Chicane

Following up on my post on GoodSports, almost everyone has this to say about the Indy GP - "They've could've put a chicane". What the hell, changing the circuit layout a half hour before the race??? That is ridiculous. Imagine if someone has crashed in that corner and the chicane was not safe enough (it obiviously wouldn't have been if it'd been put in there in a hurry), what then?? What would Nigel Mansell, Stirling Moss, Jackie Stewart and the rest of the "experts" have to say then???

Why not a reduced speed at turn 13???? How was it not safe??? They have the nerve to say "yeh we should've made in a NON championship race and put in a chicane". A load of shit !!! Imagine working hard all weekend and then have the race turned into a non-championship one simply because Michelin couldn't get their act together.

It gets worse every minute. Dammit Renault, McLaren, Michelin and everyone else involved - stop trying to blame someone else. Why blame Ferrari, Flavio??? Was it their fault they got good tires thanks to Bridgestone's hard work?? Were they wrong in thinking the chicane would not be safe enough (they were btw never consulted on this matter according to Jean Todt) ?? I wonder what will happen at Magny Cours, Michelin's home. Maybe they'll boycott the podium because the champagne would've been deemed unsafe!!!!

Ashes !!

One over may have changed the summer for England. That's what Bob Willis said when Steve Harmison snapped up Gilchrist, Ponting and Martyn in one single over. Over playing it a wee bit perhaps???

Alright they got beaten by Bangladesh with Ashraful sweeping McGrath and another bloke walking down the pitch to Gillespie and hitting it over mid-wicket for six. England put one over them. Before this Natwest series, Somerset scored 350 odd in about 46 overs and coasted to victory. So is this a team in decline? A team that is starting to lose its way?

Well if you look at past England tours, Aussies have always started slowly. During Taylor's last tour as captain, they started even worse. Hell they lost the first test and only Taylor and Slater's double hundred stand in the second innings gave it some respectability. Looks like they've started slowly this time around too. Hayden and Gilly seem to be alright at the top of the order. Ponting has look outta sorts and the bowlers just arn't gettin it right. McGrath and Gillespie have bowled well in patches but haven't been their usual self. Kasps is probably the one that will get the axe and this might well be Brett Lee's chance to get back into the test team - Not neccessarily the best thing because Kasp does well in seaming conditions. Having said that i guess the attack could use someone who bowls just that little bit faster, because if you look at the speeds, all 3 are around the same. A bit of variety might do the trick.

Though the aussies are havin a bad time of it right now, they are not too far off from putting together a good performance, just 1-2 things and that might be it. I am predicting they will hit back and hit back hard in this weekend's games.

All in all, this Ashes hopefully should be interesting and a full strength England should be able to give Australia a good fight, who knows, maybe even manage to draw a test match ;-)

Wimbledon !!

Wimbledon - one of my favorite times of the years. Grass court tennis is always great fun to watch. My fav tennis tournament of the year for sure.

2 days and already some good matches. Henman coming back well from 2 sets to love down, Ivo Karlovic firing more than 50 aces but sadly loosing out, Indian newspapers havin something to write about with Mirza winning well and playing on center court today !!

To me the highlight so far has been Marat Safin. Safin and grass??? Wasn't he the guy who said last year that he is done with grass court tennis and it's just not his thing !!! His first round match again Srichapan was mostly one-sided with flashes of brilliance from the Thai !! But Marat, he played one helluva match. Seriously, it is probably the best i've seen Marat play on ANY surface - so confident and some amazing volleys and groundstrokes - running down the line forehands and all !! And this guy said that grass is not for him !!!! There's a potentially great match in the offing with Marat playing Mark Philipoussis today. I sure hope Safin keeps up that game, for if he does he can sure give Roddick and Federer a run for their money on grass. Go Marat !!! Damm i miss watching Pete play at Wimbledon !!

Flying in a blue dream

Last week, had been to Joe Satriani's concert.. i read a lotta stuff about the sound not being too good and so on... well i think the concert was outta the world!!! It was incredible.. watching him play the guitar that way makes you go crazy... it was simply outta this world !!!!! Satriani certainly rules!! It was an incredible 2.5 hrs, he played most of his well known songs and a few others, and i must say it was the best concert i've ever been too !!! If this is not fast stunning guitaring, then i wonder what is !!!

Good Sports!!!

Hell, it's been a while since i updated this blog ...
So a fair bit happening in the world of sport... Arsenal putting one over ManU, Kimi drivin a dominant race on the streets of Monaco.... The French Open underway .. Greg Chappell takes over as the new coach of the Indian cricket team..... Champions League finals comin up...... a fair bit yeh !!!!

so anyway, Shom got this idea to start a blog for all us sports lovers, GoodSports. But then, i ask you all, is there ever bad sports????? I don't think so!!!!

Whatta Race !!!

Wow what a finish to the San Marino Grand Prix. I thought Schumi was gonna take it but in the end Alonso drove pretty well to hold him off for the last 10 laps. Schumi was way back after the first 20 laps or so but he stayed out longer he really pushed and set a series of fastest laps and was up to 3rd after the first round of stops. The overtaking move to move ahead of Button was really slick. He came out of the 2nd stop just abt 2-3 seconds behind Alonso. If he had stayed out for a lap or 2 longer or if he had overtaken Button sooner, he probably would've beaten Alonso on the pit stop but then it was not to be. It was a helluva drive, one of the best for quite a while, not taking into account his dominant lead from start-to-finish wins.

Alonso does exceed his lead in the championship, but then the pace that Schumacher was able to run is a good sign for the races to come, and Ferrari are definetly in the fight now !! They still have problems, Rubens had to retire but Renault is definetly not going to run away with it. McLaren, if they can solve their problems should be good too and if Williams can also pick up, it should be a super fight !! The next 2-3 races should tell the story and it looks really intersting indeed. Lookin fwd to it !!

