Desicritics Category: Sports: Racing

Photo Essay: A Day at The Races

Aaman Lamba — Sat, 5 Jan 2008 10:24:59 EST

The New Year's Day Races have long been a tradition in Kolkata. Held at the Royal Calcutta Turf Club, they seem to be another preserved bastion of Raj culture, yet are as Indian as they come. It is a constant surprise that people spend the whole night celebrating and carousing, and then still land up by eleven-ish or so at the Turf Club. Traffic jams aplenty, various circuitous routes are followed into the grounds.

The races have also long been a fashion parade of sorts. Modern memsaabs and burra saabs dress up to the nines and preen themselves almost as much as the horses themselves. There are many people of course, who fill the non-members' areas, and in the best Calcutta tradition, are well-turned out, if not so grand.

What's racing without some betting and book-making? There are a variety of book-makers marking the odds, from the official tote or totalizator, to official bookies, and down the rungs to less reputable shacks. Much money changes hands, and some fortunes are made, a few lost.

Cox & Queens: At The Annual Chennai M&B Regatta

DesiGirl — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:05:12 EDT

With inputs and photos, courtesy Ranjani Shankar.

The early morning sunlight, spreading out in the sky in the background; the faint smudges of it reflected in the water in the foreground - from an odd angle, it may well be mistaken for one of the Regattas held periodically on the Thames. But no, it wasn't! This, unbelievably, is on the 'River' Cooum, Chennai! And the event - the the annual Merchants and Bankers Regatta Championship conducted by the Madras Boat Club!

The Club, (annual membership fee Rs 50,000!) situated in Adyar, near the banks of the River Cooum, has been conducting the Regatta for the past 80 years, churning out some of the country's best oarsmen and women. (Oarspersons?) The festive atmosphere, the competitive spirit and the beer, of course, along with some great camaraderie, makes this event a strong draw, year after year. The big corporate houses of Chennai, Sify, O&M, Element K, JWT all send their best men and women to this event.

This year, there were seven all-women teams in all and the girls from Madras Houz, a production company, were crowned the winners in the women's races.

The race is 750 meters long and only two teams can race at a time. Every team submits two entries for the pairs race. The Madras Houz girls, comprising of Neela, Madras Houz (a music production house), colleague Uma, daughter Sharmishta and her friend Ranjani Shankar, decided to sign up for the event purely for a lark - and the fitness factor! Though sacrificing precious sleep, only to row on the dank waters of Cooum was the worst part, admits Ranjani.

But the gutsy four soon got used to it; ' In fact, they take special care of the course where we row', says she.

So how did they actually prepare for this, their maiden, event?

'Well, we practiced every morning without fail, for two whole months. For an hour every day, we used to get extensive coaching from the Club coaches. Sheer hard graft helped us get better at it. We soon became quite fit and being on the water, that early in the morning, working together as a team - well, it changed the way we looked at our day. our life, even', Ranjani says, a touch philosophically.

The actual events were spread over four days - three days of heats followed by the actual, final, race. Like the other teams, the Madras Houz girls also split in two for the pairs race - Neela and Uma in one and Sharmishta and Ranjani in another.

'That was quite scary', admits Ranjani, 'taking on the corporate teams, with 5-6 years experience and us on our first ever race! In fact, while we were sitting on our boat, the two of us, the enormity of the task struck us with a force and we didn't hear them announcing till they shouted ROW!'

'That was when we realized our hidden depths of energy - we didn't spare a thought, just pulled together and took our boat home to the finish, to win our first race in style!', she laughs proudly. So you should be, girl!

After that, the girls had three more races to go through before reaching the finals. As luck would have it, their opponents for the finals were none other than the other Madras Houz women, Neela and Uma! What a double honour for the production house!

The overall championship went to Element K, with their mens and womens teams.

The delighted Madras Houz girls, though, were thoroughly happy with their loot of huge trophies. 'Wish they had given us free membership to go with that, though!', adds Ranjani with a cheeky grin.

