2011 Brazilian Grand Prix – Sunday Race – Webber ends winless streak at last race of the season

Mark Webber finally ended his winless streak for the season by taking the chequered flag at the last race – the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos in Sao Paolo. He was followed home by teammate Sebastian Vettel in a Red Bull one-two – their fourth of the season and first time with Webber in front. Jenson Button capped off a fine season by finishing third and this consolidating his second-place finish in the Drivers’ Championship Standings.

Fernando Alonso drove a valiant race but could only manage fourth place as tyre degradation and a DRS-failure allowed Button to pass him during the closing stages of the race. Felipe Massa finished fifth in his home grand prix, with Adrian Sutil sixth, Nico Rosberg seventh and Paul Di Resta eighth. Kamui Kobayashi and Vitaly Petrov took the last points places in ninth and tenth respectively. McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton had to retire due to a gearbox problem.

Some might argue that Webber was only handed the win due to a gearbox problem for pole-sitter Vettel, who had no 2nd gear and had to nurse his car using short shifts – which allowed Webber to take the lead – but still had enough pace to keep him out of the clutches of Button/Alonso behind him. Alonso might have had the third place after a good start saw him overtake Hamilton into the first corner and then pass Button on lap eleven, but Button clawed back the position towards the fag end of the race as the Ferrari’s tyre degradation made it tough for the Spaniard to hold fort.

It was a disappointing end of the season for Lewis Hamilton as well, who retired on lap sixty eight due to a gearbox failure. He was having a good battle with (who else!) Felipe Massa for fifth place and even after the second round of pit stops found himself behind the Ferrari and was lining up a DRS move before having to retire. Another driver who had a disappointing race was Michael Schumacher, who suffered a left-rear puncture as he closed the door on Bruno Senna’s Renault – a move which incredulously saw  the Renault driver get a drive-thru penalty – and could only finish fifteenth.

2011 Brazilian Grand Prix – Saturday Qualifying – Vettel notches up record 15th Pole of the Season

Sebastian Vettel set a new record of 15 pole positions in a single season as he set the fastest time for the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos in the last Qualifying Session of the season. Despite insisting that the record was not in his thoughts, it surely would have felt good for the Champion driver – if only as something to aim for having wrapped up the title sometime earlier! Red Bull locked out the front row of the grid for the seventh time this year as Mark Webber was second fastest, ahead of the McLaren of Jenson Button in P3.

Lewis Hamilton was fourth fastest, ahead of the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso in fifth and Mercedes of Nico Rosberg in sixth. Felipe Massa starts seventh in his home grand prix with the Force India of Adrian Sutil beside him in eighth. Bruno Senna was ninth fastest for Renault and rounding off the top ten was Michael Schumacher, who did not set a time in Q3.

Full Qualifying Report here.

Ek Deewana Tha – Teaser

Contrary to popular belief (well, not really that popular considering it was only me) this is NOT the Part 2 or sequel of the Urmila Matondkar – Saif Ali Khan starrer Ek Hasina Thi!

Ek Deewana Tha is actually the Hindi remake of the Tamil film Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa which had Simbu and Trisha in the lead roles. It was also simultaneously made in Telugu as Ye Maaya Chesave with Naga Chaitanya and Samantha innit. Though both movies became hits, their standout point was A.R. Rahman’s music – songs & tunes are the same in both versions. The Hindi version is directed by the same director – Gautham Menon and has Pratiek Babbar and Brit gal (A Miss Liverpool!) Amy Jackson & is said to have two completely new songs.