F1 rule changes

F1 has been going thru a whole bunch of rule changes some of which have helped by shuffling the starting order, and hence a lot more over taking. However a lot of it frankly totally sucks !!!

Take qualifying for instance, if the one lap thing wasn't bad enough, now they have this aggregate time. It's bullshit !!! Qualifying is no fun anymore. It used to fun when they had 12 laps and most of the cars would do 4 runs. It was a lotta fun, some real close battles over the years - Schumacher, Hill, Villeneuve, Coulthard, Hakkinen .... it was very exiting. And now, it's been reduced to this farce...

The recent changes kind of go against the spirit of F1. F1 was supposed to be the ulimate in open wheel racing, the pinnacle of motorsport, cutting edge technology and so on... but now look at all these changes going against the very essense of the sport - to get the maximum out of the car
1. 1 Lap qual - if that was not bad enough, that came along with stuff like no re-fueling between qualifying and the race , and no work could be done on the car. It's crazy isn't it?? I mean if a team got it all wrong in qual, by not allowing them to work on their car isn't it just like making them drive with a handicap ??

2. One tyre for qual/race - Introduced as a means to cut costs, it kind of takes away a lot. It is nonsense, takes away a lot of strategy and stuff - when teams would go for more pit stops and go light and feul and really burn out their tyres ?? How can they do that now, with this incredibly restrictive rule??

3. Aggregate Qual - A farce !! Nuff said !!

It's one thing to cut costs. It's another to go against the very spirit of the sport.

Yes there has been a lot of overtaking in F1 in the last yrs and a lot closer offer, but this is probably more because of younger drivers like Button, Alonso and people like Montoya , Rubens and Kimi who like to race aggressively.

With the move to cut engine power by introducing 2.4 litre V8's, F1 is probably heading towards self-destruction. Ferrari are the only team to have signed the Concorde Agreement beyond 2007. I wish they hadn't. With all the other teams and engine suppliers inclined towards their own series where they can have a bigger share in things wrt rules and so on, Ferrari should've sided with them. This is one instance where i am really dissapointed in them.

The ultimate in open wheel racing should remain that way and not give it just to save a few pennies (ok a few million !!). The fact is teams can agree on things to cut costs without resorting to this farce they call qualifying. As a former F1 driver once said, after listening to the V8 engine rule, that they might as well put indicators on the car next and hire grannies !!

San Marino Grand Prix

Fernando Alonso is flyin high and can do no wrong, at the moment. A car other than Ferrari winning 3 in a row. A very similar start to the one Schumi had with Benetton in 1994. So the inevitable question, are Ferrari finally going to be humbled?

I think it's good for formula 1 that somebody has managed to put one over Ferrari at the start of the season, so much so in fact that Ferrari are not even in the top 5 in the constructors standings. Renault are going great guns, Toyata have been awesome as well. Williams and McLaren have had one or two problems but they are quick alright. BAR have had reliability issues as well. Ralf Schumacher has not had as good a season as Trulli and i am very surprised by that.

It's been a long (by F1 stds) break after Bahrain and the there has been a lot of testing. So Imola, Ferrari's home ground, will they be good? I think they will. Obly a team that has been winning world championships for the last 6-7 yrs is not going to sit back after the dismal start. I am predicting that they will go all out for the win. It's a long time since we've seen Schumi race that way, go all out. Usually he's been leading the pack with no one in sight. It will be awesome to see Schumi give it his all and battle hard. I think Rubens should be right on the pace too.

Wurz replaces Juan Pablo this weekend. I am personally a fan of Wurz and it's a pity he hasn't been able to find a race seat for 5 years. It would be good to see some fireworks from him. Sauber seem to be in a bad shape. They've always been there and there abouts but this yr, Villeneuve does not seem to have the pace. He's struggling a lot.

My prediction: A good hard fight between Ferrari, Renault, Williams and McLaren. Schumi to take the win, followed by Fisi (outdoing Alonso this time around) followed by Kimi.

Drunk monkeys

HAHAHA.. Hilarious!! A bunch of monkeys got stoned and attacked a bunch of ppl !!!

Chelsea - Arsenal

Big London derby tonight - Chelsea lead Arsenal by 11 points with 6 games to play. Arsenal without Henry, and not really playing their free flowing football. Chelsea on the other hand, have all the fire power and would be raring to go.

Having said that Arsenal's Premiership results of late have been good. Despite not playing well at times, they have been able to steal 1-0's. They reached the FA Cup finals too, beating Blackburn.

My prediction: Arsenal 2-1. Narrow the gap to 8 points. Make it an intersting last few games.

The India-Pak Series

So another series lost, again, in a disgraceful manner. Utterly disgraceful !! Every aspect - the batting, bowling, fielding and the captaincy. Lets face it- Dravid is the rock for India and all that, but he's not a great captain. The problem India has is that there is no one else, apart from Ganguly, who can make half-decent decisions - Though his technique has well and truly been exposed, and ripped apart. He's got big problems with his batting. It's going to take a small miracle to sort it out. Then there's Yuvaraj Singh whose technique is equally pitiable. OK Dhoni got one big hundred, so is he gonna be a permenant ODI no 3? A loada crap !! The longer India carry on with this kinda inconsistent display, the longer they rely on tailor made square turners where even Anil Kumble, the wrist spinner who cannot turn the ball, gets the ball to turn, the longer India is just going to be a pretender. They will never make it as a world beating side.

It will be interesting to see who the coach will be. I think John Wright did a helluva job but who is gonna carry on from here?? It will be interesting indeed... My Pick- Appoint Glenn McGrath part time batting coach. He might have a pointer or two for Ganguly on how to score 50's.