Malaysian Grand Prix... Kimi is Back..

Kimi is back and back with a bang.

The World champion failed to finish last weekend's season-opener in Australia but the Iceman's 16th Grand prix victory was sealed when he took the lead from team mate Felipe Massa who was in pole position for the Malaysian Grand prix. Kimi's victory has put Ferrari back to its winning streak taking a three point lead from Lewis Hamilton.

Massa had a tough race, he spun out of an easy second place on the 31st lap, leaving Robert Kubica BMW Sauber finish second, the best result of his Formula One career to date, and McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen was third.

For Lewis Hamilton, it was a race spent playing catch-up. He made a great start to jump from ninth up to fifth place behind the Ferraris, Kubica and similarly fast-starting Mark Webber in the Red Bull. But then a problem with the right-front wheel during his first pit stop dropped him down to 11th place, and he lost time hand over fist in the traffic.

Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Bourdais was the first retirement, falling off on the opening lap. Rosberg clobbered Timo Glock then, too, necessitating a pit stop for a new nose cone. The Williams continued, the Toyota was through for the day. Adrian Sutil suffered a mechanical problem that stopped his Force India out on the track, while Sebastian Vettel suffered either engine or transmission failure that brought him to a smoky halt.

The result leaves Hamilton still leading the world championship for drivers with 14 points, ahead of Raikkonen and Heidfeld on 11 apiece. In the constructors’ chase, McLaren lead with 24, ahead of BMW Sauber on 19 and Ferrari on 11.

Race Results
1 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 56 1:31:18.555
2 Robert Kubica BMW 56 +19.5 secs
3 Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 56 +38.4 secs
4 Jarno Trulli Toyota 56 +45.8 secs
5 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 56 +46.5 secs
6 Nick Heidfeld BMW 56 +49.8 secs
7 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 56 +68.1 secs
8 Fernando Alonso Renault 56 +70.0 secs
9 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 56 +76.2 secs
10 Jenson Button Honda 56 +86.2 secs
11 Nelsinho Piquet Renault 56 +92.2 secs
12 Giancarlo Fisichella Force India-Ferrari 55 +1 Lap 17
13 Rubens Barrichello Honda 55 +1 Lap 14
14 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 55 +1 Lap 16
15 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 55 +1 Lap 21
16 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 54 +2 Laps 19
17 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota 54 +2 Laps 22

Trip to Coimbatore.......

Phew..!!!. Chaos again.
Had been to Coimbatore last weekend (15th & 16th March'08) to attend my ex-colleague Prakash's wedding. Had booked up the tickets a month ago. Me and my colleague Yuvi had planned to fly down to Coimbatore and then return by train. All done and here we get prepared to fly down to Coimbatore on a bit cloudy Saturday morning (15th). We planned and got to meet up at the Chennai airport at around 9.30 am for our 10.15am flight. We were to board the Paramount Airways and guys I say the service was great.

We managed to take up few snaps on our way to the flight which was actually not allowed but dint bother about things. After about 10 mins of getting the boarding passes and waiting for the bus to take us to the flight, finally I see the first airhostess of the flight and she says.. Vanakkam Sir..(meaning welcome)..and makes us comfortable on boarding the flight. To my surprise I see an kollywood actor sitting next to me in the bus waiting to board the same flight. It was none other than Karthik (Paruthiveeran hero)..or you can say it also as Suryas Brother. Great start I said to yuvi(who was enjoying his first flight experience).

(sorry for the photo clarity)

All set and the flight starts with the routine stuffs like the airhostess asking us fasten our seat belts and serving us refreshments. We both were enjoying taking good snaps and having few chit chats in between. Our flight lands sharp at 11.00 am in Coimbatore airport and we get down and again start our usual business of taking snaps next to the flight. Managed to take a snap with karthik also in the meanwhile.
The wedding went well, good food and happened to meet few friends of Coimbatore who had some plans also of taking us to few good places in and around Coimbatore. We visited the temple in Marudhamalai( abt 15 kms from Coimbatore) and had a good dharshan with the help of few counselors were over there who took us directly inside the temple without making us stand up in the que.

The fun begins here... Must be wondering why is the hurry all about... hmm.. we were suppose to catch up our train which was scheduled up at 2.10 (which was written in our e-ticket) on Sunday afternoon(16th). We finished up our visits and had to rush up to the room to pack our bags and board the train as it was already about 1.30 pm. Luckily the room was next to the station where we had stayed up. We said all the bye bye stuffs and started running to the station to board the train. We had booked up the AC compartment(B1 Coach) and to our surprise we had covered the train 4 times by running to both the ends of the train and were unable to find the compartment. Tired and sweating and the train starts moving and we had to get on to some AC compartment so that we could ask the TTR where is our coach. And the TTR says cooly, this train which you guys have booked up is at 2.10 am. Whattttttttttt..( we both r blank)... after few arguments me and Yuvi finally get down from the moving train.