Though I’ve never been a fan of Telugu movies of this type, YMC registered a seismic presence around me coz of the incessant chatter about how good it was, how good the music was, how gorgeous Samantha was blah blah blah…couple of my friends were so hooked to the music, they had it as their ringtones as well as caller tunes! This post is dedicated to them…

2011 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Sunday Race – Hamilton wins as Vettel retires on first lap

He was pipped to the Pole position by Sebastian Vettel on Saturday but Lewis Hamilton still managed to win the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina circuit as a Vettel had to retire on the first lap itself due to a right-rear tyre puncture suffered as a result of clipping a kerb at the start. Vettel limped back to the pits but there was too much damage on his tyre drum & suspension to continue and thus had his first DNF of this season.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso  finished second having passed Jenson Button at the start and though he stayed close to Hamilton and even led the race after Hamilton’s second pit stop but dropped back after his own stop for a tyre change. Jenson Button took third place as he battled a failed KERS System on his McLaren and wasn’t able to mount as serious a challenge as he would have liked.

Mark Webber finished in fourth place (the first time no Red Bull driver was on the podium) as he followed a three-stop strategy and had to change to the harder compound tyre at the last lap of the race, allowing Button to move ahead. Felipe Massa finished fifth, ahead of Nico Rosberg in sixth and Michael Schumacher in seventh. Adrian Sutil finished eighth in his Sahara Force India and teammate Paul Di Resta used a one-stop strategy to finish ninth. Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber took the last point in tenth place.

2011 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Saturday Qualifying – Vettel pips the McLarens to Pole Position

The McLarens were quick on Friday and on Saturday’s practice sessions and many were of the opinion that Lewis Hamilton was a shoo-in for pole position. Pah! said Sebastian Vettel as he wheeled around in his Red Bull around the Yas Marina circuit as fast as he could and took Pole Position for Sunday’s race. Lewis Hamilton had to settle for second position, 0.141 seconds slower than Vettel with Jenson Button a teeny weensy 0.009 seconds behind in third.

Mark Webber starts from fourth with the two Ferraris of Fernando Alonso in fifth & Felipe Massa in sixth. Mercedes have Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher seventh and eight with the two Force Indias of Adrian Sutil and Paul Di Resta completing the top ten.

It was a thrilling finale to Q3 as first Button took provisional pole as the Chequered Flag fell on the session but Hamilton came steaming in behind to usurp his teammate by the slenderest of margins – 0.009 seconds to be exact! Vettel was running the last and he beat Hamilton’s time quite effortlessly, equalling Nigel Mansell’s most-pole-positions-in-a-year record in the process.

Movie Review – The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

Having had shunned movies for a while, I was waiting for a good one to break the self-imposed exile – and The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn was definitely a good choice to do that. Director Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Georges Remi a.k.a Herge’s characters – the intrepid boy reporter Tintin, his dog Snowy and the foul-mouthed but likeable Captain Haddock – comes to life in an animated rollercoaster of an adventure.

I’m not a huge fan of Tintin and his adventures (well, there was the time when I used to diligently cut out the series’ pages from The Week and staple them to make a poor-man’s version of the comic book since the original ones were priced a bit high for my pocket money) but have read most of the works and also used to see the series on TV, even though the Hindi versions didn’t do justice to the characters or their utterances! The movie instalment, however, is an immensely enjoyable spectacle which brings out the comic world onto the screen in amazing vividity and vibrancy.

 

The movie follows Tintin and Snowy’s adventures as a wooden model of a long lost ship – The Unicorn – and the secret that it hides leads them onto a fascinating journey across the world. They come across Captain Haddock, whose ancestor the ship once belonged to and holds the key to unlocking the mystery behind it all. There are the bumbling cops Thompson and Thomson, the villain Sakharine, the mutinous former ship-mates of Captain Haddock, the singing lady Bianca Castafiore and a whole lot of fun, frolic and edge-of-the-seat thrills and spills.

The story is engaging and fast-paced and though it combines elements from three different Tintin books, the cohesiveness is there. Having the movie animated enables several scenes to be grandiose and large-scaled, something which would probably have been difficult to shoot the normal way, even with CGI. The animation also copies the look and feel of the original comic books and makes one feel that the books itself have come to life.