Really now.

F1 season heading to another frenzied end with one point separating McLaren's Lewis Hamilton from Ferrari's Felipe Massa. If the stewards this year continue to behave as they have so far, viz. abominably, no surprise if the Reds come out on top.

Bah. Read this CNN article.

(PS: I hate CNN. But still.)

In other news.

Good Gawde has just reminded me that I haven't been keeping my vast readership up to date with various developments in my life and my very important opinions on events transpiring across the world. I thank him. All four of my readers also thank him. Especially Ma. And Pa. ;)

First things first. Get well soon, BB. That stomach trouble you've been having is causing trepidation across the globe. Your legion of admirers is on tenterhooks, biting their finger and toe-nails in an atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety. Bu chuss yehai dapan ki tsu gess gasun jald nish jald theek. Booz-thha? Shaabaash.

And now on to more public topics. The Turkish GP yesterday. What a fantastic race! Finally a really exciting watch after oh-so-many races.We've had few and far between. The Brazilian GP to wind things up last season in October was a thriller. Then the season-opener in Melbourne this year was entertainng. And after a couple of boring months, yesterday's great race in Istanbul. Well done, little Massa. And Hammie, just when I had lost all hope in you, you took it up one notch and drove a damn good race. The 'Surpise!' three-pit-stop strategy almost worked. Very well done. Kimi stormed in third, close on Hammie's heels. Poor Heikki. Had an unlucky race but some nice overtaking moves all along after his 'flat' start. And Alonso.... *sigh*... Let us take a moment to daydream about this wonderful Spaniard. He was tres bien as usual. And coming up next is the wonderful Monaco GP. Woo hooooo!

On to the IPL now. Started off with a bang in Bangalore, and the tempo's been good ever since. Bangalore's team is by far the biggest joke this tournament's thrown up. Mmmppfhfhppphhhh. *That's muffled laughter*. Tired and Test-ed, is what the Royal Challengers are all about. The Saab is gunning for Dhoni's Chennai Superkings and Delhi's Daredevils (a lot of which has to do with Akshay 'hubba-hubba' Kumar being their posterboy.... I am not ashamed of this fact. I can't help it.) Other teams that look good are of course Warne's Jaipur lads. And Kolkata has a few very bright sparks in the form of Saurav Da and an impressive bowling line-up: Ishant Sharma, Umar Gul, Dinda and possibly, Shoaib Actor, no, no!, Akhtar. (Thanks to Sir Khurram Abbas in the Amreeka for this moniker.)

And then! Soccer. ManuU have romped home with the Barclays English Premier League cup. Whatte! Waiting for Moscow where they'll hopefully make it a double and win the Champions League as well. Chelsea were kicking up a happy storm last night when they saw a faint light at the end of the tunnel with their goal against Bolton. If Man U drew, that would be it. As it turned out though, the Wanderers pulled out a gorgeous equaliser themselves and Chelsea was left undone. Ronaldo had a foot in this winning match as well, and thanks to Rooney, Giggsy pulled off a nice second goal towards the end of the match. And that wrapped it up for the Reds.

In other news, looks like Barack Obama's going to be it. Unless the law suddenly changes and it turns out Dubya can run for another term. In which case it's probable that America will reinstate him as Prez. Ho hum.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

