Yearly Archives: 2011

Luca Marini, the 13 year old younger sibling of Valentino Rossi has won his first race in the Mini GP 80cc category. Apparently the habit of winning runs in the family, talking of which it was good to hear Sete Gibernau say that he held no grudges against Valentino Rossi and also that it was a privilege for him to race against the master. He also said Stoner was the best bet to win this year’s Motogp World Championship. Now that must have tickled Rossi a rich purple.

It is well known that this year John Hopkins was going to race in the British Superbike Championship where Motogp team manager of Suzuki, Paul Denning also runs a team. Paul Denning always held the abilities of John Hopkins as a rider in high esteem and was sad to see him leave for Kawasaki, an ill fated move that saw a season of horrors for Hopkins before Kawasaki unceremoniously pulled out of Motogp. After that Hopkins has been in the AMA Superbike series and in wilderness thanks to injuries but has now recovered completely. In what is anticipated as a preparation for riding next year in Motogp when the new 1000cc regulations fall into place, Denning had placed Hopkins in the Suzuki Superbike Team. When Alvaro Bautista crashed a broke a leg, Hopkins was called to stand in. But now with the BSB season starting this week and Bautista still far from fitness it remains to be seen who will stand in for him at Estoril.

Pole sitter Sebastian Vettel drove flawlessly to take the second victory of 2011 in as many races at the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang. Rain was widely expected to strike sometime during the race and spice up the show, but ultimately it failed to turn up. However, the Pirelli tyres ensured that there was no dearth of excitement with varying tear wear which threw out any predictions of pit stops. Most drivers had to do at least three stops while some did four. While his team mate flew into the lead at the start of the race, Mark Webber moved backwards on the grid from third to ninth thanks to a dysfunctional system of KERS. Webber did not get the required power boost to challenge for the lead but drove a good strategic race to ultimately finish fourth. He could have even finished on the podium but for the lack of power boost. It would be interesting to hear what Helmut Marko says about this. Will he blame Webber for the failure of the KERS system? Don’t be surprised if he does.

Mercedes’ celebrated entry into F1 all on its own is turning out to be nightmare without an end in sight. The team has had an interesting history. It started off as Tyrell GP under Ken Tyrell and had a few good races here and there but was never a consistent front runner. Tyrell then sold it out to British American Racing under the ownership of British American Tobacco and was supposed to be built around Jacques Villeneuve by his ambitious manager Craig Pollock. The team started with Meccachrome engines (also called Supertec engines) before it struck a deal with Honda when it decided to return to F1. It was later bought out by Honda but never performed to any degree of satisfaction and Honda ultimately pulled out of F1 at the end of 2008 citing economic reasons. It was then taken over by Ross Brawn who had earlier been called to build Honda’s reputation and the team was renamed Brawn GP. In order to keep the size of the grid at 20 cars, Mercedes with the permission of McLaren gave their engines to Brawn GP which went on to win the World Championship in the year 2009 at the end of which Mercedes bought out 75% of Brawn and this year it has taken it over fully. But the team has fared rather poorly in 2010 with the high profile return of Michael Schumacher to racing becoming a damp squib and with Nico Rosberg just about keeping the team’s head high with the occasional good performance. Today, at Sepang Michael Schumacher finished the race ahead of Rosberg in 9th while Rosberg finished 11th and out of the points.

Jenson Button finished second at the Malaysian GP with a characteristic drive that saw him nurse his tyres over 19 laps towards the end of the race when team mate Lewis Hamilton was destroying them with gay abandon irrespective of the compound. Lewis Hamilton who seemed like he would finish at least second went backwards to finish in seventh position. His old friend Fernando Alonso realizing Hamilton’s intent gently nudged him from behind and destroyed his own front wing in the process and slipped impressively backward. He ultimately finished in sixth position BEHIND Filipe Massa who was in fifth. No one heard him ask Stefano Dominicali to ask Massa to make way for him. And thank God for that. There is still some shame left in the sport and in Ferrari. Jenson Button has turned out to be a man of character. He won his first F1 race in his 113th GP, with Honda in the wet at the Hungaroring and when Honda pulled out of the sport, he showed tremendous character in waiting for Ross Brawn to put a team together and was rewarded with a World Championship in 2009. His move to McLaren has seen him do well last season and so far this season. Wonder what his fate would have been had he started off in a winning team like Lewis Hamilton did. Way to go Jenson.

