Formula one’s blue eyed boy Kimi Raikkonen is all set for a return to formula one. the Finn would be driving for the renamed Lotus formula one team in the year 2012. After competing in the world rally championship for 3 years, he is expected to be a bit rusty, but how rusty ?

Kimi was able to win the formula one championship in his first year with Ferrari in 2007, but then that was a Ferrari, and let us not kid ourselves, Lotus are no Ferrari, heck they aren’t even a Sauber at this stage , the team with which Kimi started his career.

So the big question is how would be his performance, expecting a podium from him would be too much in my opinion, in fact I would be surprised if he manages top 10 finishes for majority of the season. His big test would be his rivalry with Swiss teammate Romain Grosjean.

Michael Schumacher’s comeback wasn’t dogged as much by his lackluster performances but by the fact that he was regularly beaten by teammate Nico Rosberg. Like Rosberg, Grosjean is no small fish, he is the current GP2 and GP2 Asia champ, one of the few drivers to hold both the titles.

Kimi packs in a wealth of formula one experience compared to Grosjean’s limited test driver experience with the Renault team in 2009. However, he has been in a different form of racing for quite some time now, rally sport is very different from formula one racing. He could take a good amount of time allowing the young Grosjean to take the lead, and once as an experienced driver you see the young ones leaving you behind, things can infact slip very fast.

What exactly happens, we would know only once the season starts, but Kimi Raikkonen surely has an uphill task ahead of himself.

I write this post as the latest game in the series ‘F1 2011’ is launched and yes it includes the new Buddh International circuit at Noida. Its coded by codemasters and is marketed by Zapak in India.

The game has a number of new gameplay options, one of which is the much awaited co-op mode, you and your friend compete as formula one racing partners for a team. I have just got my review copy and cant wait to play it out. If you are looking for features, they are all listed here. You can also view the release trailer here, the graphics look simply awesome ! Am awaiting my Xbox copy to really see the HD graphics

The game is available on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

F1 2011™ is the sequel to the BAFTA winning FORMULA ONE™ videogame from Codemasters®, the developer and publisher of award-winning racing games. Developed under Codemasters’ exclusive worldwide agreement with Formula One   World Championship Limited, F1 2011 will come complete with all the official drivers, teams and circuits featuring in the 2011 FIA FORMULA ONE World Championship™. Zapak Games, the licensing & merchandising arm of Zapak Digital Entertainment Ltd. will distribute the title in India.

Developed using Codemasters’ EGO Game Technology Platform F1 2011 will deliver an unrivalled FORMULA ONE experience that puts players into the heart of the world’s most exciting sport, powered by cutting edge graphics, advanced physics systems and integrated network play.

· Go Compete!  F1 2011 builds extensively on the multiplayer options from F1 2010. Split-screen racing is included for the first time in a high-definition FORMULA ONE title. Competitive online racing is extended with 16 players going head-to-head in GRAND PRIX™ with up to 8 AI drivers added to simulate the full grid of 24 drivers. An innovative new co-op Championship enables two players to lead their favourite FORMULA ONE team to Driver and Constructor glory across the course of a FORMULA ONE season. These enhancements are complimented by additional quick fire modes including Time Attack.

· New Circuits for 2011. Two stunning new additions to the race calendar extend the number of circuits to feature in F1 2011 to 19. Players will be able to debut ahead of the drivers on the Buddh International Circuit, the home of the first FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX OF INDIA and players will be able to test themselves on the iconic Nürburging circuit for the first time in High Definition, as this legendary track returns for the 2011 season.

· Be the driver, live the life.  From the paddock to the track, F1 2011 takes players closer to the experience of being a FORMULA ONE driver than ever before. A new Parc Ferme area, an expanded and revamped Paddock, new Pit Lane, celebration and reaction cinematics and an enhanced media interaction system fully immerse players in the glamour, pressure and excitement of being a FORMULA ONE driver. Players progress from rookie to FIA FORMULA ONE DRIVERS’ WORLD CHAMPION in an extensive career mode where gamers fight to become priority driver and shape the development of the car by performing well in races and earning performance upgrades.

· All the cars, all the stars. Fully licensed, F1 2011 features all the drivers set to contest the 2011 FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, including Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button. All 2011 teams are represented including Ferrari, Red Rull Racing, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes and Lotus Renault GP in their iconic black and gold livery.

· KERS, DRS and more! F1 2011 includes all the new rule changes set to make this year’s season the most exciting yet. F1 2011 debuts DRS (Drag Reduction System) – the new system which enables drivers to adjust the rear wing on the car to give a boost of up to 10km. KERS also returns, giving players an extra 80BHP for up to 6.67 seconds, enabling drivers to blast past rivals. Combined, these systems encourage close wheel-to-wheel racing with new options for both defence and attack. This season’s new Pirelli tyres are faithfully simulated in the game, and if players push their car too hard they may experience a range of authentic new damage failures.

