Sunday 18 November 2012

The BIG 3 podium

I promised myself I wouldn't blog tonight, told myself it could wait till after the exam tomorrow. But who am I kidding, I'm not getting any sleep tonight. So here goes...


An absolute cracker of a race, one that could not have gone any better than imagined. A Mclaren party as some would say, but an even bigger event for the men in scarlet. Lewis Hamilton maintains his 100% success rate at USA after winning the first GP held in Texas. The red bull of Sebastian Vettel came in second followed by the Ferrari of Alonso. This keeps Alonso just 13 points behind Vettel in the championship and definitely gives the spaniard a fighting chance.
At the start of the race, a painful image of a giraffe wearing skates kept coming to mind when I saw most of the cars, if not all, struggling for grip. However, this brought about some exceptional driving from the drivers and we got to see some intense battles in the mid section of the line up. Even Alonso jumped upto 4th right after the first corner and I knew the race guaranteed entertainment. Vettel and Hamilton were going at each other right from the beginning and things got extremely hot after the first set of pit-stops. Finally Hamilton overtook Vettel with a brilliant manoeuvre towards the latter half of the race and went on to win it with a gap of just 0.6 of a second.
I'd like to spend some extra time talking about some of the drivers and other things that really caught my attention during the race and I think deserve a special mention.



The winner:
He was flawless! Period. Oh! And a special mention to the 2.4 second pit-stop. It was butter smooth.



Vettel:
It was a tough race for him and he fought like a true champion. Not to forget the perfect start that he had. Unfortunately his car was facing some technical issues and it was just a matter of time before Hamilton made his move.

Massa's gearbox penalty:
Personally I wasn't too happy about it when I heard the news but it worked for them and now the championship goes right down to the wire, so you know what, I might just let this one pass.


Jenson Button:
How did he do it! He was the most aggressive driver on the track from lap 1 yet he treated his tyres like a lady. I kept screaming at the tv 'your cutting the corners too sharp' but he knew what he was doing. And of course, that nail biting manoeuvre to snatch 5th from Kimi was pure class.


Michael Schumacher:
If you were a Schumi fan I'm sure this race was nothing short of Chinese torture as you watched him lose one place after another after another, slooowly.

But all in all, a brilliant race. I'm sure America couldn't have asked for more. BTW nice touch with the cowboy hats, America. Eagerly waiting for the DECIDER!

Saturday 17 November 2012

COTA UPDATE

So I just finished watching the qualifying session of the American Grand Prix's return to Formula1, and my first thought was 'the track looks gorgeous!!!!'. It's an absolute engineering marvel with its numerous slopes and many heavy breaking points (which shows potential for a lot of overtaking during race day). The difference between the highest and lowest point on the track is 40 ft. And of course the glamour quotient that it brings with it adds to the excitement of the weekend. It was as an absolute star studded paddock with likes of Matt Leblanc, Michael Fassbender, Carlos Slim (the MAN himself),etc often seen on tv.
However the star of the show itself was the car number 1 of Sebastian Vettel. The Red Bull car has clearly been the dominant car the entire weekend and it did not disappoint when it mattered. But the Mclaren of Lewis Hamilton did not make it easy for the Red Bull Racing team and really gave them a run for their money when he was lapping times just a couple of thousandths of seconds behind Vettel and finally qualified 2 tenths of a second behind Vettel to take P2. The question on everyone's mind is 'what does this mean for Alonso (who qualified 8th)?'. This means that he along with the Ferrari team has quite a long night ahead of him. Because if Vettel wins and Alonso finishes below 4th, it could be world championship clenching race for Vettel and a historical one at that (3 in a row). And the fact that Alonso's car will be on the inside (dustier side) of the track is not helping the Ferrari team at all.
The disappointments of the day were Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg, who failed to qualify inside the top 10. Jenson experienced a technical problem with the throttle on his car just a couple of minutes before the end of the second session of qualifying and the team wasn't able to fix it in time to get the car back on track.
The COTA definitely shows a lot of promise and I wouldn't be surprised this one is more enticing than the memorable Abu Dhabi GP. Every Formula1 fan knows that Ferrari isn't going out that easily and that we could expect some great moves from Alonso tomorrow. So clear that schedule for tomorrow cause you wouldn't want to be that guy who missed one of the best debut GPs just cause you had to take the misses shopping.