It was a Sunday I had waited for, for a very, very long time. Two days almost. I woke up at the crack of dawn, around 12:30pm, buzzing with excitement at the impending high-action drama that was to follow. High-action on the part of my favourite sports persons, not me - I was only going to be adjusting the body into a comfortable supine position most conducive to telly-watching.
Cooked a quickie pasta lunch for the Sister since she has strange food cravings every fortnight or so and simple daal-chawal just doesn't cut it. Finished Facebooking for a bit and got down to business.
I had a packed schedule to adhere to. Beginning with the Bahrain GP.Expectations ran high and there was a palpable tension in the air of the Haji household as various family members seated themselves in accordance with their F1 loyalties. Self assumed comfy left corner slot in the McLaren stand. Cousin Suhail and Br Ozz occupied opposite right corner slot, being the Ferrari faction. Sister and mother looked disgusted and left because we made them turn off 'Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani' and switched to Raceday.
Feeling glad that BMW did so well in qualifying, I put my faith in ze Germans thinking McLaren and BMW would sweep the podium. After all, two little red spots on the radar could be overcome, non? NO! Goddammit.
Lights on, lights off, Go, Go, GO! Except Mr Hamilton remained stationary, while the rest of the field whizzed past. Massa took over P1 right from the first turn and so it remained till he came home with the top podium place. Iceman Kimi made it a comfy Ferrari 1-2. Sigh. Hamilton added to his already incredible start by trying to mount Alonso's Renault from behind (see pic)! What was this? Delayed vengeance for last year? Gadzooks! Ferrari had a thumping victory, BMW walked in tall and proud to take the lead in the Constructor's and all of a sudden Self was feeling very hard done by. Good on you, Heikki, but McLaren's been looking dodgy in these past two races.
Moments of the race:
1. The start that ended it all.
2. Impressive BMW driving and speed throughout.
3. Hamilton's screw-up with Alonso. ("Racing incident" indeed. Hmmph.)
4. Superb driving from Fisichella in the Force India team, and the great battle between him and Hamilton for three or four laps before Hammy finally managed to over take him. And really, Lewis, there was no need for your juvenile hand gesture to Fisi. Why the hell should he have moved? You were racing.
5. The Button and Coulthard tussle.
6. Fisi finishing one place ahead of Hamilton. Haw haw.
7. Superb racing by Alonso, again.

Other exciting occurrences during that evening were extraneous to the actual race. A sudden shriek from the materfamilias jerked our attention to the fact that the inverter was spontaneously combusting and that disturbing smell of burning wires was spreading through the domestic territory. In addition to this, and for dramatic effect, thin wisps of evil, black smoke were emanating from said inverter. In a frenzied manner, all of us family members started yelling our opinions on the matter and speculating on the best method to combat this hazardous phenomenon of flaming electronic devices. For a longish time nothing of any actual use was proposed until better sense prevailed and it was decided to nip the problem in the bud. Or plug. We used our 'kaanoon ka lamba haath' personified by Ozz, who stood on tiptoe on a chair, grappled with the main switch and finally managed to kill the inverter. With the result that all the power in the house was also killed. Hence ending our mouth-agape-viewing of the Bahrain GP. Truth be told, I didn't give a bloody damn any more. I learnt soon, from various taunting texts and jibes that Ferrari had reigned supreme and McLaren indeed 'had gone red in the face'.
*Shakes head*
Cut to an hour later, helpful electrician had restored power and semblance of sanity to household and the TV was ready to entertain us again.
Onwards to Hyderabad where the second of three ICL finals was taking place. With great enthusiasm, the entire Haji family plus Cousin Suhail forgot past divisions and sat down as one to cheer on the Lahore Badshahs. The Lahore Badshahs had to win, 'and of course they will today!' was the general consensus.
Nyet. Nothing doing. Scores level in the last over. Both teams at 130, and the match was to be decided by a bowl-out. Ha ha, say the Hajis. The Pakis are so good at bowling, it's a cinch. (I myself was having internal, horrified flashback of T20 India-Pak bowl-out...) And so it went. The Hyderbad Heroes kept their heads at a time they needed to. Their bowlers did what presumably all bowlers across the world, from indoor drawing-room cricket, to gully-cricket, to net-practice to international level cricket bowlers are supposed to do, viz. hit the stumps. The Lahore Badshahs screwed it all up in the end. Zero out of three hits. The Heroes got a healthy three out of four hits and it was all over. Poor Inzy, having to apologize over and over and over for his team's infuriating performances. Ah, well, still can't help loving them. 'Hai jazbaa-e-junoon toh himmat na haar' etc.
Saving grace: Abdul Razzaq won Man of the Series, a trophy woth Rs 1 crore and a cheque of Rs 40 lacs.
In the meanwhile I learnt that ManU had just barely drawn with Middlesborough, giving Chelsea a very good chance to take the top spot of the EPL. Grrr. Rooney came in with a late equaliser or else it was another huge upset in keeping with the day's events thus far. So now Man United are only three points ahead on the table at 77.