· Full Day / Night Racing. The 2011 FORMULA 1 ETHIAD AIRWAYS ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX comes alive with a full day/ night transition which recreates the special atmosphere at this unique track. Every one of the existing circuits from the 2010 roster has been given a complete visual overhaul. New atmospheric effects, including dynamic clouds, compliment a weather system which features an advanced rain model that affects on-track grip.  Powered by the EGO Game Technology Platforms, F1 2011 pushes forward the graphical standard of what can be achieved in a racing game.

· The world’s greatest cars, the most exciting racing. Building on the heritage of producing award-winning racing games for over a decade, Codemasters is uniquely placed to realise the spectacle and exhilaration of racing 200MPH+ FORMULA ONE cars for all fans. F1 2011 can be tuned for players from a wide range of skill levels, from the casual gamer to the hardcore simulation enthusiast and those in between, with a range of differing skill levels. A huge range of vehicle variables can be tuned to suit each player’s unique driving style, or drivers can entrust their Race Engineer to set their car up and head straight onto the track. F1 2011 will support a comprehensive range of racing wheels for the ultimate racing experience.

· Unprecedented authenticity. Codemasters has used its unprecedented access to the world of FORMULA ONE to connect the development team directly with FORMULA ONE teams and tyre manufacturers. Extensive consultancy has taken place with a range of FORMULA ONE professionals, including race engineers, mechanics and drivers. This has been combined with real world data including CAD and on-board telemetry to deliver a race experience complete with authentic handling, accurate circuits and precisely modelled racing cars.

· EGO powered FORMULA ONE. F1 2011 is being developed on the EGO Game Technology platform, evolved from the award winning EGO engine. Enabling Codemasters development talent to share tools and technology across Studios and Central Technology teams, the EGO Game Technology Platform empowers Codemasters game designers to realise their creative visions across multiple platforms featuring cutting edge graphics, powerful AI, advanced physics systems and integrated network play.

November 14th is celebrated as Children’s Day in India in memory of Jawaharlal Nehru who was the 1st PM of India, what an apt day for Formula One to get its toungest even formula one champion. Sebastien Vettel drove an almost perfect race to clinch the F1 title beating closest rival Fernando Alonso by just 4 points. Sebastian Vettel took the chequered flag at the Yas Marina circuit to win the Abu Dhabi grand prix ahead of all his championship rivals.

The situation that Sebastian Vettel was in was similar to what Kimi Raikkonen was in a few years ago when he had pipped Lewis Hamilton to take the crown despite having the odds stacked against him. After the race Vettel acknowledged that the same was in the back of his head.

One also has to spare a thought for the Spaniard Fernando Alonso who fought valiantly in his Ferrari but couldn’t match the straight line speed of the Renaults in the end. He slipped and slid all over the track but still couldn’t pass the Russian Vikaly Petrov’s Renault.

Fernando Alonso wasn’t the only person to be heartbroken by the result, Vettel also dealt a blow to his teammate Mark Webber’s plans of celebrating his maiden F1 title. Webber finished the race behind Alonso in 8th place and the championship behind Alonso with 242 points losing out on the title by 14 points in the end.

Lewis Hamilton too wasn’t spared by Sebastian Vettel who smashed his record of being the youngest ever formula one champion at the age of 23.

Concluding, We would like to write that this young champion has heart and this surely isn’t the last we hear of him  . This surely was a fitting end for the season.

In other news AT&T Williams F1 have confirmed Rubens Barrichello for 2011. More on that later.

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 !

for those of you who may be caught a little off guard here, Flavio Briatore was accused of asking Nelsinho Piquet to crash his Renault formula one car deliberately. The FIA then proceeded to ban Flavio Briatore for his life. Briatore appealed and his appeal was found correct and sustained and the lifeban dissolved.

So now the rumour is that he has agreed to stay off the F1 circuits till 2013 when he will return to the stage of formula one as a commercial director. The deal will ofcourse save the FIA a lot of legal formalities and hurdles but will put into dark the justice that its supposed to have done for the millions of formula one fans around the world.

The Italian Briatore was found to be guilty by Renault also and not only the FIA, so how much is this deal justified ? Our view is that its not, its another place where money and power have ruled over good sense and sportsmanship. In the past few years numerous cheating scandals have emerged with the FIA failing to take concrete action each time and the one time it did was in the case of Briatore and now even that action is reversed.

There is an interesting perspective on the whole thing by Tom Cary, all the parties involved , Pat Symonds, Flavio Briatore, Nelsinho Piquet and the FIA itself will be going scot free from this incident.