We were damn tired of running up and down and finally managed to walk up to the same room were we had stayed up. I told Yuvi..give me a moment and lemme check with this guy who is sitting in the May I Help you counter.. and there comes the best part. I showed up the ticket to the guy and he says the train has already left in the morning 2.10 am i.e 16th early morning. Ohh God.. what have we got into this time..(Yuvi watches me and says sooper..you have booked the tickets great.)

As yuvi was not comfortable in traveling by bus, we had no other option than booking up another flight to Chennai and this time it was Spice Jet. The flight was scheduled at 8.00 pm and we stayed up at the room for about 2 hrs and finally reached the airport. As soon as we reached the airport it started raining heavily and we were again confused as the flight had been delayed for about an hr and we had to wait. Finally at about 9.30pm the announcement comes to board the flight. We both again started taking snaps next to flight and all of a sudden a police fella comes and says " don't you know you are not allowed to take photos here???".. me and yuvi see each other and say "no" and walk up to the flight. The police fellow had no other words to say rather than watching us both board the flight. After a lot of running , confusions and miscalculations we managed to board the flight which dint even provide us refreshments. But we weren't much concerned .. Just wanted to reach Home Sweet Home...

PEACE AT LAST!!!!!

Australian F1| Chaos| Lewis Hamilton| Mclaren

Lewis Hamilton could have not asked for more. He had opened the Formula One season with a pole to flag victory in a Chaotic Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, which happened to be a dramatic thriller that saw only seven cars finishing the race.

The race was packed with drama as the safety car had appeared thrice, nearly wiping out Hamilton’s heavy leads. Despite all the drama, the best piece of action was the one which involved Alonso and Kovalainen on the penultimate lap. Kovalainen went past the former world champion boldly, desperate to make some lost ground, but Alonso replied cheekily and overtook him a few seconds later.

Raikkonen, who started from the eight row after finishing 16th in the qualifiers, also looked impressive. He quickly climbed up and at one stage had a running battle with Kovalainen for the second spot. If it was a great day for McLaren, it was a disaster for Ferrari. Felipe Massa spun on the first lap and was then involved in an incident with Red Bull’s David Coulthard before retiring, and Kimi Raikkonen, having benefited from the second safety car intervention, slid off the road trying to pass McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen and undid all that work. Then his Ferrari let him down when he was running seventh with three laps to go.Indeed, McLaren should have had a one-two, but a third safety car intervention following a heavy accident for Toyota’s Timo Glock badly hurt Kovalainen’s chances as he had to pit when everyone had closed up. He dropped way back, was passed by Raikkonen, repassed him, then found himself overtaken by Renault’s Fernando Alonso as the Spaniard overtook both of his rivals in a wonderful move. After fighting back, Kovalainen repassed the Renault with two laps to go, only to have his car falter momentarily as they crossed the line for the 57th time. As he wiped oil off his visor he accidentally triggered the pit-lane speed limiter and a relieved Alonso pounced to head his former team mate home in fourth place.

Race Results
1. Lewis Hamilton (Britain) McLaren 1:34:50.616

2. Nick Heidfeld (Germany) BMW Sauber +00:05.478

3. Nico Rosberg (Germany) Williams - Toyota 00:08.163

4. Fernando Alonso (Spain) Renault 00:17.181

5. Heikki Kovalainen (Finland) McLaren 00:18.014

6. Rubens Barrichello (Brazi) Honda 00:52.453

7. Kazuki Nakajima (Japan) Williams - Toyota 1 lap

8. Sebastien Bourdais (France) Toro Rosso - Ferrari 3 laps

9. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland) Ferrari 5 laps

Kimi| Ferrari Rocks| Iceman| Raikkonen| Melbourne

The Iceman is back and back with a bang!!!. Under clear skies and in bright sunshine on 14th March , the Finn laid down a marker for Sunday's race with a best lap time of one minute, 26.461 seconds in his initial practice session. Raikkonen won in Melbourne last year on his Ferrari debut and is chasing a third successive victory after ending 2007 on a high with triumphs in China and Brazil taking him to the championship The first 45 minutes saw the Ferraris battling each other for fastest time, with Felipe Massa gaining that with 1m 27.524s ahead of Kimi Raikkonen 1m 27.709s. Then the McLarens came out and Lewis Hamilton worked down to 1m 27.386s to go fastest. Right at the end Raikkonen did two laps quicker than that, the better of which was 1m 26.461s. That compared very favourably with his pole time of 1m 26.072s from last year despite the ban on traction control and engine braking. McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, a sensational rookie last year before losing out to Raikkonen by a single point in Brazil, was top until the Ferrari driver bettered his time by 0.487 with two minutes remaining.