2010 Chinese Grand Prix: Friday Practice
World Champion Jenson Button and his team mate Lewis Hamilton made it two out of two for McLaren as they topped a Friday practice session each of this racing weekend at Shanghai. Button was quickest in the morning (full times) while Hamilton bettered that time mark in the afternoon (full times). 
Nico Rosberg had a good day out in his Mercedes GP car finishing second in both the sessions and again, ahead of his team mate, the more illustrious Michael Schumacher. Schumacher was a full eight-tenths slower in the first session but reduced that to just twenty-five hundredths in the second session, in what was the closest margin yet to his younger mate this season. Hamilton was third in the morning while Button took that place in the afternoon. Both clocked 312 km/h at the speed trap down the back-straight and were the fastest speeds in both sessions.
McLaren are expected to do well this weekend, barring of course any stupid decisions they make like staying in the pits early during Q1 at Sepang. The reason is the F-duct which will come in great use while driving down the two fast straights of the Shanghai circuit. They are also bringing aerodynamic updates to the race – though nothing to do with suspensions – and will be eager to lock horns with Red Bulls in qualifying.
Other teams have started testing their own versions of the F-duct. Sauber already employed it in the Malaysian GP and here Ferrari and Williams are testing their own interpretations, though won’t be racing them just yet. Even Sebastien Vettel has said that Red Bull need their own system in place as well for it accounts for nearly five-tenths down the straights. None of the new systems when in place will be as refined as the McLaren one for the cars have been homologated and only the Woking team will be affecting the vent on its nose. In that sense, it is really important for them to make best use of their system here, for possibly in Barcelona, Ferrari will be racing theirs and Red Bull testing one – both teams deciding to test race pace on Friday and hold their qualifying cards close to the chest.
Ferrari though have added problems here. Fernando Alonso blew his engine in the first practice session and didn’t set a time. Leave aside the track time lost, it might escalate into an engine reliability problem for the Scuderia. They also provide units to Toro Rosso and even they have suffered a loss in the first three races. Talking of Toro Rossos, Sebastien Buemi had a massive shunt down the back straight in the morning session (see video). One wonders what he must have felt losing his tyres just like that and it is indeed the safety wonders of modern day Formula One that he was able to walk away from this incident.
Talking Indian interests, Karun Chandhok was quickest amongst the new teams for a short while in second practice before settling for 21st, still ahead of Lucas di Grassi’s Virgin and Hispania team-mate Bruno Senna. Force India had Adrian Sutil running in the top ten in both sessions but if they really need to get a heads up on Renault and Williams, and make work their talk of hauling in Mercedes, they need both cars there.
2010 IPL Diary: Its close, real close
As Kings XI Punjab slowly but surely took apart the Delhi Daredevils’ batting on Sunday afternoon, one sat perplexed as to what was happening. Was the pitch acting up again, as has been quoted widely over the past week? Or was it simply that the Kings XI side decided to turn up on the day and Delhi (the team that is, for the fans were present in huge numbers) simply didn’t bother to? 
It couldn’t have been the pitch. Anil Kumble called it unfit for T20 cricket but that sounded like sour grapes after his side failed to chase 180-plus in 20 overs. Yes, on the same pitch, Delhi had racked up that big a score. And against Kings XI too, they were 40-odd in only 4 overs before two quick run-outs destroyed their innings. It couldn’t have been the pitch, no.
Then it surely must have been demons in the minds of Gautam Gambhir’s men, confirmed by their miss against a nearly half-rested Mumbai Indians side. It should have been an easy haul of two points and progress through to the semis. Instead they now sit on twelve points with five other teams and with everything to play for. By the way, one of their matches is at Delhi against the Deccan Chargers and the pitch curator at the Kotla might already be fearing for his job.
An interesting statistic was thrown up on television as Mumbai batted at the Brabourne stadium. Sachin Tendulkar averages 69 when his team has won this season and only in the thirties when they lost. He got out for an exact 30 on the day and Delhi would have felt good about it indeed. So good that for nineteen overs they controlled proceedings in a manner that suggested they could chase 160-plus. That is until Kieron Pollard decided this was the moment when he would pay back the Ambanis’ investment.
