German Grand Prix – Saturday Qualifying – Hamilton Grabs Pole

The German Grand Prix (now that the European GP’s moved to Valencia) has alternated to Hockenheim this year and McLaren and Lewis Hamilton have thrown down the gauntlet for the second half of the F1 season by grabbing pole position at the Grosser Preis Von Deutschland. The second McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen is in 3rd place with Felipe Massa’s on P2 in the best of the Ferraris. Kimi Raikkonen had a miserable qualifying and P6 is the best he could manage. Jarno Trulli of Toyota and Fernando Alonso of Renault line up ahead of him in P4 & P5. BMW’s Robert Kubica, Bed Bull teammates Mark Webber and David Coulthard – with Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel in between them – complete the top 10.

Owing to the dastardly plan of my CableOp of race-day-telecast-only, I missed the Qualifying session but did catch the highlights on the Web . Massa looked to have P1 wrapped up after he bettered Kovalainen’s spirited but flawed run with a lap of 1:15.8 secs but Hamilton swooped down at the last possible instant to clinch P1 with a 1:15.6 secs lap. See how he grid lines up here.

With only nine more races to go and with two unknown tracks of Valencia and Singapore in the fray, the Championship race is a three-way-tie between Hamilton, Massa and Kimi with Kubica just 2 points back. This race’s winner can take the outright lead and then build upon it race-by-race. And oc course, a DNF will do more harm than good for the title contenders. So all four must tread cautiously now. Its anybody’s game to win now!

Image Courtesy: ITV F1

Movie Review – The Dark Knight

Why So Serious? asks the principal villain The Joker in the latest Batman movie to hit the screens this weekend – The Dark Knight. One would think that with the facial make-up of a clown & a nickname as the joker, the character would be funny, witty & sarcastic. Dead Wrong. TDK’s The Joker, played by the late Heath Ledger, is one of the darkest villains one can remember in an English flick and certainly THE best villain in a comic-book movie. If Salim-Javed were the scriptwriters for this one, I’m sure they’d have included a line like Sholay – sojaa warna Joker aajayega (sleep well or The Joker will get ya!).

I’m not gonna bore you with the plot details (if you still wanna know, see here). In a nutshell, its the same ol’ Good Vs. Bad battle but this time, the bad is certainly more determined and badder than ever. The movie has a constant dark undertone to it (something the Spiderman movies went through in the 3rd part) and then there’s the whole gamut of endurance and making the best choice – the right one and the night’s darkest just before dawn!!! IMO it betters Batman Begins as the best Batman movie – counting even the older ones.