Bart Simpson's Chalk Board for Alonso and Webber

Mark Webber Does Neil Horan

New Ride for Juan Pablo

Happy that Juan Pablo Montoya has a ride for the 2014 season. If only it was a Formula One ride. As much as I'm sympathetic toward Felipe Massa, I'd have preferred JPM driving for Lotus F1 Team.
 

Of course, the reason Connie and Juan Montoya came back to the US was not having to travel with the F1 circus around the globe. So I need to respect the fact of Juan putting his family interests ahead of racing interest. So wishing Juan and Penske Racing the very best for 2014 IndyCar Series. 

The Hen House that Luca built

Once there was an Italian poultry farmer named  Luca. He owned a hen-house called Scuderia Ferrari, which was a flagship of his Ferrari empire. However, his hen-house was filled with head cut chickens that ran in fifteen different directions and did their own thing.
Luca also had powers to convert himself into a rooster and fight the roosters in his hen house as the need came up. He always preferred not to keep  too strong roosters in the hen house. This lesson  he learned when Rooster trio of Schumi-Todt-Brawn ruled the rooster. 

Under the roost of Schumi-Todt-Brawn, all the head cut chicken were systematically mated and if required chickens outside the hen-house were also mated, and lots of gold eggs were delivered. However, Luca was not getting a chance to mate with his own chickens when he wanted to. So he beaked them hard, fired them and hired a Finnish rooster called Kimi, the cold rooster, who preferred his cold vodka over a col beer.
 
However, Kimi was too laid back, and he never went out and mated with the head cut chickens in the hen-house. He only mated with his mates outside the hen-house. So now the headless chickens in the hen-house didn't like the cold rooster.
 
Luca had a Spanish Neighbor, who offered him lots of money to take care of his Spanish Rooster Nandos. So Luca Fired Kimi and  brought in Nandos. After joining Luca, Nando was happy pranced around for the Prize of being the best rooster in the world and for that he had a good mannered rooster from Brazil as his mate.

He did everything that Luca wanted on condition that he should be the only one who gets mating rights in the hen-house even if that means he has to mate with the Brazilian mate and checkmate him at-will. In the greed of golden eggs, Luca agreed.

However, as it turned out the chickens in the hen-house being the head cut chickens continued running in different directions so only thing that Nandos could mate was rooster Felipe.

Nevertheless, those who know biology know that two roosters mating at no time produces the golden egg. So while Felipe got mated continuously the egg never came out ( how could rooster give an egg after all).

So frustrated Nandos started complaining about the head cut chickens that ran in 15 different directions rather than mating with Nandos. This made Luca angry. He converted to his rooster self and mated Nandos and told him that in this hen-house only one rooster rules ( and that is him) and all mating will happen only under his instructions and supervision.

Seeing that Nando had become too matey with Felipe and had stopped chasing head cut chickens (and for that matter chickens outside the hen-house), he decided to hire a new rooster. He needed a rooster that could chase the chickens and start mating with them and start giving eggs and make Nandos jealous. So he started looking around for rooster that had a record of mating with success to give golden eggs. Ironically, Kimi the cold rooster was only one that was available.

Luca swallowed his rooster pride and so comes back Kimi to the hen house.

Welcome back Kimi!! 

 In the next part, we will see if Nandos now mates with the head cut chickens or mates with Kimi, or finds mates outside the Hen-house. And who knows if there is a golden egg destined to come to the way of Luca.

All of us should only hope that at his age, Luca doesn't have to mate. Because the last time he was showing Nandos and Felipe how to mate, the three of them ended in kitty litter at Ricardo Tormo.

The end.


Thanks to my F1 fanatic friend Eleni, and the entertaining chat we had that resulted in this tale.