45 runs off 13 balls – 25 of them coming in the last over meant that 160 became 183 and the momentum was lost. The chase seemed okay until the seventh over when the twin departure of Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag spoiled it all, and there was no recovery from there on. Come to think of it, this has been the story of the Daredevils’ tournament – their strong batting line-up has just not lit up this IPL. The names of Tilakratne Dilshan and AB de Villiers along with Sehwag and Gambhir are missing from the top run-getters chart.
If Delhi were dealing with devils, the Kolkata Knight Riders probably had monsters in their minds. Sourav Ganguly had let it rip after their last defeat that the side didn’t merit a place in the semis the way they have bowled and fielded so far. Today their batsmen joined the list in showing how inconsistent play cannot get you any further than the league stage for three years running now. The game was all but over when the first four wickets fell for a mere 19 runs on the board and Chennai cantered along just fine in the chase of 140.
What helped their case was the absence of Kolkata’s frontline spinners on a turning pitch – Ajantha Mendis and Murali Kathik – both having impressed in the earlier matches. The fast clip at which Suresh Raina scored meant that although the Super Kings do have 12 points like Delhi, Bangalore, Deccan and Rajasthan, they are now second in the table thanks to a killer run-rate. All teams have two more matches each to play and so the battle for semis is not over by any chance. Just so you know, with all permutations and combinations possible, run-rate is going to play a major factor from here on and Chennai have done themselves a huge favor while Delhi seem lost at the moment.
This article was first published at www.cricketworld.com.
FIA deem ride height systems illegal
The FIA has announced that any damper systems which allow teams to regulate ride height of F1 cars between qualifying and race during a grand prix weekend are illegal. The much awaited clearance of the rules comes in the wake of news that McLaren are working extra hard on getting such a system in place ahead of the Shanghai Grand Prix, after alleging that Red Bull cars’ awesome pace is down to such a system. 
If employed, such a system would allow changes to the ride heights of the cars for the two most crucial periods during a race weekend. The lower a car rides, the more downforce it can garner and the quicker it goes. Since the cars are lighter during qualifying and they have to take in fuel for the race on Sundays, the mechanics make adjustment to cars so that they sink down when the fuel goes in. But this means the cars ride higher than usual on Saturdays and thus for some teams short on downforce – like the McLaren – this poses a problem.
The ruling comes after even Mercedes boss Ross Brawn asked for the FIA to shed some clear light on the matter before it swung out of control. Ferrari are said to use a mechanical system which they can use during the first stop of their cars and change the ride heights manually to garner more downforce for the latter part of the race. But any system that affects the ride height during parc ferme conditions, when no changes can be made to the cars, is already illegal.
That was the allegation against Red Bull. They are said to be using gas-based dampers which when filled with gas on Saturdays allow the cars to run lower and then on Sunday can be re-adjusted to put the fuel in on Sundays. However Christian Horner has denied any such designs and he is presumably right. For reportedly the FIA thoroughly inspected the Red Bull cars at the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend and any irregularity would surely have come to notice. Instead the team took their first ever 1-2 finish.
Horner now says this ruling won’t affect his team simply because they don’t use the device. That is like adding insult to injury for McLaren for two reasons. For one, the ruling will bring in a spanner to their plans of getting the system in place ahead of the next race. It would have allowed them more downforce on their cars but no one should really be complaining at Woking after their F-duct was passed clear. You surely can’t get two aerodynamic rulings in your favor in one month.
Secondly they will just have to agree to the fact that the Red Bulls are just way too quick for their liking at the moment, and there is nothing they can do about it.
2010 IPL Diary: The competition heats up
Match day 24 of the 2010 IPL will go down as the marker when people look back as the turning point of the race for the semi-finals. At the start of the day no one expected so, and rightly, for the first game was between Kolkata Knight Riders and Kings XI Punjab. Given all factors plus the fact that the match was being played at the Eden Gardens, this was going to be an easy ride for Sourav Ganguly’s men. But it was anything but that as the Knight Riders faltered.
The problem with playing a team at the bottle of the table is that if they do turn up on any particular day, the opposition’s chances will be badly hit. In other words Kings XI are the perfect party poopers at the moment with their own chances of making the semis very slim indeed. On any other day a score of 200 for three would suffice against them but not this day as Mahela Jayawardene unleashed a second IPL century in two days, shocking Kolkata with ten balls to spare.