Vijay Mallya Bids For Spyker-Ferrari Formula 1 Team

Chandra — Sat, 1 Sep 2007 07:20:53 EDT

Vijay Mallya and Michiel Mol Director of Formula One for Spyker have teamed up to make a 80 million euro (54 million pounds) bid for the cash-strapped team. In a joint statement, the two said,

"This offer has been accepted by the Board of Spyker Cars N.V. and exclusivity has been granted to the consortium Orange India Holdings Sarl to proceed with due diligence ... to achieve completion within 30 days,"

Vijay Mallya had said last week that he was actively pursuing a purchase and it appears that this has come to fruition.

The ex-Jordan F-1 team is one of the most interesting teams in the Paddock. Over the last 16 years the team have won 4 races. Micheal Schumacher made his debut with this team way back in 1991. Other notable drivers include Heinz Herald Frentzen, Fisichella, Damon Hill, Barrichello, Trulli and Eddi Irvine. However, the team is in dire straits now having had 3 owners during the last 2 years (Jordan, Midlands and Spyker). They are still to win a point in the 2007 season.

This is the first entry of an Indian team into F-1, and the third Asian team It appears that we have beaten the Chinese on this one.

Managing finances for a team like Spyker will be a massive challenge. Their main engine suppliers are Ferrari and without the factory backing of Spyker one wonders how Mallya plans to run the team

With easy credit drying up, one needs to see how long Mr Mallya will hold on to the team considering the fact that he will see very little success atleast in the next 2 years.

Adrian Sutil and Christian Albers are the current drivers. Will our man Narain get another opportunity to drive for his ex-Team? The odds are low but one can never tell

All in all, in the short run, this is a good development at least from a Brand Equity Perspective. The Kingfisher brand will be all over the world. This may also mean a Beer and Airlines launch in the UK and Europe. The synergies are clearly there. However, considering the cost of running such a business, it does not appear to be a long term investment. Only time will tell.

Grand Prix of Europe 2007 Report

AJ — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 14:18:12 EDT

In one of the most fantastic races of the year, the Formula 1 race at Nürburgring, Germany was a topsy-turvy race. It all started in lap 3 when it started raining, nay, pouring cats and dogs. As a result, almost all cars (with the exception of rookie Winklehock who had changed to wet weather tyres ahead of the race start) were caught out and started slipping and sliding with 5 cars aquaplaning at the same spot and getting "beached" out on the gravel.

By lap 3, the situation was quite dangerous that the safety car had to be deployed. Further, by lap 4 the race was in such a disarray and the mass of slipping forced the stewards to red flag and suspend the race for about 10 minutes.Just before the safety car was out, Hamilton who was also beached on the gravel got a lucky helpful lift out of the gravel onto the track where he resumed the race a lap down to the leaders.

The race soon restarted behind the safety car with Kimi Raikkonen, who missed the entry to the pit lane after slipping out of the pit lane entry, being the biggest loser going down to seventh position and the rookie Winklehock leading the race in his debut grand prix. Winklehock was followed by Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso.

The race completely restarted on the 7th lap with Winklehock leading and quite a few drivers taking the opportunity to pit. Massa soon retook the lead with Alonso close behind him followed by Coulthard, Kovalainen and Kimi.

Hamilton who had just changed to dry weather tyres as the race restarted lost significant amount of time since the quickly drying track was not dry enough for the slicks on his car.

By lap 13, the track was dry enough to allow the drivers to switch to the slicks causing a traffic jam in the pit lane as most drivers trooped in to change tyres and take on fuel. In this middle stint, Hamilton drove a brilliant race passing multiple cars and setting 5 consecutive fastest laps matching the pace of Massa who was blazing away from Alonso and Kimi in 3rd.

On lap 36, disaster struck Kimi as his car slows down and finally drowns at the start of the pit lane due to possible mechanical failure.

