7.8.06

Weekend

My uneventful and boring weekend was saved (barely) by the surprisingly good Hungarian F1 race, which I enjoyed very much. I'm an F1 fan and I do watch every race whenever I can, but usually I don't stay and watch until the end. I like the starts 'cause a lot of incidents happen then but when the race develops a "steady" rhythm or whenever the gap between each driver is so huge, it gets boring very quickly.

But not in Hungary yesterday. It was by far the best F1 race I've watched this season, and I even stayed on until the end, right up to the trophy presentation ceremony! There was so much happening, and it rained; which makes it even more chaotic, with cars spinning on nearly every lap. Highlights: Alonso & Micheal's duel, the numerous overtaking manouvers, Raikkonen's amazing bump into Monteiro's rear, Renault not finishing, dilemma over full wet, intermediates or slicks, Jenson's (and Honda's) first win. Plus a few more I've probably forgot.

And while I do not have a specific "team" that I follow, I found myself quietly pleased and proud of BMW-Sauber's (my default team, I suppose) performance yesterday. Heidfeld finished on the podium (a first for BMW?) while debutant Kubica did ever so well despite 2 spins and a nose-cone change to finish 7th. Good job lads. Well done. The BMW ads were also quite fun, it came with a completely retro 70's soundtrack to boot! But what's the connection between Jacques and Newtown?? That baffled me.

Anyhow, the race was so good that I didn't even mind the obvious bias-ness of the commentators who clearly were backing Button, which came as no surprise considering one of them was Honda's test driver and Button's team mate.

Last night's race was excellent, and hopefully the next one would be just as good.

8 comments:

todek said...

Bad news!
Kubica disqualified because of underweight (I don't really understand this, check the website).
Meaning Massa moves up a spot and Micheal gets one point too.

Schumacher langgar Heidfeld's rear tyre, sebab tu he lost his spot.

Zarin@Beng said...

er... underweight gives u more speed advantage right? since an F1 car has a minimum weight before and after a race, so looks like Kubica has lost more weight in a race than he should be-remember that advert about u lose a few pounds after a race? or... the car has some components that is lighter than his teammate's...

and yeah, schu did not finish because langgar heidfeld. schu was still using intermediate tyres while others have changed to slicks thus about 4 seconds slower that others/lap. he still tried to hold on to that xth place but 'accidentally' langgar heidfeld's.

todek said...

Thanks Beng for the explanation.
But the weight in question is the car's weight only kan? If its the total car+driver weight then it wouldn't be fair since kubica is one HUGE bloke. Surely ada extra at least 5 kgs compared to say, Heidfeld.

Zarin@Beng said...

according to F1 website... the underweight is caused by excessive tyre wear...
"excessive and unexpected tyre wear (and therefore weight loss) through continued use of wet-weather tyres in comparison to the accustomed and anticipated rate of wear of dry tyres."
as a comparison, kubica is 184cm tall and weigh 73kg while heidfeld is 164cm with weight of 70kg.

I'm hypothesising that due to kubica being 3 kg heavier, the strain on the wet tyres is stronger thus more excessive wear than expected.

p/s faruq - haha... keeping my thoughts until the start of EPL.

Anonymous said...

Ur talking tyres with those tone? oh man... hot! *rofl*

i used to follow Schumacher's career uprise and slump till 2003. then i stopped. after that, i followed Lance Armstrong till he won the Tour de France for the 7th time. after he retired, so did I. Then I followed Lleyton Hewitt's, until he married someone else. Afterwards, I thk im in my best fan-career until France lose to Italy in the WC! that was the worst slump ever, and i never quite recovered..... Sigh...

todek said...

Well its time to get out of the slump, baby! The season's (football season that is) starting tonite when the Mighty Reds take on whats-the-name team in the Champions League qualifying.
Expect a post if we win. If we don't, I'll be moody.

Anonymous said...

Arsenal already won... and i think i have recovered by a degree. good luck to u!

todek said...

Bad news (again)!
JV's gone.
Yup folks, Jacques has been kicked out (or in proper terms, had his contract terminated) of BMW.
I've always had a soft spot for JV, he occassionally showed his class in some of the races, he was world champion after all a while back. He was an opinionated bloke and had a reputation of being hard to work with, which coupled with some erratic driving, I reckon was ultimately the reason he was let off the team.

Goodbye Jacques. Now you can start touring with your band, mate.

Kubica's taking over his place. Good luck to him.