Kolkata have only themselves to blame as they were clearly about thirty runs short of what they should have had. They were 46 for no loss in five overs and at the end of ten overs, the score was 69 for one. That run of five overs where only 23 runs came is where the game, two important points and probably a place in the semis was lost by Ganguly’s team.
The other match of the day was truly an intriguing one, between Delhi Daredevils and the Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi. At stake was the second place in the table and a bit of pride as well. Delhi’s three game winning run had begun at Bangalore and since then the Royals have been looking a bit shaky. This was the ideal way to pick some revenge points and be the second best team out there that they really are.
However they made one big mistake. They fixed what wasn’t broken, making too many changes and relying heavily on bowling all-rounders to do the job as they dropped regular opener Manish Pandey and bowlers Dale Steyn and Praveen Kumar. That was a recipe for disaster and Delhi made sure they took full advantage after having drafted in Daniel Vettori.
Paul Collingwood and David Warner again rescued the Daredevils from a poor start and even so 184 for five seemed an on-par target for a deep batting side like Bangalore. But there is something about Vettori’s presence that spurs on Amit Mishra as the bowling spun around Jacques Kallis and company who after a sedate start were never able to break the shackles.
The points table this season shows the teams bunched up closer ever more than the last two years. Mumbai Indians lead the way with 14 points, Delhi have 12 now and Bangalore have ten. Then there are three teams with eight points – Chennai, Rajasthan and Kolkata with Deccan on six points. Kings XI have now gotten four points with their second win of the season.
Now there are four teams highly capable of going on a run and garnering enough points to push into the top four. Deccan though are on a ledge and a couple more losses would leave us with the bottom two rather than just the bottom one. However, that bottom one team – Kings XI Punjab – seems to be the one having a convincing say in who goes through to the semis.
This article was first published at www.cricketworld.com.
2010 Malaysian GP: Vettel finally manages to win
Third time proved lucky for Sebastien Vettel as he took his first win of the 2010 season in the Malaysian GP (full results). He led home team-mate Mark Webber for Red Bull’s first ever 1-2 finish in a race while Nico Rosberg got his first podium for Mercedes GP in what was partly their home race thanks to the association with Petronas. 
Contrary to Saturday qualifying, the race played out in bone dry conditions. But there was plenty to watch out for thanks mainly due to the lopsided grid as the two McLarens and two Ferraris at the back made a quick start. All four cars started on hard tyres as Lewis Hamilton made the quickest get away possible and jumped eight places on the first lap itself. At the front, drivers opted for the softer tyres after a wet qualifying and Vettel too was away quickly tucking in both Webber and Rosberg, getting his car ahead into the first corner. From then on it was a case of bringing home the cars, something the Red Bull drivers had not been able to do in the first two races.
Behind them, the action continued as Lewis continued his charge through the field to come up to fourth at one point but just as he was beginning to worry Rosberg, who was driving a lonely race in third, but dove into the pits for new tyres. When he came out, he had Adrian Sutil’s Force India in front. Combined the effects of losing downforce when approaching a car in front plus that Sutil also had a Mercedes engine, Lewis had no choice but to stay put. His team mate Jenson Button finished eighth as he again gambled with his tyres, coming in for a change to softs with 46 laps to go. Probably he was also hoping that it would rain later but it didn’t.
While the McLarens somewhat redeemed their weekend, the same cannot be said of Ferrari. Or atleast the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso who was suffering a gear box problem for the entire race and couldn’t go past Jenson Button despite trying so many times. Ultimately his engine gave out just two laps away from the finish and he got zero points on a day when Vettel won. This equalized his lead from the first two races as Massa waltzes onto the lead with 39 points while Alonso and Vettel are tied on 37. As promised the season is turning out to be quite close with top seven drivers split by nine points and top three teams split by fifteen points.
Also on Lap 10 went out Michael Schumacher after his left front tyre’s wheel nut wasn’t locked properly during his stop and he lost drive in his car. He had risen to sixth from eighth on the first lap so what could have been a promising race didn’t materialize. And now the score is 3-0 in favor of Rosberg on race days as well just like qualifying. His tormentor from Melbourne Jaime Alguesuari finished tenth for his first points in F1. He overtook Nico Hulkenberg’s Williams and that turned out to be quite an important move.