Later on in the night (the damn Sunday just wasn't getting over), I managed to catch Rafael Nadal lose the Sony Ericsson final, 6-2, 6-4, to Davydenko. I mean, I like Nikolay, but I wanted Rafa to win, okay???
A few hours later, in the middle of the night, Sister, Ozz, Suhail and self were playing spades. Girls versus boys. We drew at one game all after a sensational landslide victory in the first round. It was not a good feeling.

All in all, this Sunday was a write off. As Skinny rightly mentioned, I was in a 'talk to me and I'll kill you' mood.

Pics stolen off: formula1.com, EPL site, ICL site, espn

Hmmmph.

So. Ferrari won Sepang. Massa spilled himself messily somewhere along the line. Heikki came in an impressive third for McLaren. Hamilton crawled in 5th and Alonso babe (who's hitting the headlines again with subtle hints about a year-end break-up with Renault) came in a wonderful 8th in spite of his pitiful Renault.
I am writing off this race. Where were the thrills and spills, I ask you? And no rain either.
Kimi drove brilliantly start-to-Finnish (hahahahahaaaaa, Saab, you're funny!) and won. Yawn. Remember the good old days when this lad was with McLaren Mercedes? Vaav. McLaren still on top in the Constructor's but really, what a silly race. Bahrain better be better.

BMW, well done again. This year's podiums are all opened up. And Toyota..? Well, well, well Mr Trulli. *polite applause*
Force India, we're waiting.

Anyway. Hmmph.

Whadda race, whadda race!

I can hear Blur's Song 2 playing in my mind as I recap to myself what a bang-up race it was.
To begin with, heading furiously into Turn 1, here's the field:And in a split second.... Ta daaaaa: Followed by a magnificent toss-up, cars retiring, positions taking a dramatic turn and what-have-yous. And so it was for the entire duration of the race. Edge-of-seat gripping stuff.

And after many similar thrilling slips, slides, crashes, engine failures [ALL the Ferrari engines and a few others.... *snicker*], we come to a sexy Hamilton shower scene, stage right! VICTORY!!!!! Young Lewis drives a dream (he said it) and his teammate Heikki follows close behind in fifth. Almost fourth but that dazzling Alonso pulled some cheeky overtaking moves in Lap 50! But of course. What can he do if he's stuck with a substandard Renault engine this year?
McLaren off to a supreme start to the year.
Yay! *bhangra*


I say, this No-Traction-Control business is smashing. Definitely makes each race a whodunit. Can't wait for Sepang. Only 5 days to go...

McLaren Hams it up!

Ah, the very wonderful feeling one gets on waking up (relatively) early on a Saturday morning, 0830 hrs, to see McLaren put on a good show as usual- Hamilton taking a very expected pole and Heikki rolling in with a smooth third posish on the starting grid. And to see a certain team go Red in the face settling for fourth and... what's that???!!!... 16th?! Just ahead of Fisi in the Force India car??!
And what else do we see? That it might not just be a McLaren-Ferrari 2008. BMW is looking bloody good as well. Kubica streaked through his final run during Q3. First time ever he'll start on the front line of the grid. Vaaav for him.

Great fun watching the drivers stay on course without traction control this season. We'll have some amusing slips and slides, I can tell.
So... till the morrow...

(In the meanwhile, juvenile Ferrari fan behaviour has been noted in the immediate aftermath of the Qualifying what with pathetic text messages saying things like "McCheaters" etc etc. Haw haw.;)

Alonso goes Blue. So does Saab.

Yay! Yay! Yay! Fernando Alonso joins Renault again, and what with them announcing their new challenger -the R28, how cool!- in Jan 2008, I'm expecting a great season next year. Something that will have teams other than Ferrari and McLaren on podium places 1 and 2. [Just like I was fully expecting Pakistan to win the T20 and the following Indo-Pak series, and, unrelated to sports but a big realistic expectation: I was expecting the Amreekan public to send Bush out on his ass when he reran for Prez.] Anyway. Alonso is on with Renault for a two-year stint. I see clearly in my head a visual repetition of 2005 and 2006. (Fade to Trelawney's class and Divination...) And announcing Alonso's baby driver companion, Nelsinho Piquet. Whatte fun to see what kind of sparks fly between these two.