Chaotic But Unusual Season Opener At Melbourne

It was an unusual start to the 2013 Formula One season at Melbourne. Not the usual chaotic race, with safety car playing a role in bunching up the race field. Not the surprise strong showing a midfield team that rubs shoulders with the resource glutted front runners. So what we had today F1 circus returning where they left of at the end of 2012 season. Of course, it shouldn't be a surprise, since 2013 is a transitional year with minor tweaks to the 2013 regulations, where teams are already running with an eye on the 2014 season. 

Red Bull, Ferrari, Lotus all had a strong weekend. Ferrari looking as the strongest front runner on the combined performance of its two cars, with both Alonso and Massa having strong outing. Massa showed good pace, throughout the weekend, in fact, was the leading Ferrari car, until Alonso outsmarted both Massa and Sebastian Vettel by going for an undercut on his second pit-stop. Massa tried to return the favor on his last stop, but it wasn't enough to emerge ahead of Alonso/Vettel. 
Red Bull cars that locked the front row after the chaotic qualifier which concluded on Sunday morning(in Melbourne), seemed to struggle when running in traffic, in the wake of dirty air of the cars ahead. Of course biggest weakness RedBull has in their car is in form of their Australian driver, who inspire of running in better condition, than his teammate on Saturday was not able to beat Sebastian Vettel to the pole. He was his usual self, when he baulked on the race start and soon had cars behind him swoop past him.
McLaren with their decision to develop pull rod suspension on their 2013 car, with an idea of possibly perfecting it for the 2014 car, are where Ferrari was this time last year. All the hype surrounding Jenson Button of him being able to read chaotic conditions around him, proved as good as the car under him, where he struggled in the qualifiers, chewed up his tyres in the qualifier, resulting in running compromised race. Perez must be repenting the decision to go for slick tyres in qualification, which eliminated him out of Q2 and sealed his fate for rest of the weekend.
Mercedes' duo showed a lot of promise pace wise, and I was expecting strong showing from both the cars, but reliability took the toll of Nico Rosberg, while Lewis hustled his car around to finish fifth behind his friend Massa. My highlight of the weekend was how he quietly relinquished his position against faster Massa, and the contrast in which he gave hard time to Alonso before letting the Spaniard through, while in the latter case, he was any ways headed for his pit stop. So there is no love lost between the 2007 McLaren team-mates, and their mutual admiration club in media, is just a backhanded way of undermining Sebastian Vettel, who has been dominant force since the 2010 season.
Coming to Lotus, Kimi won places on the opening lap, and then driver running in front combined with good Lotus car, that is kinder to its tyres meant his Lotus could  run on two pit stop strategy as compared to rest of the front runners. This pretty much was the difference between the Ferrari of Alonso that finished second and Kimi Raikkonen who won the season opener. Of course, Kimi was his usual self when leading the race, totally in control. Probably that's the reason, his pitwall asked his opinions rather than giving him instructions :-)
Romain on the other hand did a Mark Webber. He probably is still smarting from all the agressive starts he had last season, invoking the ire of critics and regulators. He fell in the clutches of the mid-field, and the fact that Lotus put new parts on his car only Saturday morning, that Kimi had already acclimatized on Friday free practices meant; he was fighting both the competition and the car during the race. He still managed to finish in the final point scoring position. Hopefully, he gets stronger as the season progresses and fights regularly for podiums and wins.
My driver of the week, Adrian Sutil was destined for greatness, and didn't show any rustiness, given his year away from the circus due to legal reasons. He made lots of places at the race start. His Force India car showed good pace as compared to the RedBull, Ferrari and Lotus cars around him, but the mandatory pit stops to comply with the tyre compound rule, resulted in him losing places after he emerged on the Super-soft compound after his last pit stop, but he still finished ahead of his teammate,  who has been in the car for two seasons now. Given that I have always considered Adrian as a fast but inconsistent driver, my rating of his Paul Di Resta took further beating. Paul continues to be another pilot who I think will last in F1 only due to good back scratching from the English-speaking  media,  just like Jenson Button and Mark Webber.
Finally, my team Williams, they were in Melbourne on back of loss of Sir Frank Williams' wife, and the team was determined to put a strong performance for Lady Williams, unfortunately both Pastor and Valteri had bad qualifiers and never recovered from that point. The street circuit in Albert Park every year takes toll of one driver who drifts slightly from the racing line and steps on the artificial grass; Pastor did the honors, in the corner which has seen race ends for Barichello and massive shunt for David Coulthard, in earlier editions of the race.
Valteri Bottas qualified 16th and end 14th, but two retirements ahead of him, were probably the reasons for higher finishing. Pastor has been downcast about the driveability of the car. Hopefully, his concerns were specific to the conditions this weekend and not the car in general.