It seems the crashgate will be just like the Stepneygate scandal, just fodder for the media and no concrete results of the scandal being exposed.

Apologies for no photo of the winning driver, apparently Red Bull’s media department is not approving our application to use their photos for editorial purposes.

Red Bull really did give Sebastien Vettel and Mark Webber wings with the duo grabbing a 1-2 at the 2010 formula one Malaysian Grand Prix. Nico Rosberg was third for the Mercedes GP formula one team (erstwhile Brawn GP) while his teammate Michael Schumacher was unlucky yet again as a nut came off his car’s wheel and he was forced to retire. Before that Michael Schumacher in a strong start had made up 2 places.

Sebastien Vettel proved that if you are good enough and if you drive good enough, victory will come and luck factor will diminish. After 2 unlucky races, Malaysia proved to be third time lucky.

Lewis Hamilton was another the start performer of the day though, the Briton made his way up from 20th on the grid to sixth place. His teammate Jenson Button was 8th at the finish line.

Meanwhile Spaniard and Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso called the Malaysian Grand Prix the toughest race of his life. He suffered a gearbox problem and apparently no clutch in the race.

“Right from the start things went wrong. On the formation lap, my gearbox broke, and I had no clutch during the race,” Fernando Alonso said.

“So I had to brake in a weird way. I had to first gear down and then push the throttle hard so it would engage the gear for that corner.

“So it was probably the hardest race of my whole life in terms of driving, because I had to improvise for every corner.

Final Classification of the Malaysian Grand Prix 2010

Pos No Driver Team Laps Time/Retired Grid Pts

1 5 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 56 1:33:48.412 3 25

2 6 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 56 +4.8 secs 1 18

3 4 Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP 56 +13.5 secs 2 15

4 11 Robert Kubica Renault 56 +18.5 secs 6 12

5 14 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 56 +21.0 secs 4 10

6 2 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 56 +23.4 secs 20 8

7 7 Felipe Massa Ferrari 56 +27.0 secs 21 6

8 1 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 56 +37.9 secs 17 4

9 17 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 56 +70.6 secs 14 2

10 10 Nico Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 56 +73.3 secs 5 1

11 16 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 56 +78.9 secs 13

12 9 Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 55 +1 Lap 7

13 8 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 54 +2 Laps 19

14 25 Lucas di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 53 +3 Laps 24

15 20 Karun Chandhok HRT-Cosworth 53 +3 Laps 22

16 21 Bruno Senna HRT-Cosworth 52 +4 Laps 23

17 18 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 51 +5 Laps 18

Ret 19 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 46 +10 Laps 15

Ret 12 Vitaly Petrov Renault 32 +24 Laps 11

Ret 15 Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 12 +44 Laps 10

Ret 3 Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP 9 +47 Laps 8

Ret 23 Kamui Kobayashi BMW Sauber-Ferrari 8 +48 Laps 9

Ret 24 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 2 +54 Laps 16

DNS 22 Pedro de la Rosa BMW Sauber-Ferrari 0 +56 Laps 12

The FIA will be appealing the decision of the TGI court at Paris which overturned the lifetime ban on Flavio Briatore. We had reported last week on how Briatore was acquitted by the court mainly on the grounds that FIA rules did not apply to him since he was a third party. The court had further questioned the intentions of Max Mosely in the whole episode and hinted that he might have had a personal agenda against Flavio Briatore.

Apart from appealing the decision of the court which had asked the FIA to publish advertisements in French Dailies of Pat Symonds and Flavio Briatore’s choosing, the FIA also intends to strengthen its own laws and statutes.

It seems the sport of formula one is more about controversies than the sport itself. Consider the Stepney-gate Scandal, this Crash-gate scandal and other scandals which have involved the McLaren formula one team. It seems the money kind of justifies the cheating by the teams. The stakes are so high that the teams aren’t afraid to bend rules and in some cases even break them. And with laws proving inadequate to curb this menace, the FIA needs to further strengthen its laws, rules and statutes.

People who were disgusted by Flavio Briatore’s alleged bullying of Nelsinho Piquet were left more disgusted when a Paris Court removed the ban placed on Flavio Briatore. The ban was a lifetime ban which was to ensure that Flavio could not be associated with formula one ever again in any form.

The court contended as Briatore and Pat Symonds were not license holders, they were not liable to be banned by the Formula One governing authority, only drivers and teams could be banned. Third party like Symonds and Briatore couldnt.

The TGI court also questioned Max Mosely’s intentions :

“The decision of the World Council was presided over by the FIA president, who was well known to be in conflict with Briatore, with Mr Mosley having played a leading role in launching the enquiry and its investigation in violation of the principle of separation of the power of the bodies.

