My (enjoyable) Australian GP!

Weirdly, people who criticised F1 like never before as being extremely boring two weeks ago in Bahrein said nothing about yesterday's race. F1 is never boring because if you watch it as a passionate guy who pay attention to every details and live timing, you always enjoy despite not a lot of spectacular action happens on track. If you are not passionate by motorsport but want to enjoy spectacular racing, watch BTCC for example, not F1.

Anyway, Melbourne was very interesting and some drivers/teams eventually tried different strategies. I am a bit disapointed to see that with fresher tyres, 2 sec quicker, it is still diffcult to overtake (Hamilton on Alonso at the end of the race). But this track is not easy for overtaking. But such enjoyable! I have heard that Australia thinks about moving their GP from this track to another one in Sidney, I hope they won't.

My stars now. And this, time, I swear, it was difficult to decide how much were deserving some drivers.

BUTTON: Waww! I never thought Button would be able to win so quickly with McLaren in 2010. I really thought that it was a very big risk for him to come in Hamilton's heaven. Outpaced as I expected in Bahrein, he reacted very well in Melbourne. First, in qualifcations, he outpaced massively Hamilton by a 6 tenth of a second gap, enormous between two teammates. And Hamilton was even not having any mechanical problem. Then the start was a bit more difficult as he touched Alonso. Actually it was not his fault, Alonso ignored him and cut his lane. He can be happy that he did not suffer too much on this event. But Hamilton who started very well overtook Button. Then Button took himself the decision to go on dry tyres. Everybody thought it was probably a too early decision when we saw his first sector. But directly in the last sector he was 2 sec quicker than anyone. The time other teams react on, Button ran 2 laps alone, 4 sec quicker than anyone else on track. A brilliant decision, which gave him the victory when Vettel's car broke. But he was still able to push then despite very old tyres. And at the end of the race he was still quicker than the Ferraris in the same situation (worn tyres). Very important win for him, and I am sure that with this race, he will be boosted psychologically. ***

KUBICA: Once again the Polish was brilliant behind the wheel of his Renault. But this time, compare to Bahrein, his efforts paid! He had a great start. A great pitstop where he overtook Massa. And then he resisted perfectly to Hamilton and the Ferraris despite a slower car, without destroying his tyres. Perfect race, great result for Renault as well! ***

MASSA: He achieved a great qualifying lap in Bahrein, not in Melbourne. Alonso was 7 tenth of a second quicker! A massive gap on this small track. Then Massa realised a stunning start. And I think that it is all what he has done great on his race Not enough to give him a star. He has never been able to overtake Kubica. He was just good enough to resist to Alonso who did not want to take any risk for the team.

ALONSO: Despite his slightly slower Ferrari, Alonso was the only man able to compete against the RedBull in qualifying. But he started very bad with an accident and he had to push hard to come back. He did! Much more than Shcumacher who was in the same situation at one point. Then he was unfortunately blocked by Massa. He did not want to try anything too risky despite he was much quicker. It is a shame because I really wanted to see if he could catch Kubica and then perhaps Button. His resistance to a 2 sec/lap quicker Hamilton at the end of race, with very worn tyres was very good too. 2 stars only because he did a mistake at the start and he should have try more to pass Massa. **

ROSBERG: The German did what he could with his slow Mercedes but nothing impressive though. At the moment, he scores good points and if the Mercedes becomes quicker in the future, these points will be very important. He is also the only driver who decided to change tyres twice to get an advantage from this strategy.

HAMILTON: Difficult to juge how much star he deserves. On this race he has shown both the best and the worse. The worse: in qualifying because he was outpaced a lot by Button. In the race, when he showed that he was not, compare to Button, able to take his own decisions on strategy. The problem is not that he is not able to decide, the problem is that he criticises his team for that decision while he is still in the race, trying to overtake Alonso. He showed the best in the first part of the race: attacking a lot, overtaking, very impressive. But too much bad points in this race to give him a star.

LIUZZI: Again slower than his teammate Sutil in qualifying, he showed one more time, that he was much more efficient and consistent during the race. A very important quality in racing. He scores the good points for Force India. *

BARRICHELLO: Still a lot quicker than his young teammate Hulkenberg. Still very motivated despite his age and despite being in an intermediate team after fighting for championship and victory last year. He does a very good job. *

WEBBER: Oh my God! What a bad race from Webber! Again...