McLaren Honda Reunion?

With all the buzz around possible McLaren-Honda tie up for F1 engine project. I still can't help but wonder why Ron Dennis is shown toying with Cosworth in the tooned episode. Given Ron and his penchant for attention to details ( or control freak nature, as some like to put it), that revelation is not just a slip for entertainment.
  At that point, I was suspecting that Ron was now focusing on the McLaren sports car projects, and he has never masked his aspirations to be a British Supercar Marquee like Ferrari in Italy and he might have been exploring options of using Cosworth F1 personnel ( who will be done in F1 yet again) for his project. That way, he will have more control of McLaren's future. 

Collaborating with Honda while good on paper, has same issues that he had with Mercedes, or that Sir Frank had with BMW collaboration. In these collaborations, the bosses of big car manufacturing company want to be in control, which has normally never gone well.
 
Even when McLaren was the works team of Mercedes in F1 there were strenuous periods, when Ron was heavily focused on the McLaren technology center project and later when Ron launched McLaren MP4-12C in 2009.
 
Of course, the examples of F1 team and car manufacturer relation going sour that I have listed above are always British/European team and European car manufacturers. Whenever the Japanese car companies tied up with F1 teams in Europe, the results may have not come through, but the F1 team bosses in Europe have been in control. Part of it can be attributed to the cultural aspects of Europe and Asia and part of it has to be with how F1 personalities like Bernie, and Ron always make their financial backers feel that F1 or the F1 team is doing these sponsors a favor by letting them be part of the gang.

So McLaren Honda may not be a bad idea, and may not be as bad for Honda as their previous F1 experience with some British bosses at Brackley, who turned the F1 project into a sinkhole.  

Bridgestones Demise

FYI entire Merc Board was in Abu Dhabi over the race weekend and guess what whose guest they were - Brawn GP, they were in Brawn GP hospitality area the whole weekend. I am not a big Button fan, but somehow it is imperative for Ron/Martin to pull some scoop and get Button On board, A british team, with two brit drivers (WDCs for that matter) may make some Brit sponsors to open their purse. If indeed Merc go for 75% stake in Brawn, Macca is heading Williams way.
Rumors making round few weeks ago were Ron was planning to buy the Engine plant of Defunct BMW F1 team for the power units for the new SLR that Ron has developed after Max forced him out of McLaren F1 after Australian Scandal.
Ross Brawn knows the "Real value" of Button and hence not game to give the Brit 8 Million pound retainer. If Ron/Martin can steal Button, it would secure future of McLaren ( that is if British Sponsors follow Button Hamilton Duo to McLaren)

-----Original Message-----From: RacingForIndiaSent: 02 November 2009 To: Unsui Subject: RE: Bridgestone Withdrawal
Why would ron go to abu dhabi to pacify the mercedes board? If he wanted to do that he could have gone to stuggart.I find the reason why bridgestone left very interesting more than the timing. Its more in line with what bmw said their reason was.

-original message-Subject: Bridgestone Withdrawal From: Unsui Date: 03/11/2009 Isn't the timing of the announcement interesting , on back of Max(benefactor) leaving office. Just like Spotting Ron Dennis on McLaren Pitwall.
I am sure Ron was not in Abu Dhabi only to pacify Mercedes Board (and wooing Arab Sheikhs to buy their new sports car from McLaren)