From an Indian point of view, Force India scored points for a third consecutive race this season and for a change it was Sutil doing some scoring. The fact that Hamilton had trouble getting past means that they have done some really good work not to be overtaken by the McLaren’s superior aero systems. However what is hurting them is unreliability for their second car almost never finishes. Tonio Liuzzi retired early and if only they could set this right it would steal them a march on rivals Renault and Williams both of whom are dependent on Robert Kubica and Rubens Barrichello for points.
Karun Chandhok meanwhile finished his second race in a row and this time he finished ahead of team mate Bruno Senna as well as Jarno Trulli’s Lotus. It has been a good two races for the Indian driver as also for his team as both drivers completed the race and should give them quite a lot of data to analyze for Shanghai as well as take a step further when the European season begins.
2010 Malaysian Grand Prix: Mark Webber takes stormy pole
Mark Webber weathered a massive rain storm at Sepang to take his second career pole and making it three in three weekends for Red Bull (full results). The Rain Gods surely love Formula One as after the Bahrain snore fest they have blessed the two races hence with some gracious wet weather. 
The rain made it a nightmarish affair for Ferrari and McLaren who made the wrong choice of staying in for the first ten minutes of Q1 and trusted the weather forecast that predicted a dry session later on. But the rain got worse and they were all caught out. Sebastien Vettel and Webber got in banker laps in time, so did Renault and others but this goof up meant that Q1 had glorious casualties – Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. Button did make it to Q2 but his car aquaplaned and then beached on the gravel, ending his qualifying. The Mercedes GP drivers just about escaped the fate of these two teams.
Q2 saw more rain and by the time Q3 came about, track conditions resembled last year’s downpour moments and the session was red-flagged for sometime. But the rain cleared soon enough and all ten came out on full wets except Webber who decided to go on intermediates. The cars had enough time to do three laps each and that worked in his favor for considerable water went off to make his inters the optimum tyres to be on.
Nico Rosberg finished second for Mercedes GP and Michael Schumacher (eighth) will be scratching his head for the wet track ought to have equalized any advantage that his team mate enjoyed the previous two weekends. That Rosberg now leads the seven time champion 3-0 in qualifying makes one wonder. Sebastien Vettel will be starting third and he will be one to watch out for at the start, wet or dry.
The role reversal meant that both Force Indias are in top ten though one expects Tonio Liuzzi to drop out if the ‘backmarkers’ are successful in their charge while Adrian Sutil will be hoping for a change in luck. As it is Kimi Raikkonen isn’t on the grid so he can be happy starting in the wet. Nico Hulkenberg qualified his Williams fifth in what is a major result for the rookie. Also in Q2 were both Toro Rosso cars, the Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen and Timo Glock’s Virgin. India’s Karun Chandhok outqualified his team-mate Bruno Senna for the first time this season and that will count as a major boost for him. He has been gaining ever since his wasteful outing in the first race at Bahrain.
It is expected to rain tomorrow, but wet or dry, the race is expected to be a spectacular one. Too much is at stake in terms of championship points and the two Ferraris and McLarens will have the pace whatever be the conditions. Much will depend how they fare at the start – they need not to be tangled in the first couple of winding corners at Sepang and if the middle placed teams can stand up to this oncoming pressure from behind, we are in for a cracker of a Malaysian GP!
2010 Malaysian Grand Prix: Friday Practice
Five days after a spectacular Australian Grand Prix, the engines rumbled again for the Friday practice session at the Sepang circuit for the Malaysian GP. Many questions are expected to be answered this weekend, such as whether Australia was a one-off or can Red Bull be reliable? Will we have another downpour like last year, albeit a little less rain will be in everybody’s good books? And then there are inter-team rivalries already looking to heat up. 
Lewis Hamilton was on top of the timesheets in both sessions on Friday and one can say he will be hungry for a lot more after whatever happened last weekend. Getting his car impounded wasn’t the ideal way to start off things and then the super race he drove not really fetching him the deserved rewards means he will be up for it. Jenson Button was third in the morning session and fourth in the afternoon but will do well to watch out for his team-mate this Sunday.
