Scuderia; the days when the German and Italian anthems were played together. A fairly new Formula One fan must have flashbacked to those very stories told by those thousands of fans who had witnessed the beginning of a new era in Formula One, some say, the greatest era there has been. Well, Malaysia should have given those newbies, myself included, the real taste of what the Scuderia Ferrari team was always meant to be, only lost somewhere in the middle, but has risen from the ashes this season with a driver with who always looked like the one who could come closest to the man those thousands often used to talk about: Sebastian Vettel. Here's the official classification of drivers: 1. First off, always the winners- Sebastian Vettel hinted the entire paddock of Ferrari's strength back in Melbourne and has kept up to the impression he ma

Malaysian GP qualifying

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Here's how the grid will line up for tomorrow's Malaysian GP! After a rain hit qualifying session, Sebastian Vettel will be the first Ferrari driver to start on the front row since Malaysia 2013, and an added bonus is he splits the Mercedes drivers. Life can be cruel in Formula One, at least for Vettel! He fell short of pole by 0.076s! The other big surprise comes from the Red Bull garage; both their drivers occupying row 2 and 3 of the grid. It does make me question, did Red Bull overreact on their retirement from Melbourne? But, ties are definitely breaking between Renault and Red Bull after Cyril Abiteboul and Adrian Newey blame each other of incompetence in public!  On the other hand, there is one other team which is relatively happier with their qualification in P17 and P18 - McLaren Honda. Both their drivers said the car performed much better this Saturday despite their back row start for the 2nd time this season, which makes it a 2/2. And to end this eventful qualif

Australian GP in pictures

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Kevin Magnussen's lucky shot unfortunately turned unlucky when his car failed to make it to the grid. Funnily, his drivers' parade car could have covered the race distance and made it to the grid! Quite a chatty press conference apparently! "Let me come and have a look in your garage!" says Vettel. The only Aussie on the grid! Of course, he was hoping for better, but it is a long season. Also, he used up his 2nd engine out of the 4 total allocated for this season. Just a valid meme I saw by geniuses at Looswheelnut. As much as I think Maldonado isn't the best driver out there, I feel it is incorrect to pick on him for every crash. Even for the ones he hasn't caused. He is in Formula one because of the money he has got and also for the fact that he is fast (remember, he is a race winner) Don't hate drivers. Kvyat, Ricciardo and Button! Maybe the t

Australian Grand Prix in 5 or more points!

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It is a new season, a great start for Formula One actually! And hopefully it's a good start for my frequent blogging too. As I promised earlier, I will try to be regular and review the grand prix in a slightly different manner called 'In 5 or more points' No, this isn't invention of the decade or something of that sort, this just helps me save time. So here we go! 1. Yes, you guessed it. The podium finishers are 1. Hamilton 2. Rosberg 3. Vettel  A very pleasing result for any Tifosi, naturally! What a brilliant drive that was from Vettel and Ferrari on his debut! The energy that he brought to the team and his good realtionaship with his teammate were some of the many reasons Ferrari have a reason to be optimistic. They were the best of the rest, however, behind the team those guys in the white overalls race for - Mercedes AMG Petronas. They clearly had the field in their fist, lapping almost half the field that participated. Lewis Hamilton's first stint w

Australian Grand Prix: Qualifying

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In India, starsports network has 7 channels and here's the best part: not one of them broadcasted either of the sessions live. As ever, my patience had been tested and so I very hastily bought the most expensive app of my life - the F1 App. £20 was the price, making me wonder if it really was absolutely necessary to buy this stuff. There is always live stream and what not! However, let me just say, it is indeed a brilliant app and fully worth the £20/$26.99 that you would pay to buy it. The whole functionality is commendable. The second the application is live, a live commentary starts and with that, all the data in terms of sectors, speed traps, live positions and tyres. In connection with BBC5, Allan McNish and Tom Clarkson do a brilliant job to get the action missed on TV to your hand-held device.  The privileges after buying the full version don't stop there, now you get to compare your drivers head to head, intercept unbroadcasted radio messages, compare race perfo

Half a season preview, because here we go F1 2015!

Ernst Hemingway once said, “There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”  Bar the commotion about the noise, the evident loss of horsepower, and the aggravating economics of the sport; when the action is needed, Formula One does what it is best at. A fter a season of change, politics, drama, battling and unadulterated racing, F1 returns this March in Melbourne with all tables reset to 0 . The catch of this all being, how much exactly is ‘zero’?  Testing: A blurred view  To say teams have covered up lost ground, we would need results on hand. Yes, that’s why testing took place. And we do have some good stats that prove Williams and Ferrari are a lot closer compared to 2014 (fun fact: Ferrari are 1.5s faster than where they were last season!) Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen’s frequent session topping pretty much proves Ferrari’s quantum leap. But how much were Mercedes sandbagging? Total testing times shows

Looking forward to 2015 - Driver line ups (part 1)

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Mid season drama, or termed 'Silly season' in Formula One starts around the month of August and goes on pretty much until every move/decision has been leaked or confirmed by the drivers or personnel. This year however was very volatile. One one hand we had Fernando Alonso, dubbed as "the best driver in Formula One" by pretty much everybody. This Spaniard was tired of Ferrari's promises and looking for an exit somehow. And on the other we had the (back then) reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel, who had achieved all that he could in his time with Red Bull and every year ends up hearing the same news of him 'moving to Ferrari'. The chain of "who goes where" began with Vettel's sudden announcement during the 1st Practice session in Japan. However, until Austin, his whereabouts up and down the paddock was unconfirmed. So, who is where now? 1. Mercedes - Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg  Lewis Hamilton - Immensely motivated for next