SCHUMACHER: I do not know what to say. I am really not impressed. But I still want to see what he could do in front of the grid. Can Mercedes do it? If Mercedes improves, can he do it? Not sure at all.

ALGUERSUARI: The yound Spanish man does not score point but he does his job properly. Not great, not bad. Yesterday he has been very good, resisting to Shcumacher for 22 laps! *

DE LA ROSA: He was having a strong race in the points but he was not able to preserve his tyres. They were too worn. He tried to resist Alguersuari's and Schumacher's attacks and was apparently not very fairplay considering what I read. But I did not see it and anyway he eventually lost the positions.

KOVALAINEN: He finished again

CHANDHOK: He was only a tenth of a second slower than Senna, his teammate in qualifying. Not bad at all! And I am happy for him that he finished his race. I follow him on Twitter and he is a very cool guy!

GLOCK: A Virgin has not finished a race yet. Was it because of their supposedly too small fuel tank? No. Apparently because of a problem of suspension.

DI GRASSI: Hydraulics for the second Virgin

VETTEL: I think Raikkonen gave him his black cat before leaving F1. Again a reliability problem on the RedBull. Can it not strike Webber's car? The useless and slow driver has no problem, the great one always.. Frustrating. Anyway, his qualifying lap was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G, his start perfect and he was controling perfectly the race.. What to say? ***

SUTIL: Engine problem. Was he able to score point whithout this problem? I don't remember.

PETROV: A bad qualifying but a great start, perhaps a Russian speciality? He still need to learn F1 anyway. Yesterday's lesson was "how to drive on a wet track with dry tyres without having an accident?" He failed.

SENNA: Hydraulics for him as well.

BUEMI: Hit by Kobayashi's Sauber on the first lap. An horrible crash and a too short race. It's a shame, he was quite quick in qualifying.

HULKENBERG: He was in the same accident than Buemi. He is still a lot slower than veteran Barrichello, 7 tenth of a second. It's a shame, I was expecting more from him but he still has time to convice me.

KOBAYASHI: His accident he cause was horrible. But it is not his fault. His front wing break on a straight line and kept wedged inside his car. He could not break and he stroke in the cars already in the corner. Freaky!!

TRULLI: He even did not start. How could he finish?

The stars ranking:

Vettel 6

Kubica 5

Button 3

Alonso 3

Massa 2

Hamilton 1

Liuzzi 1

Barrichello 1

Alguersuari 1

Next race is straight next week in Malaysia. The track will be much less spectacular but big straight lines may enhance overtaking.

Tayyabs!

Monday night was eating out. On a suggestion by Ida, we went to a Pakistani restaurant called Tayyabs. It's in Whitechapel, for more info: http://www.tayyabs.co.uk/

What a restaurant! First of all, it is massive. But very well busy, even on a Monday night! Ida told us that it was no point to go there on Friday nights and weekends: too busy.

The service is amazing. Directly at the table, you have a set of three nice sauces, some flat dry bread and a bottle of Evian water, all for free! Perfect to wait for your order. But you do not really wait for your answer: the service is very quick!

I normally do not like lamb. But these lamb chops grilled and marinated were amazing!! Chicken was great as well.

We then have currys, all very nice. The Naan bread was very good. To drink, they do not serve alcohol as they are Muslims but you can bring your own bottles of wine or beer. Or, as we did, you can try their nice drinks. We had a jug of mango smoothie. Tasty!

We hate like pigs, geniunely! We could not fill our stomachs more! And all that for £15 each!! Happy days!!

My geek life in video

Hey guys,

One of the competitors of the championship I run for has realised a video of the first race.

You can see me (white and brown car, n°6) in several occasions, fighting and overtaking. Enjoy!

Formule Renault S2 from FFSCA on Vimeo.

Spending £200 at DECATHLON! Ouch!

Yesterday was spending money time..

As I am planning to do more proper hiking (adventurous one, with proper camping, etc..) in the future, I went investing in equipment. DECATHLON, if you do not know it yet, is a French brand of sport shops which provides good quality/price products. Not because they discount famous brands as SPORTWORLD does for example. They just produce their own products, within their engineering office (Decathlon Creation). Then you get proper sport articles, for every sports, at good value because you do not buy a brand! They also sell normal brands but without discount. DECATHLON is more specialised in hiking: they have developped a massive range of product from -10°C sleeping bag to camping showers.. In London, there is a DECATHLON store in Canada Water (Jubilee line).