“The decision of the FIA WMSC is not annulled but declared irregular, and rendered without effect in its provisions against Mr Briatore and Mr Symonds.”

The FIA was quick to note its legal options :

“The FIA notes the decision of the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris in relation to Mr Briatore and Mr Symonds.

“The Court has rejected the claims for damages made by Mr Flavio Briatore and Mr Symonds and their claim for an annulment of the FIA’s decision.

“In particular, the court did not examine the facts and has not reversed the FIA’s finding that both Briatore and Symonds conspired to cause an intentional crash at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

“However, the court did question the FIA’s authority to impose bans upon Mr Briatore and Mr Symonds for procedural reasons and because they are not FIA licence holders and, according to the court, are therefore not subject to any FIA rules.

“The FIA’s ability to exclude those who intentionally put others’ lives at risk has never before been put into doubt and the FIA is carefully considering its appeal options on this point.

“The court’s decision is not enforceable until the FIA’s appeal options have been exhausted. Until then, the World Motor Sport Council’s decision continues to apply.

“In addition, the FIA intends to consider appropriate actions to ensure that no persons who would engage, or who have engaged, in such dangerous activities, or acts of intentional cheating, will be allowed to participate in Formula One in the future.”

Last week was dramatic as far as formula one controversies go, Renault got a 2 year suspended ban from formula one. Pat Symonds got a 5 year ban from formula one and flamboyant Flavio Briatore got a lifetime ban from the sport of formula one. But there were 2 peculiarities.

First one being the suspended sentence for Renault, kind of reminds on McLaren punishments during the spygate. Even over there the team pleaded ignorance to the action of 1-2 individuals in the company and even in this case the Renault formula one team pleaded the same to Briatore’s and Symond’s actions. While these may seem like valid defences in the sense that they can let you off the hook, its quite safe to say that the defences though plausible seem like long shots.

So this also brings us to the questions whether Nelsinho piquet deserved to be banned alongwith the Renault F1 team and the 2 officials. Now, there are 2 sides to the debate, 1st is the legal one. Nelsinho Piquet got immunity from the FIA for deposing in the case, sort of a whistleblower to the whole incident. Most people agree that whistleblowers deserve amnesty. But was Nelsinho really a whistleblower, he was happy crashing into walls as long as he was getting paid and his seat was secured at the Renault F1 team , when he saw that Flavio was probably going to fire him anyway, he decides to come clean and become the whistleblower. As a fan I feel that Nelsinho Piquet alongwith Renault have brought F1 into a lot of disrepute. One often gives the Ferrari team orders example for F1 controversies, but Renault took it to a new level by telling Nelsinho to crash and that too at a specific point which would cause a longer safety car period.

They not only together cheated the fans, the game , but they also cheated themselves. Its a shame that Nelsinho wasnt banned, his stay is bad for the sport and its reputation. Needless to say after the scandal, formula one will never be the same again.

Furthermore Flavio Briatore has been banished from the sport of formula one forever. Pat Symonds got a similar punishment but with a lesser timeframe of only 5 years.

But the decision has not went down well with fans. Most believe that the penalty given to the Renault formula one team is too light. Most notably Brit fans and their press who were OK with the concept of a suspended sentence for the McLaren team when they were punished suddenly disagree with the concept of suspended bans.

Anyway, it seems that formula one is losing its credibility and sheen, hawks like Flavio dont deserve to be in the sport of formula one. They cheat fans and fix races which is unacceptable to all.

The World Motor Sport Council finds that Renault F1 team members Flavio Briatore, Pat Symonds and Nelson Piquet Jr. conspired to cause a deliberate crash at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. The World Motor Sport Council therefore finds Renault F1, which, under article 123 of the International Sporting Code, is responsible for the actions of its employees, in breach of Articles 151(c) and point 2(c) of Chapter IV of Appendix L of the Code, and Articles 3.2, 30.3 and/or 39.1 of the Formula One Sporting Regulations.

The World Motor Sport Council considers Renault F1’s breaches relating to the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix to be of unparalleled severity. Renault F1’s breaches not only compromised the integrity of the sport but also endangered the lives of spectators, officials, other competitors and Nelson Piquet Jr. himself. The World Motor Sport Council considers that offences of this severity merit permanent disqualification from the FIA Formula One World Championship. However, having regard to the points in mitigation mentioned above and in particular the steps taken by Renault F1 to identify and address the failings within its team and condemn the actions of the individuals involved, the WMSC has decided to suspend Renault F1’s disqualification until the end of the 2011 season. The World Motor Sport Council will only activate this disqualification if Renault F1 is found guilty of a comparable breach during that time.