With less than 12 laps to the end, the meteorologists predicted rain in 10 minutes which was slightly off because the rain came earlier. And by lap 52, it was starting to pour again on some parts of the track causing the drivers to make another bee-line into the pit lane.

The rain turned out to be a bad turn for Massa who seemed to have lost the edge he enjoyed in the middle stint with Alonso closing up right on his tail and overtaking him on lap 56 and then pulling away.

Alonso finally won the see sawing race followed by Felipe Massa and a brilliantly deserving Mark Webber taking the final podium position. Lewis Hamilton made a final lunge for the points but ran out of laps and had to settle for 9th.

This was a must watch race, one of the best in recent years.

India Offered Formula-1 in 2009

Nishit — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:16:10 EDT

INDIAN GRAND PRIX 2009. If this line doesn't send chills down through your spine, probably you don't understand how huge this news is. Suresh Kalmadi, in rarest display of wisdom, announced that India will be hosting F1 race, as soon as 2009, at Delhi. Indian Olympics Association will be taking all the responsibilities for the same.

Since last few years there has been growing interest in Formula-1 in India. Majority of people became aware of the terms like Ferrari, Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, when Narain Karthikeyan debuted in Formula-1 in 2005 with Jordan team and became first Indian driver to do so. As of now, fan-following of India has been dedicated to Michael Schumacher and Ferrari, but India has definitely one of the prime market for Formula-1 in recent times.

"It is not vital to Formula One to be in the United States. There are bigger markets for us to be in other parts of the world. We could be in India soon instead of the United States", said F-1 boss Bernie Ecclestone. There had been various talks of Hyderabad hosting Formula-1, until Chandrababu Naidu, who initiated the talks, was thrown out of the power.

FOA (Formula One Association) has laid out lots of terms and conditions, but Kalmadi has promised to satisfy them all before September 20, 2007. FOA has lots of Infrastructure requirements pertaining to travel, accomodation of teams and supporting crews. eg., a city hosting F-1 needs to have 5000 five star hotel rooms for total crew including all teams and many more. India is already lacking behind in the schedule of 2010 commonwealth games, also being held at Delhi. Added responsibility of F-1 will surely add up lots of responsibilities, but we can only hope that Suresh Kalmadi lives upto his word, which doesn't go too well with his past records.

They need huge land to build the track around Delhi, which I am sure will take up loads of time in bureaucracy and add to it stadium building and other overhead. Tough times. I hope he does live upto it and this dream turns into a reality. If Delhi is indeed hosting 2009 Grand Prix, you bet I am there. Are you game?

Formula 1: Spanish Grand Prix 2007 Results

AJ — Sun, 13 May 2007 13:35:32 EDT

Apologies for the pun but Massa almost literally got burnt when his car caught fire. But more on that later.

The Spanish Grand Prix of 2007 was one of the best races in the past few years with incidents, excitement and disappointments all through the race and across the teams. Starting from a first corner contact between Massa and Alonso causing the latter to lose his second place, falling to fourth, there were incidents all through the race, up and down the race track.

After the incident at the first corner, Massa took a comfortable lead, pulling away from Hamilton who along with Kimi capitalized on the off track excursion by Alonso. Alonso tried to pass Kimi but was held off by the stronger Ferrari who maintained his third place till lap 9 when the Ferrari engine lost all power. Kimi barely managed to crawl downhill to the pits, his race sadly over for the day.

By lap 13, four cars had already retired - Wurz (involved in an accident), Webber (hydraulics problem), Trulli (fuel pressure problem) and Kimi (engine failure)

Massa pitted for his first stop on lap 18. As he tried to get away, some of the fuel vapors from the fuel pump leaked out and caught fire for a brief moment. As Massa sped up, the flames thankfully died down but it must have been a scary moment for him and the team. Thankfully the fire caused no lasting damage to his concentration or the car.

Soon after, Alonso and Hamilton pitted retaining their positions at third and second respectively.