Do you find it funny that a commentator of F1 has found a position in the news column? Well don’t because Mathew Marsh is a very familiar name to those who watched F1 racing on TV during the nineties on Star Sports. He was a regular along with Jonathan Green for the pre-race and post race analyses and was never known to mince his words. He once famously said that driver Andrea DeCaeseris had no business being in F1 since he started more than 175 races without ever seeming to be a podium prospect. When Ron Dennis had signed Nigel Mansell to race for McLaren, Marsh said that not only was the McLaren a non-performer but also it carried a portly Mansell who would slow it down further. He has always batted for new talent and today he was on Star Sports again in the place of Alex Yoong. He was at his critical best when he said Nick Heidfeld who hadn’t won a race this Millennium should not have been the replacement for Robert Kubica. He felt Nico Hulkenberg from Force India should have been given a chance since Heidfeld was old and did not have any race winning experience. At the end of the race when he was asked if his opinion of Heidfeld had changed since Heidfeld has finished on the podium he went to say that Heidfeld finished third in a car which would have been a winner in Kubica’s hand and that Heidfeld and Rubens Barrichello had no business being in F1 and that they should make way for younger drivers instead of sucking the money out of Formula One. His words those. Why doesn’t Star Sports put him on for every race?

It is well known that it is not just policy makers who are myopic but also political activists of different hues. Usually myopia looks for the nearest and softest targets. Look at the hype given to green cars that run on electricity generated by black smoke belching thermal power plants. In the recent budget the government has announced sops to electric vehicle manufacturers so that they can pass the benefit to the customers. Among car manufacturers there is only Mahindra Reva. So did the Mahindras influence the government to announce the sops so that they can be market leaders in that segment? Could be or could be not. However what is more important is that if the country is going to get more and more two, three and four wheelers falling into the plug in and charge category of vehicles we could be turning the atmosphere blacker and at the same time place greater strain on the already strained national electricity grid. That could lead to increased load shedding. And since the rural areas always bear the brunt of power shortages is it ethical to increase consumption so that our rural brethren should forego electricity at home while we drive around on/in an electric vehicle in the cities and make a vacuous political statement?

Tony Fernandes seems to be one embittered individual. One Dany Bahar, the man incharge of Lotus Cars in England has been making his life quite difficult. Tony had it all nicely worked out. He wanted to bring the Lotus name back into F1 and make some money in the process. Then this Bahar character turns up and prematurely withdraws the rights to the Lotus name given by the Lotus Group to Fernandes. Fearing the loss of TV revenues if the name is not continued, Fernandes went to David Hunt to buy the rights to the name Team Lotus. Bahar has turned out to be one tough Turk to crack and has instigated legal action against the Fernandes’ outfit which is actually 1Malaysia GP Holdings. Since Group Lotus is also owned by the Malaysians there were some efforts at peace which did not happen and the law suit is very much still there. The pressure seems to be getting to Fernandes since at Sepang he has claimed that though three teams are claiming that Malaysia is their home grand prix, it is only his team that is entitled to do so since only his team has Malaysian blood running deep in its veins. So Tony why don’t you call yourself 1Malaysia F1 team and leave Colin Chapman in peace? It is reported that he is getting tired of turning over and over in his grave. And if you are wondering which is the third team that is claiming the Malaysian Grand Prix at its home Grand Prix, Tony says it is Mercedes GP. Who is losing it, Tony Fernandes or Mercedes Benz? It could well be a case of Petronas oil turning black.

The qualifying session of the Formula 1 Malaysian GP saw Michael Schumacher ahead of his team mate Nico Rosberg for all of Q1 and most of Q2. Towards the dying minutes of Q2 Schumacher was in the tenth position and team mate Nico Rosberg was in the five that would be eliminated. An inspired lap from Rosberg saw him hoisted to position six while Schumacher was demoted to position eleven and consequently out of qualifying for Q3.