The McLarens will be expected to run things around their way in Sepang and that is primarily down to the aerodynamic advantage they have got. It is called the F-duct as we have come to know it and on the start-stop straight as well as the back-straight it will give both its British drivers that extra bit of speed. A good reflection was seen at the speed-traps with Hamilton clocking in 303 km/hr, a good six clicks quicker than Vitaly Petrov’s Renault. Sauber are experimenting with their own interpretation of the same, like in Australia, but there is no saying if they will use it in the race.
Nico Rosberg was second in the morning session (full results) while Sebastien Vettel took that spot in the afternoon (full results). Rosberg’s team-mate Michael Schumacher will be hoping to step it up another notch this weekend especially after Mercedes motor sport boss Naubert Haug made some positive noises about him in the midweek. Vettel’s team-mate though had a bit of a problem with his engine and Red Bull’s prime concern this weekend will be to fight off any reliability glitches. The Ferraris spent their day evaluating tyre compounds just like the last two weekends and whilst looking solid, where they are placed in the pace grid will only be known on Saturday – especially with the Mercedes powered cars looking strong today.
For Indian F1 fans, Karun Chandhok finished 0.4 second ahead of his team mate Bruno Senna and that for a first time this season. So all in all a good work out there in what will be another ‘test session’ for the team this weekend.
2010 IPL Diary: The mid-table battles begin!
One-sided matches between two equally placed teams in any tournament can be a rarity. Not so in the Indian Premier League, for here fortunes change in a flash and if it is just not your day, it is just not your day. No one could accept that better than Rajasthan Royals’ skipper Shane Warne as he acknowledged in the post-match presentation that although they had full plans for every move made by Delhi, none of them worked.
It would be harsh to say none, for they did get David Warner, Virender Sehwag and Paul Collingwood out, and these were the batsmen in form for the hosts. From here on, all you need is a couple more wickets and you would be chasing a sub-100 total when playing Delhi for their middle order is quite well known in the IPL circles for its weakness. Not anymore though it seems. The team think-tank, with Gautam Gambhir at its head, has found a new solution and balance for the team which allows Warner to open and Gambhir himself to anchor the innings later on.
In the last match against Kolkata Knight Riders, this task was performed by Collingwood as Warner blazed his way to a ton. This day was a bit different though as Gambhir first went about resurrecting the innings and then late on Dinesh Karthik peeled off the bowling in inimitable style. Rare are these days for the second-choice Indian stumper but when they do come, it is for every body to see why he was considered to be the best thing happening to Indian cricket before MS Dhoni came along.
That Karthik has grown as a player is sometimes hotly debated but if anything, there was indeed a moment in this game which would suggest that the critics have gotten it wrong. Going for a quick single, the bowler Warne back tracked right onto his way and there was a bit of touch and push moment. For a second one thought it was nothing and indeed it wasn’t. But expect the Australian players to get stuck in nevertheless and we had the Royals’ captain questioning Karthik on national television over an incident which didn’t really matter.
Or so we thought. Karthik unleashed an array of shots straight from the belligerent book, comfortably taking Delhi past 160 and then even above 180. Once that had transpired it was clear to every one who would be the most important Rajasthan batsman to walk in. Gambhir confessed as much in his post-match briefing when he said that they only feared Yusuf Pathan and no one else. Pathan did walk in to bat but only after four wickets had gone down and that is not the ideal way to chase a target when over nine runs an over are required from the start.
Now that the return leg of the tournament is under way, where do the teams go from here? Delhi are looking more fearless by the day and that can happen when all your jigsaw pieces start to fit and you only need to fear one player in the opposition. Quite clearly this might be the time for them to go on a little run and get into the semis. For Rajasthan though the task is a little edgier for they know they can be pulled back easily by any more such mid-table teams. And there are three out there – Deccan Chargers, Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings – all boasting atleast more than one player whom the opposition ought to fear.
This article was first published at www.cricketworld.com.
Vettel unconcerned about Red Bull reliability
After two rounds of the 2010 Formula One season, and going into the third race of the season, Sebastien Vettel seems unconcerned by Red Bull’s unreliability so far. Perhaps he should really think it over and realize that this statement might just only be positive PR and nothing more really. For the championship table spells it out as it is and they are seldom lies. 