On lap 22, Button made his pit stop, exiting from which, he made contact with his teammate, Barrichello, losing his front wing in the process. A couple of laps later, Heidfeld's pit stop goes haywire as a wheel nut on his front right is not fixed in place and hence he has to return to the pits immediately. This causes him to drop to the back of the grid and eventually causes enough damage to his car making him retire from the race itself.

The second stint of the race is quite incident free with most drivers consolidating their positions in the front though the mid-runners did have some racing and overtaking moves. The second round of pit stops goes through around lap 42 to lap 48. Around lap 46, Ralf retired his Toyota ending the team's race in Spain.

Felipe Massa won his second race in succession with Lewis Hamilton coming in second and Fernando Alonso third. They were followed by Robert Kubica in a fine fourth, David Coulthard, and to my joy, Nico Rosberg in sixth. And for the first time in their history, Super Aguri scored a championship point as Takuma Sato secured the eight and final championship point behind Heikke Kovalainen and ahead of a charging Fisichella and Rubens Barichello.

The rest of the finishers were Anthony Davidson, Jenson Button, Adrian Sutil and Christian Albers in that order.

With the second place secured by Hamilton today, he has created history by being the first rookie to lead the Formula 1 championship at 30 points followed by Alonso on 28 and Felipe Massa on 27. The F1 season for 2007 looks very exciting indeed.

Formula 1 2007 Preview: The Malaysian Grand Prix

Neeraj — Fri, 6 Apr 2007 03:26:13 EDT

After a wait of three long weeks, the Formula 1 race weekend is finally here for the Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix. Nothing of much interest has happened during these three weeks.

After his victory in the Australian Grand Prix three weeks ago, Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari seem to be in a fix. The problem is with water leakage in the engine of Kimi's car. The snag developed during the last stages of Australian Grand Prix when Kimi was asked to slow down to save the engine. Since each engine has to last two race weekends, Ferrari engineers are not allowed to open the engine and decide whether the problem is really serious or not. Therefore they are not able to take a call whether to compete in the Malaysian Grand Prix with the existing engine or to change it, hence getting a 10 grid position penalty.

The Formula 1 bandwagon arrived in Malaysia last week, when all the teams (except Spyker) had a three day testing session, which extended by 1 day due to rains. The testing showed a mix result with different drivers topping the charts. Which makes it more hard to predict what sort of car deployment we would get to see in Malaysia. Though three weeks is a very right window to bring in any major changes in the cars.

The Malaysian Grand Prix is all set for being the first wet Grand Prix of the season with showers being predicted for the weekend, therefore making the GP more interesting. Just a note, during one of the practice sessions when it was raining, Lewis Hamilton topped the chart. Is it any indication of the race weekend? We'll come to know pretty soon.

And if you thought that a gap of three weeks was just too much to handle, then be prepared for the four weeks gap between Bahrain GP & Spanish GP. I so much miss having races every fortnight.

So, what's the prediction going to be for the Malaysian Grand Prix?

For qualifiers, Felipe Massa takes pole position with Kimi following on second spot and Alonso in third. I also think that Ferrari will change the engine of Kimi's car, therefor he'll be starting from 12th position on the grid, after the 10 grid place penalty.

For the race winner, I'll put my money on Felipe Massa taking the chequered flag.

Enjoy the Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix.

Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix - Raikkonen Takes The Flag

Neeraj — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 14:29:45 EDT

Kimi Raikkonen takes the chequered flag at the 2007 ING Australian Grand Prix. Reigning champion Fernando Alonso finished second in his McLaren, followed by the rookie [and Fernando's teammate] Lewis Hamilton walking to the podium in his debut race.

If you thought Formula 1 racing was boring, think again. The race can't get any more interesting and spectacular, with David Coulthard deciding to take "Aerial Route" literally on Alex Wurz. With Heikki Kovalainen thinking of Albert Park as Park, in literal sense, and driving his Renault in the grass quite a few times. With Takuma Sato finishing ahead of Jenson Button but behind Reubens Barrichello. With Felipe Massa managing to finish at 6th place after starting from 21st place on the grid [and thus proving my predictions for grid positions wrong]. With Williams managing to finish ahead of both of the Toyota's.