The dismal Indo-Pak test series also wound down to a close with a yawn-inspiring scoreline of 1-0 and two draws. Whatever happened to Indo-Pak fun. The one-day series was ho-hum as well. But that's because there is no real comparision between the headless team that Pakistan has right now and the professional setup India has got running. Where's the 'go-for-the-kill-yaar' aechichood? My love for Yo-Yo and Misbah has increased in geometric progression and inverse proportion [thank you Macro-Economic Theory] to my disillusionment with Team Pak as a whole. Hai rabba, where are the good old days when Was and Waqar used to steamroll in and destroy the furniture, when Moin and Wasim-bhai used to have hilarious stump-mic converstaions, when we had Saeed Anwars, Abdul Razzaqs, Saqlain, Ejaz, Azhar Mahmood and so much fun on the field?

Depressing.

F Briatore makes Alonso the offer

But only if the Sullen Spaniard is of a mind to stick it for the long-run. No half-hearted one year contract in the offing. Here's what the BBC has on that story.

Maybe, just maybe, Alonso will manage a third championship next year with Renault. Yay!
PS: Why was this year so lopsided? It was all Ferrari and McLaren. ALL...

Oh, and for the slow-pokes: He's through with McLaren.

The numbers game

What a race today. And look at the Drivers' points now: 107, 103, 100. Yeeesh.
Full low-down on the Chinese Grand Prix from the formula1 site.
Unfortunate and inexplicable end to Hamilton's Shanghai run opens up the whole board again. What was that?

Anyway, it's all down to Interlagos now, where, frankly, anything is possible. This is going to be one of the most eagerly watched races to ever close a season. On paper, each of the top three have a chance at making it to number one. The probability is still that Hamilton will take the Championship and go down in history as the first debutante to take home the grand prize, but Alonso and Kimi are on his tail and how...

F1 update

Heee heee. I like this Vijay Mallya. One 'attitude' answer from the bearded baron, on his acquisition of Spyker [crossing of t's and dotting of i's on the deal to be completed by September end]:

Q: Did you look into any other motorsport options?
VM: Formula One is the crown of motor sport and it is my style to look at the crown and not at the grass roots.

Meanwhile, at Fuji today, Hamilton took another well-deserved pole, making him an almost-certain winner of the Driver's Championship, 2007. Alonso crashed out [:-(], rookie Heikki Kovalainen came in 2nd for Renault with a few near run-ins with 3rd place Kimi and Ferrari. Kimi started at 21st [!!!]. Brilliant driving.

Kick-ass moment of the race came at the very end when Massa pulled a great skin-of-his-teeth overtake on Robert Kubica. Vaaav.

Two more races to go this season. Hamilton stands at 107 points, ahead of Alonso at 95 points and Kimi in third at 90.

The weekend from hell....

1. McLaren out of the Constructor's Championship. Grrrrr.
2. Pak lose to India after a gut-wrenching match with some atrocious losing tactics by the Pak bowlers. I could have killed someone.
3. Ferrari pull a one-two at the Belgian GP. Alonso limps in third.

My eyes!!! My eyes!!! [Pic stolen from here.]
And if that weren't enough, Alonso pulled another one on Lewis. Ye gods. What was he thinking? [Does he think?]

Saving graces:
1. Alonso and Hamilton still in the Driver's running. Four more races to go this season.
2. We'll have another India-Pak play-off, hopefully.
3. A very lovely time at Mad Nut's house, including a bizarre midnight romp last night. Snowflake is a dorrling. As is Nuts. *hugs*
4. Ramadan has been excellent so far. Three days down, and so far so good. Haven't ventured too off-track yet.
5. Cousin-fun at my place, as is usual on weekends.

Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!

McLaren convicted of industrial espionage, fined $100mn dollars and thrown out of Constructors' Championship..... :( More.
Which means the Reds take home the Constructors'. Damn. Grrrrrr. I want to bite something.

Only light at the end of the tunnel: Both drivers given clean chit and are in the running for the Drivers' Championship. So what'll it be? Alonso first and Lewis second, or the other way round?
[That's for all you Ferrari freaks out there.....]

I am going to curl up and die now. Excuse me.

Not to put too fine a point upon it....

