lewser getting ballsy

it’s been a struggle to like the hamster on a personal level; he’s not unlike roger federer for me.  you can see the obvious talent, the silky execution, the suave air in the press conferences but none of these do anything.  i’m not excited, nor titillated, nor compelled to scream for him.  lewis hamilton may be one of the brightest young stars in british sports (alongside andy murray and theo walcott, who give the brits something over which to feel proud).in the wake of his “no balls” statement about kimi raikkonen’s driving at the controversial chicane at spa-francorchamps last weekend that saw the stewards demoting hamilton to third place with a 25-second penalty after podium awarding ceremonies had taken place, i’m back in the same place i was last year, exactly at this time of the season, too.  nothing, nothing would thrill me more than to see the lew-ser NOT win the driver’s championship for the second year in a row.   

sebastian vettel of toro rossi holds up a triumphant finger after securing pole position at the italian grand prix qualifying session earlier in monza 

and as if the rain gods had heard me and most of the folks in this F1 forum, hamilton struggled to qualify and ended up a dismal 15th in Q2, just one place behind world champion kimi in 14th, the man hamilton had bragged had no balls as he.  robert kubica of bmw was eased out by massa to 11th, the brazilian struggling to hold onto his P10. in Q3, sebastian vettel of toro rossi buoyed team spirits by taking pole position for the first time this season, teammate sebastien bourdais following with an impressive P4.  massa was able to clinch P6, pushing fernando alonso down two places to P8.  other impressive showings in the wet conditions were mark webber of red bull, heikki kovalainen of mclaren, nick heidfeld of bmw, nico rosberg of williams, and jarno trulli of toyota.  i’m looking forward to an exciting monza race tomorrow at 14.00. rain is in the forecast so anything can happen.  as for lewster, good on ya for stinking up the joint in Q2!  that should teach you to bite your foot real hard whenever you feel the urge to proclaim yourself the best driver on the grid.  ahhh, the vicissitudes of life. 

*photo courtesy of itv-f1.com

grudging admiration for the hamster

after seeing lewis hamilton overtake ferrari’s felipe massa and renault’s nelson piquet jr. to win the german grand prix, i couldn’t help but tell the husband, “man, that hamilton dude is really good.”  if i had been a fan of the hamster, i would have been absolutely thrilled by how he edged out massa at turn 60, nudging him for crucial position on the track.  i remember thinking, “man, massa sucks.”  he could have stayed the course and forced hamilton off the track.  hats off to the brazilians, though, in massa and piquet, who stood on either side of hamilton on the podium.  who would have thought that it would be the rookie son of three-time champion nelson piquet who would bring in renault’s first podium finish?  way to go, nelsinho.

and lewis?  too gardamned good, boy.

toyota’s timo glock in a jaw-dropping, WTF! crash — he escapes with only minor injuries

rafa links tennis and formula 1

on july 6 more people than in previous years witnessed one of the best tennis matches ever played at the wimbledon final.  hours before the final’s thrilling conclusion, a young briton, the first black driver on the formula one circuit, had just won his first home race at the silverstone circuit, several miles from sw19.  he had enough time to watch rafael nadal, the swashbuckling and inspiring mallorcan, fight will all his heart to win the title that had eluded him the previous two years.

and he said, “he has such hunger.   just like me.  his drive is inspiring.  i could be like him.  win the big one after coming so close the year before.”  he was, of course, referring to his losing the driver’s championship title last year by one point, pipped by kimi raikkonen in the last race.  this time, it seems, the young hamster is determined to bring home the bacon.

just like rafa.  the king of clay.  and grass.

and just to bring me back to blogging about sports, my hardcourt season begins… this week.  in toronto, canada.  for the rogers cup.  the top players gather for the only canadian masters stop in the tour.  defending champion?  novak djokovic.  wherefore art thou, my nole?  i miss you!

so bring on the excitement! my wireless network is set up and i don’t need to scrimp on bytes usage any longer.  i am slowly being weaned from my university 4 GB/month quota! let the hardcourt season commence, my boys!

ferrari 1-2 at the french grand prix

first off, the french grand prix which is set to kick off in half an hour at magny-cours circuit.  it’s a delicious ferrari front row set-up with kimi raikkonen in pole position and his stupid rival from mclaren lewis hamilton starting in 13th position after his stupid error in montreal two weeks ago.  fernando alonso of renault and jarno trulli of toyota make up the second row, with robert kubica of bmw and mark webber of red bull taking up 5th and 6th positions in the third row. 

as of this writing the race has already started and hamilton has clawed himself through the field to land currently in 9th place, after a rather dubious overtaking move of teammate kovalainen on one of the straights.  i smell team orders here and wouldn’t put it past ron dennis if he had told heikki to slow down to let golden brat pass him.  alonso lost two spots coming into the first bend to trulli and kubica, but was able to out-manuevre the pole when the latter tried an aggressive overtake on italian jarno.

i hope kimi and felipe bring home the maximum 18 points for the prancing pony — with fernando on the podium alongside them like old times (the future of ferrari, perhaps?  if the rumours about kimi retiring next year have any truth to them, that is).  i won’t mind if robert pips fernando; i love the bean-pole (pardon the pun).