Let's look at what happened in some detail.

Kimi Raikkonen led the race from start to finish in his super fast Ferrari [and we already have a controversy in the making for Ferrari] reminding some people of the days of Michael Schumacher when he ruled the roost. Not that I am worrying about this, since it's just the start of the season and we will see many ups & downs in coming races. For Felipe Massa, the icing-on-the-cake would have been if he had been able to overtake Fisichella at fifth place. But finishing at 6th position from fag-end of the starting grid shows the pace that Ferrari has managed to generate, though I believe he would have managed to finish at 4th or 5th position if he hadn't tailed Barrichello's Honda for a long time.

The two McLarens had a pretty eventful race, To begin with, at the first corner of the first lap Lewis Hamilton managed to salvage second place from his team-mate Fernando Alonso. Then at the last pit-stop, Fernando managed to come out of the pit-lane before Lewis Hamilton. Later extending a comfortable 10 seconds lead over the rookie at the end. Tyre choices during the last pit-stops are what worked well for Fernando & not so well for Lewis [for the curious, Fernando choose soft compound tyres whereas Lewis chose harder compound tyres thus the difference in car performance].

BMW-Sauber had a decent GP. Nick managed to take 3rd place at the first corner of first lap, but he lost it during the first pit-stop, managing to finish at 4th place. Whereas Robert Kubica had to park his BMW in the garage after 36 laps due to some technical glitches.

Renault looked mediocre at best. Fisichella salvaged some pride by holding back Felipe Massa for last 5 laps and thus finishing at 5th position. As for Heikki, he liked the grass more than the asphalt and thus decided to check out how it feels to drive on the grass. He somehow managed to finish at 10th place. Not the start any reigning World Champion team would like to make.

Williams, as per me, won a battle as Rosberg finished at seventh place, ahead of Toyota's Ralf & Trulli. As for Alex Wurz, well, Coulthard had some other plans for him. Plans like move-over-or-i'll-drive-over-your-car. On the other hand, Toyota, what can I say that hasn't been said about them already? Ralf & Trulli finished at 8th & 9th place respectively, thus managing to score 1 point for them. But the biggest blow for them was that Williams, which is using Toyota's engines, managed to finish ahead of them. If this scenario can't propel Toyota to move forward with full force, then god knows what will.

Honda, the "Green Cars", saving the planet, are showing how much they care for earth and increasing global warming, which I believe is a very innovative idea. If only they had been equally innovative in the development of their 2007 car. With Barrichello finishing at 11th position and Jenson coming at 15th position [both 1 lap down], shows how much Honda is lagging behind not only to Ferrari's & McLaren's but also to Toyota's & William's. Super Aguri also had a laugh as Takuma Sato was able to finish ahead of Jenson Button at 12th place and Anthony Davidson finished at 16th place. It shows how much Super Aguri has put into car development compared to last year.

Red Bull also had a very mediocre start of the season. Mark Webber finished 13th [well behind Williams!] and we all know about David Coulthard's aerobatics. Vitantonio Liuzzi's Toro Rosso finished at 14th place whereas Scott Speed's had to park his car in the green zone after front tyre burst. Adrian Sutil finished 17th [last place] in his Spyker.

All in all, the season opener was a good race. It showed how many teams were successful in their winter testing and how many teams had a mountain to climb to reach there. And it showed that it is going to be a very interesting season.

Formula 1 - Flavio Briatore Rubbishes Heikke Kovalainen

AJ — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 12:19:54 EDT

The Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix was a debut to forget for Heikke Kovalainen, the rookie Renault driver. As if that misery was not enough, his drive has been labeled as "rubbish" by none other than Flavio Briatore, the Renault Team boss.

To quote BBC Sports:

"If I say it was good, I'm a complete idiot. It was rubbish," Briatore said.