Sample this: Fernando Alonso heads the Drivers’ championship with 37 points and Vettel is a huge 25 points adrift already. If the spark plug in the Renault engine hadn’t shorted out in Bahrain and the brakes hadn’t failed in Australia, the German would have been sitting on 50 points. Then his statement wouldn’t have made much of a difference, for right now it does.
Considering that spark plug was not in anybody’s control but the brakes failed in Melbourne because the tyres hadn’t been put on properly is a testament to the fact that team Red Bull are feeling the pressures just a wee bit. It can happen when you know that you have arguably the fastest car on track and just need to complete the race to win. But championships are won on reliability and consistency, not making mistakes under pressure.
No one knows this better than Alonso. The year was 2005 when Kimi Raikkonen’s McLaren kept exploding just when he would be in sight of victory. But as the Finn would retire, the Spaniard would be right on his heels to pounce on the misfortune. He won races but more importantly collected points throughout the year. Vettel saw that same story last year as well when despite lack of development, Jenson Button wrapped up the championship by sneaking in crucial points in the latter half of the season. All his wins and the buffer of points had come in the first few months of the championship.
What Red Bull and Vettel don’t need at the moment is a tag of chokers; that will only bog them down further knowing that the machinery might give way any moment. They clearly have the car to be ahead of the field on Saturday and if it doesn’t rain on Sundays, as it won’t on most through the year, the norm of one stop strategies should be enough to get them across to the Chequered Flag first. Atleast that should have happened in the first two races but it didn’t. Guess who took advantage: Ferrari and Alonso. Red Bull really wouldn’t want to make it three races in a row!
2010 IPL Diary: Good ten days, Bad ten days
Ten days have passed since Delhi Daredevils last played at the Feroz Shah Kolta. The last home game was against the Chennai Super Kings and the Mongoose ran away with the match that day. Now it was the coming of the Kolkata Knight Riders and although another Australian did run loose, thankfully for the 40,000-odd fans assembled, he was on Delhi’s side.
David Warner gives the appearance of how Popeye would look if he ever came alive to play cricket. Those bulging arms seem to pack a punch, spinach or no, and they were used to good effect on the day as he rode his way to a century (107 off 69 balls). It is always ridiculous when a batsman scores a ton in a game where there are only 120 balls stipulated for the whole side to play, but this innings was incredible at the same time. In the sense that Delhi skipper Gautam Gambhir had shaken off his hamstring injury and Warner would have been looking at a drop if he didn’t fire in this game. Atleast that isn’t going to happen anytime soon!
It rounds off a good week or so for the Daredevils. Ashish Nehra is almost back from injury and Paul Collingwood has joined them as well, lending much needed steel to the side. Daniel Vettori will be on his way soon and this will be a solid base to build on from, having beaten Bangalore Royal Challengers away and now Kolkata. Probably it might be the start of coming afore of the real Delhi team, the one we have known for the past two seasons. For it is a crucial stage of the tournament where all the middle rung teams will look to gain some semblance of momentum and to have a problem of plenty at this stage will be the dream of every captain.
It is happening for Kolkata as well. Chris Gayle, Shane Bond and David Hussey have already come in and Brendon McCullum will be on his flight shortly. However the bigger problem facing them is the patchy form they have displaying, hinged more on a lack of killer intent. Playing safe isn’t a term you would want to associated with a team led by Souarv Ganguly but seeing that the purple-attired team isn’t hitting a patch of the same hue, it makes you wonder if age has finally caught up. From 38 for 3, Delhi were able to set up 177 and win the match means the last ten days have yielded only one win in four games. Shah Rukh Khan wants more than excuses from his players and he rightly says so on Twitter!
Besides the IPL, the Indian team for the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean was announced. The good part is that the selectors have decided to go for experience rather than raw talent. Thus picking players who have all represented India – be it some two years ago, like Piyush Chawla or like revolving doors ala Rohit Sharma. They have even gone for Ravindra Jadeja who is not playing the IPL and is cracking knuckles at home, thanks for want of more money. Poor form, return from injuries, inconsistency and lack of match fitness are columns that can be ticked against the names of all the fifteen selected, and that is the bad news for Indian fans.
This article was first published at www.cricketworld.com.