coming up:  wimby and euro 2008 thoughts

good on robert, boo on lewis

last year he crashed and it was a miracle that he was unharmed in the horrific encounter. yesterday, at the jacques villeneuve circuit in montreal, robert kubica brought home the bacon for his bmw-sauber team, fellow driver nick heidfeld coming in second to give bmw a 1-2 finish and the full 18 constructor’s points. the 37-year old david coulthard of red bull came in third. a part of me couldn’t help but rue fernando alonso’s missed chances — had he not tried too hard in overtaking heidfeld, he might have found himself on the podium for the first time this season. as it happened, both renault drivers (nelson piquet jr the other) finished with no points.

i was totally pissed off with stupid lewis hamilton who rammed into the back of kimi raikkonen’s ferrari (good for him that nico rosberg did the same to his mclaren a few seconds after his gaffe), effectively ruining my favourite finn’s race. it could be poetic justice for kimi’s mistake from the monaco grand prix when he lost control of his ferrari and hit adrian sutil of force india, who at the time was gunning for an impressive fourth place finish. but there is a difference between a mistake that happens at 300 kph, kimi said wryly, to one at 80 kph in an area with a low speed limit. dang lewis.

the star of montreal, however, was not lewis nor nico, but the junior driver from poland, robert kubica. it was great to see him show his skills and talents on the treacherous track. he more than made up for poland’s heartbreak in the euro 2008 which happened after his maiden grand prix triumph.

quarterfinals at RG, inter unveils mourinho!

so much exciting tennis is happening at roland garros and the biggest headline tomorrow will probably be “world number 1* is knocked out by marat’s younger sister“. fantabulous match and interesting articles have already sprouted up about it, notably from the USA today and tennis.com. both are enjoyable reads — chime in with your opinions if you are so inclined.

tomorrow is the beginning of the quarterfinal matches for the bottom half of the draw at the french open. there are many interesting line-ups tomorrow and if i were to choose a match of the day, on the men’s side the gulbis-djokovic match trumps the nadal-almagro match by a hair, and on the women’s side, the jankovic-navarro match might have more surprises, mainly owing to jelena’s penchant for the dramatic in her matches.

the ivanovic-schnyder match could either be a scintillating winner-filled affair or a crazy rollercoaster match reminiscent of last year’s sharapova-schnyder quarterfinal. what is the common denominator? you see, these swiss misses are firecrackers indeed.

with maria’s defeat today at the hands of sizzling dinara safina, the credible women clay-courters remain. it will be three-setters from hereon out. svetlana kuznetsova and victoria azarenka will be completing their fourth round match on court 1, and if sveta takes it in straights, that won’t count since it’s not yet a quarterfinal match. one thing is for certain: the #1 ranking is up for grabs and the chances either serbian or sveta makes it to the final means that come monday, maria’s reign at the top of the roost will come to an end. three’s a charm, they say, so maybe maria’s third time at #1 might actually have her winning a match to get there!

why are they smiling?

 

possible reasons:

1. they’re best of friends enjoying bonding time at a basketball game
2. they just won the lotto
3. they’re boyfriends and decided matching clothes was cute and sweet
4. they think no one’s good enough to hang with them
5. they’re highly paid drivers who know their ferrari’s are superior

something tells me the answer is all of the above.

watch out for these two red devils this weekend at the turkish grand prix, my friends. massa is looking to perform a hat trick while kimi is looking to pad his lead atop the driver’s championship standings. viva ferrari!

of visas, concussions, and endurance

that pretty much gives you an idea of the champions league final, the coming turkish grand prix, and the second atp masters clay event of the year in rome.

thrilling sunday

 

in monte carlo, the “dream” final: roger federer vs rafael nadal for the third year in a row! how lucky can mono-ridden roger be? if he doesn’t get a walkover from kiefer in the australian open, his opponent retires in his first final of the year in estoril (calling tireless kolya) or in the semi-final of yesterday’s anti-climactic grudge match (heya nole, did roger out-nerve you in this one?). it was quite telling how roger saw this series of retirements against him when he described, most probably unwittingly, kolya’s retirement in estoril as “giving up”. heeee.

vamos rafa!

blockbuster saturday: payback time

semi-finals in monte carlo begin at 13.30 western europe time (CET) and it kills me to not be able to watch the top 4 seeds who also happen to the the world’s top 4 male tennis players meet in their semi-final matches: roger federer vs novak djokovic and rafael nadal vs nikolay davydenko. can you just see “grudge match” written all over both encounters? federer must be itching to avenge his australian open humiliation by the brash 21-yr old serb while rafa must still be thinking about his lacklustre loss to kolya at miami three weeks ago. it’ll be exciting and i won’t be able to watch it! did i already say that? i must have because it really bugs me still!

in formula one, i would like to see how the renault duo of fernando alonso and nelson piquet jr do in tomorrow afternoon’s qualifying sessions. did i already say that it bugs me to miss this and on live television, too? arggghhh! in today’s practice sessions, my kimi raikkonen did well, topping the time sheets at both morning and afternoon practice sessions. williams-toyota and renault also made a fine showing in nico rosberg, nakajima, alonso, and piquet all finishing in the top 10 in the afternoon practice. however, as lewis hamilton pointed out, he would not put much stock in the times recorded during the practice sessions as their maclaren cars with heikki kovalainen were fully loaded with fuel. it did not help kovalainen’s cause that his gear box had to be replaced after spinning on the track and might impede his pace tomorrow and sunday.