Monza!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

McLaren pulled a perfect one-two at Monza yesterday, with some kickass top speed, blinding laps from Fernando Alonso all through the race to clinch pole position and a lovely overtaking maneuver by Lewis Hamilton after his Pit Stop #2 to pull in second ahead of Kimi.

* Hamilton's view as he overtakes Raikkonen.
The Hamilton-Raikkonen overtake was THE moment of the race for me, because I was afraid Kimi's one-stop strategy might just be able to take away the second position from McLaren. And eeks! It did for a bit, when Kimi pulled in just ahead of Lewis' car exiting from the pit lane.
But Kimi had suspension trouble [yeah, whatever] and Lewis managed a neat overtake on the first chicane which left me screeching with joy, high-fiving nobody, punching the air with my fists and renting the peace of the neighborhood asunder with some very juvenile cheering...
*All race pics bummed off the F1 site.

As is usual on weekends, Suhail bhai had come over and we had a rollicking mad time. I had promised chicken pulao [mama-style] and I delivered. Accompaniments were tangy tomato chutney and yoghurt. [For excellent pulao recipe, please send me fan mail.]A very burpalicious, albeit late-ish lunch was had around 4:30pm.
What followed was the absolute nuttiest Sister and Suhail have ever been in a long time. There was one hour to kill before the race started and the Deranged Duo decided to sing the blues away. (They thought they were really good.) A number of very elegant, soulful, classic Hindi film songs were destroyed in the process as our two star performers refused to shut up till the hour was up. The horrific renditions were punctuated by a series of giggling fits, tune-improvisations and very, very bad poetry. [Which is a loose term for rhyming words.]
Fortunately all tales of terror must have an ending, and in spite of it seeming like Time stood still while these two yodelers went caterwauling, the glorious hour of 5:30pm eventually came and my miseries ceased.
Start lights on, lights off, and GO!

Ozz and Suhail [boys in pic] are Reds - Ferrari supporters. [Blech.] They stopped acting cocky soon after reality sunk in, which is to say post the Lewis overtake which sealed the McLaren one-two deal. Hah. Sister was with McLaren, so no animosity there. [McLaren fans' -sis and I- pic on left].
To celebrate our resounding victory, I brought in some steaming hot noonchai along with a gloating smile, and special Kashmiri bakery: Kishtwari kulchay and baakirkhaani. The opinion all round was that the chai was very good. I would like to thank Nandini-double-cream-pasteurized-homogenized-no-need-to-boil-before-use milk.

Once that was done, we watched some nonsense TV programs like Miss Teen USA, AXN Fear Factor Psycho, Page 3 type no-brainer entertainment segments, and primed ourselves for the US Open Men's Finals, which according to many sources would be played at 9:30pm , IST. This turned out to be the biggest lie of the century as many hours later, droopy-eyed and despairing, we realized that the match would only be played at a mysterious, suspenseful hour which none of us would be able to guess at. Another friendship, Iqbal, had also come over in the hopes of being able to see Federer win the Open, but his dreams and aspirations were thwarted as no LIVE broadcast from Flushing Meadows seemed available. Except the insipid Women's Doubles Finals which was not gripping at all.

Suhail and Doc eventually left around 1:30am by which time we all convinced ourselves that the match would only happen post 4:30 am IST. This turned out to be the second biggest lie of the century because as it turned out, the match started at 2:30am, which fact Suhail bhai called in to inform us of.

I watched the match very sleepily, from a supine posish under a comfortable blanket in the TV room. My involvement in the proceedings was at best lackluster and I slept through many points.

And that was the Sunday that was.

The Reds

Hmmph. Ferrari managed a one-two at Turkey this Sunday. Alonso followed a while later in 3rd. Full summary here.


Extremely tragic moment of the race: Hamilton's sensational tyre-burst. And he still pulled in 5th. Very good.

The rest of the season has suddenly become interesting again with the Ferrari-McLaren gap narrowing in. It could swing either way now in the 5 remaining races.
In the Team Constructor standings, Mclaren is at 148 and Ferrari is just 11 points behind at 137. And the Driver Standings are Hamilton- 84, Aonso- 79, Massa- 69 and Raikkonen- 68. Close as all-get-out! Should be fun.

Can't wait for Monza. Go McLaren!

[All pics bummed off F1.com.]