Kovalainen was modest enough to accept his failure but I seriously feel that Briatore's comments were uncalled for. At the least not publicly to international media. What did he expect from Heikke? Come out and beat the pants of Alonso in a much better McLaren or out race Kimi Raikkonen in the meanest car on track? It was his Formula 1 debut after all. And he was in a car much off the pace of that of the other rookies, Lewis Hamilton.

While I am not arguing that Kovalainen drove a good race, far from it. But I believe that going public with such lashing and criticism towards a rookie, young, and entirely inexperienced driver is not the right morale boosting technique.

Formula 1 Update: Australian Grand Prix 2007

AJ — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 04:36:49 EDT

Warning: Race results and spoilers in this post.

A fantastic start to the Formula 1 Grand Prix season for 2007. With yesterday's excellent qualification, Kimi Raikkonen continued his excellent form onto the race day.

Qualifying in the pole position, Kimi had an excellent start maintaining his position at the front of the pack. Running light on fuel, he quickly got down to business and pulled clear ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Nick Heidfeld both of whom beat Fernando Alonso to the first corner, pushing him down to fourth place. After the initial shuffle at the head of the pack, it was mostly formation running up till the pit stop window.

Massa who started the race at the back of the grid as a result of an engine change penalty had a brilliant overtaking two cars in the first lap and then picking his way through the back of the field to come up to 16th position by lap 4. At this point, his progress was impeded first by David Coulthard and then by the Hondas of Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button. The Hondas were the big disappointment of the day, severely under performing, especially compared to their performance last year. Massa managed to pass Button (who had earlier been passed by Barrichello) on lap 17 and starts chasing Rubinho once again.

In the meanwhile, Kimi Raikkonen continued to put in some extremely fast laps to prepare for his first pit stop which was expected around lap 18-20. Lap 18 was the fasted of the race so far by Kimi who immediately pits in the next lap from the pole position, relinquishing it, in a historic moment, to debutant Lewis Hamilton who briefly led the race till his own pit stop on lap 23, one lap after Alonso's pit stop. With that, Kimi reclaimed the lead. He continues to put in the fastest lap times to further increase the gap between himself and Hamilton.

Felipe Massa finally pits for his only pit stop on lap 30 for a new set of harder tyres and fuel worth 12 seconds, enough to take him to the chequered flag on the single stop. With the pit stops completing, Massa breaks into the top ten after starting from the back end.

Next Kimi Raikkonen moves into the pit late for his second and final pit stop on lap 42 and comes out just behind the McLarens and regains the lead within four laps when both the McLarens pit. The order changes for them though with Alonso coming out in front of Hamilton after a super quick pit stop and a particularly slow outlap by Hamilton. This sets the order for the top four in the order Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Nick Heidfeld.

With the second round of pit stops finishing up, Felipe Massa moves upto the sixth position and starts hunting Giancarlo Fisichella in his Renault for the fifth position. It was one of the best fights of the race with Massa constantly trying to overtake Fisichella but never being close enough.

In the end, Massa had to settle for the 6 place, a much better result than expected at the start of the race. And with that, the first race of the season was won by Kimi in his Ferrari debut at Melbourne Australia

And three of my predictions for the race results came true with Heidfeld losing one spot. Ah well, all is good.

Complete Race Results:
1 Kimi R�ikk�nen
2 Fernando Alonso
3 Lewis Hamilton
4 Nick Heidfeld
5 Giancarlo Fisichella
6 Felipe Massa
7 Nico Rosberg
8 Ralf Schumacher
9 Jarno Trulli
10 Heikki Kovalainen
11 Rubens Barrichello
12 Takuma Sato
13 Mark Webber
14 Vitantonio Liuzzi
15 Jenson Button
16 Anthony Davidson
17 Adrian Sutil
Ret Alexander Wurz
Ret David Coulthard
Ret Robert Kubica
Ret Scott Speed
Ret Christijan Albers

Race timings courtesy Formula 1.