Rediscover Formula One

We had recently reported about Vettel’s outburst against Narain Karthikeyan calling him a cucumber after they had an accident during last week’s Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang. Due to the collision Sebastien Vettel was able to secure only 11th place in the race.

Narain called Vettel’s outburst unprofessional, an opinion which most of us share.

“For a world champion to say things like that is really shameful,” Karthikeyan told the Hindustan Times which is an Indian Daily.

“It is really unprofessional.”

“For a driver who has achieved so much to take out his frustrations on me just because he is having a difficult year is really sad. One does not expect a professional sportsman to be such a cry baby.”

Narain Karthikeyan was not very happy about the stewards decision to handle him a  drive through penalty. He hinted that Vettel had influenced their decision and he was not given a chance to defend himself.

“The race stewards didn’t care about what I had to say because Mr Vettel told them God knows what when he went and talked to them,” he said.

Look at what two formula one driver championships at a young age can do to you. It can get you fame and it can make you call people cucumbers.

Sebastien Vettel’s race was ruined by a collision with Narain Karthikeyan towards the end of the race when he suffered a rear tyre puncture causing him to pit and later on the collision also caused other problems to his car, overheating brakes etc.

If you read our live blog (last post), you would see that he also didn’t have radio contact with his team towards the end of his race, his team was frantically asking him to retire, which he didn’t, at first we thought it was only due to his grit to finish the race, but as it turns out it was due to him losing radio contact with his team.

“Most crucially we lost radio communication and that makes it very difficult in these conditions to know what’s going on. Nonetheless, we did our maximum today and got up to fourth.

To then lose the race how I did is very frustrating. Some people (Narain Karthikeyan) need to look more where they are going.

He also added to another media source

As in real life, there are a few cucumbers on the road.”  (Referring to Narain Karthikeyan)

Cucumber of course meaning idiot over here. I know Indian drivers can be bad on roads , trust me I have seen 100s of them, but calling Narain a cucumber stems of a little arrogance, watch it there Sebastien, don’t want to go the Lewis Hamilton way there . Have a look at the video below where he curses Karthikeyan after the incident, that’s just the index finger though, no middle finger there. Watch it before FIA takes it off Youtube.

Team Principal Christian Horner thankfully was more reserved in his comments :

“The incident with Narain Karthikeyan caused damage to the rear brake duct, which went into thermal runaway,” Horner said.

“We wanted to stop the car before the end from a safety point of view, but Seb couldn’t hear us because of the loss of the radio and continued.

“Thankfully his car got to the end without failing, but the incident cost Sebastian at least a fourth place finish today.”

It was a breathtaking win for Lewis Hamilton where he outwitted and outraced Formula One World Championship leader Sebastien Vettel by overtaking him with just 4 laps remaining in the race. Although with an atrocious beard like that I was hoping he wouldn’t win

Lewis Hamilton was on an unconventional three stop strategy and in the end that seemed to have made the difference with his McLaren outclassing the Red Bull of Vettel. The fresher tyres ensured he was able to overtake the Red Bull. It was nice to see strategy again playing a part in the races after the Red Bulls have truly shown technological dominance on the racetrack (Interpretation of Rules again ?, someone please enlighten !). Sebastien Vettel has already won the 1st 2 formula one races and does seem to be on-track for a successful title defense.

Mark Webber was third and Jenson Button took the 4th place. Mercedes GP’s Nico Rosberg outclassed Michael Schumacher once again and was 5th while the veteran German could manage only 8th. Questions are again being asked about the German’s comeback decision and whether it was a disastrous decision to make. Personally I am proud of him, it takes courage to put your legacy on the line like he has

Sorry for the short and intermittent updates, too much work these day ! But like all things , this too shall pass !

Got the following statement from Toyota’s Media Centre :

TOYOTA MOTORSPORT GmbH STATEMENT
Monday 15 November 2010

COLOGNE, Germany – Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG) confirms that all cooperation with Hispania Racing F1 Team (HRT) has been terminated and will not resume.

TMG retains all intellectual property rights to its current F1 car and is completely free to pursue other projects and support new customers for its high-performance engineering services.

TMG regrets that HRT has not met its contractual payment obligations and will pursue all available options to reach a satisfactory conclusion to this matter.

Doesn’t look like Happy Days ahead for Hispania, no more HRT in 2011, so will Toyota be woo-ing other constructors with their engineering services ?

Image courtesy : Hispania HRT F1 Team Media

Do you think you can predict the outcome of F1 races better than the so called pros ? , If that’s the case head on over to Lenovo’s Race to Finish contest and predict the top 10 drivers in the finishing order of the remaining races and stand to win awesome F1  goodies from Lenovo including laptops and other Vodafone McLaren Merchandise.

To start winning all you have to do is head on over to the website and register yourself. After registering you will be asked to choose the top ten drivers and that’s it.

If you score high then you get to take home the prizes. I am playing too

Contest Ends 15-November-2010 !

Register for the Race To Finish contest here

Thanks to them we will also be holding a giveaway for some cool Vodafone McLaren Mercedes sometime in the future. Stay Tuned for that !