My first hiking trip should be for easter weekend. Planning work is still in progress. I will go with Craig, my British friend and perhaps other. We try to plan walking along the Thames Path from London (Richmond) to Oxford in the 4 days weekend. The Thames Path, as its name says, follows the River Thames and crosses small villages and towns all along it. A national proper path has been created for hikers. It is not a very difficult track, I reckon, but to join Oxford in 4 days (and take there a train back to London), we are still planning walking 10h/day. Will we be able to do it? Let's see. It is a good challenge anyway for a first hike, before trying more difficult ones: mountains, etc..

Now, I have the equipment though: good hiking shoes, a backpack, rain clothes (sexy!), a proper sleeping bag and a proper hiking tent (not a massive pop-up 2" tent! convinient though, I must admit)

A geek life.. Round 3 at Imola

As motorsport is my great passion, I try to live it as well as I can. Proper racing is well inaccessible, so a lot of other passionate people have found in video games an enjoyable and cheap way to live this passion. I take part to a championship on the game rFactor. We have a race on Wednesday every three week. Yesterday was already the third round of the 2010 championship.

As I did not practice a lot, I did not find a good pace. Also a yellow card from the last race because of a very bad mistake, deprived me of full qualifying session. I had to qualify in one lap only. So I did the 18th time over 22 drivers.

The first race lasts 30 minutes. I started very well, wining several positions in the first corner. I was easily 11th after two laps, overtaking a quite slow driver. But I did a first mistake which put me in 16th place. I overtook again those drivers and I finished easily 10th. Above this place, the drivers were already too far away and much quicker than me.

But there are two race per circuit. In the second race, the ten first of the first race start in an opposite order on the grid. I was in pole then! But, with the pressure of starting first, I completely missed my start, losing three places in the first corner. However I could overtake two drivers who did two little mistakes in the first lap. I was second at the begining of the second lap, but with a lot of quicker drivers behind me. I struggled and resisted as much as I could but I have been progressively overtaken by 7 other drivers, approximately one every lap. I finished 8th at a place corresponding very well to my pace.

A good race event anyway, with honest results, only few mistakes and then good points in the championship. The problem in this championship is that you need to practice a lot to be in the pace and I do not have as time as other drivers to do it. But, despite doing quick, at least I enjoy myself, which is the main purpose of a game isn't it?

My Bahrein GP

Everybody seems to be very disappointed by this GP. Medias had put too many hopes on the spectcular show it was supposed to give. But they forgot that Bahrein is a boring track and having new rules or a come back from an old champion was sure it would not change everything.

I thought this GP was interesting because it was the first time we were seeing a new type of race with different strategies. The qualifying session was interesting but weird. In Q3, drivers were all slower than what they did in Q2 despite having the same conditions (fresh soft tyres and no fuel). I thought that as they must doing their best to get the pole position, they would be the quickest of the weekend. The were not. They all say that it was because of the track on which it is difficult to avoid little mistakes. Fine.

In race, tyres were enventually hard-wearing, both soft and hard compound. But the drivers were also very carefull to preserve them to be sure to have to do only one pit stop. Then, they all did only one pit stop and they were all not pushing the hardest. It will probably change. Obligeing drivers to stop minimum twice could help. But before doing already loads of changes in the rules, let's see what happen in proper fun race track in Melbourne.

Now, my point of view on each drivers, and my stars!

ALONSO: Outpaced by his teammate in qualifying, Alonso reponded perfectly to him in the first corner. He won the race here. After overtaking slowed Vettel, he increased his pace meanwhile Massa was forced to "preserve his engine". Was Alonso able to overtake Vettel if the later did not have his problem? Was he able to keep Massa behind? Whatever, he won his first race with Ferrari. This guy knows how to win championship and victories. He will be very strong this year. *

MASSA: All these new rules and Schumacher comeback hid a bit the comeback of Massa. And what a comeback after such an injury! He was great in qualifying. OK in race, despite his team did not allow him to track down Alonso. A shame.. **

HAMILTON: I am sure that Hamilton never thought that his car would be that slow before Saturday. Big deception indeed this McLaren, still quicker than the Mercedes but far from the Ferrari and RedBull. Hamilton did a great job attacking the Ferrari at the start and then overtaking Rosberg in pits with fresh tyres. I am just disappointed that he seemed to slow down at the end despite he could catch Massa. Perhaps to preserve the engine.. *

VETTEL: A perfect weekend for him. Not for his car.. Once again RedBull produced a quick but not reliable enough car. It is a shame because with a win, he would have really impressed everybody as THE man to beat this season. Anyway, he impressed me! ***

ROSBERG: Despite the German was quicker than his "legendary" teammate, I have been a bit disappointed by his race. He was the only driver to be overtaken in pit strategy. And by the end, he was even not able to overtake Vettel even so slow in straight line. He was deserving a star for beating Shcumacher but to me, he lost it for what I've said.

SCHUMACHER: The old man might be very disappointed. The car is not as quick as expected. Himself is not in the pace yet. Will it be all the time? I think that if he can be as equal as Rosberg in the future, it would be good. But always in front of him? I am not sure he can do it. Except if he is helped by his team, as he was at Ferrari.

BUTTON: Without any surprise for me, Button has been well outpaced by Hamilton this weekend. Button is a good guy, very quick when he is in full trust (car, team, teammate) as he was last year. But he is not at the level of Hamilton at all. Clearly. Especially not at McLaren. He has been very brave to challenge this. He is also the perfect teammate for Hamilton, but only a teammate. He will be quicker than him on some occasions this year, but not more as Kovalainen did last year and the year before.

WEBBER: Considering the car he drives, Webber's race and weekend was very bad. To forget. I hope his home-GP will eventually be good for him next week.

LIUZZI: Slower than his teammate Sutil in qualifying, he did a strong race, very happy of his quick Force India, 5th quickest car of the grid behing the untouchable Big 4.

BARRICHELLO: As Liuzzi his performance was very strong all over the weekend and he showed to his young teammate what experience was meaning. He takes the last point, a good reward for his job and Williams' job. Their new Cosworth engine seems to be very reliable and competitive. A much better start for the British company than 2006, its last previous F1 season

KUBICA: The Polish man really impressed me. After the deception to find only a Renault wheel for this season, he showed to everybody that he was a quick and strong guy. As everybody thought the Renault was shit, he just demonstrated the opposite! Unfortunately he was touched by Sutil at the start and had to push a lot to hope scoring points. He pushed very well, overtook a lot but it was not enough to catch Barrichello. A great race weekend for him anyway. **

SUTIL: A similar race as Kubica's but, I do not think he tried as much as the Polish man to score. He finished 13 seconds behind him actually. But Sutil does not care. He knows that his Force India is a quick car able to give him several points. He should be careful to not miss too much occasions to score them.

ALGUERSUARI: I did not see him during the race

HULKENBERG: A hard first race for the young German. But I have no doubt he will enventually dominate his teammate Barrichello by the end of the year.

KOVALAINEN: He finished the race. What a performance! ..

BUEMI: I did not see him more than his teammate.

TRULLI: He finished as well with the second Lotus but he was almost stopped on the track in the last laps. Ridiculous.. Just for Lotus to say "we are very good, we can finish the race with both our car despite the other new team cannot"

DE LA ROSA: His Sauber was strangely not as fast as in winter tests. They need sponsors, that's why. I think, and they do too, that this car can do better in other tracks. The Sauber apparently just did not like the lumpy new part of the track. The overtaking of De La Rosa on his teammate Kobayashi was not a prove of the speed of the old Spanish man or the slowness of the Japanese. De La Rosa was just in soft tyres whereas Kobayashi was in hard compound.

SENNA: He did what he could with a car which was finished to build on Friday..

GLOCK: Such good drivers wasted in such shit cars this year.. But it is very important for him to remain in F1, whatever the price.

PETROV: What a shame for the Russian driver. Not impressive in qualifying but not too bad, it was only his first race. His start was much more interesting. He won a lot of places and was in a good position, showing a strong performance, when his suspension obliged him to stop. I am looking forward to see what he will do in Melbourne.

KOBAYASHI: Of course with a Sauber, it will be more difficult to show great things as he did in Toyota last year. At least he is F1, in a serious team to learn F1 in this first full year. I hope he will be quickly able to outpace De La Rosa.

DI GRASSI: Not seen

CHANDHOCK: Not that ridiculous as some people said easily, considering his situation. Let's see what happens in the future before judging.

Stars ranking:

Vettel 3

Massa 2

Kubica 2

Alonso 1

Hamilton 1