Federer - The Metronome

As I am speaking about Micheal Schumacher here, I would also want to talk about Roger Federer here. This man has been reigning Number 1 in Tennis for nearly 3 years now. It is almost taken for granted that he would win any match he plays. Roger Federer according to me is just a machine. He has metronomical precision in his game. At the same time he has a very elegant style. He is a perfect match of both power and stylish tennis.

In all the matches of his I have seen, he never panics and is always cool. That is the amazing quality of this guy. He manages to serve and volley with ease even when he is a set or two down. But at the end of the day we see him win the game. This keeps him apart from the rest.

He hardly makes any noises on the court, neither is he very animated on the court both for the points he wins or he loses.

This makes him similar to Micheal in tennis, where he just overwhelms the opponent. It takes a lot to be like him. I am sure he will beat almost all the records in history of tennis before he retires.

But he too has a nemesis in Rafael Nadal. The Spanish lad is the only player to have a better win-loss ration against Federer. Rafael is an ace Clay court player and if Federer has to become the undisputed king then he needs to get over Nadal.

Kudos to Roger !!!

Spirited Last Race

Continuing on my post about Schumi, the last race he drove showed that he was still the best F1 driver. He started from 10th moved up to 5th, had a puncture, goes to the back of the pack almost a lap behind the leader and he comes back from there to finish the race 4th, passing 11-12 guys on the way.

This is a compilation of all his overtaking in his last race.

Some of the overtaking maneuvers were so daring, that it looked like a new racer on the block with all the enthusiasm to race. But he is the guy, who is 37 years old and driving his last race before retirement.

He was so stunning to watch. It makes one wonder whether he has really retired an year or two sooner than he should have. I think he is still the fastest and he can still be in a position to challenge for the championship next year. He has shown no signs of aging and he is still going strong. It is a pity he chose to hang up his boots.

Kudos to Micheal. We will never see a legend like him in F1 again.

A Tribute to Micheal Schumacher

Today is Micheal Schumacher's last race before he retires from F1 and competitive racing. It is truly an end to a golden era in F1 racing. His era has spanned for over 15 years and he has broken almost all records possible in the category.

He has truly been a role model for many people especially anybody into car racing. He has redefined F1 racing. He has won nearly one third of his race starts, 91 of them. He has more poles than anybody else. He has 7 world championships, missed 2 or may be 3 in close fights.

Anybody in the F1 paddock would love to beat him in a race as they consider him as a benchmark of racing. That is the kind of respect he gains from all his competitors

His career has been marred with controversies though. We shall not go into them but then, he is one guy who says :I shall go to the edge of what the rules allow him and I shall not let anybody get a free ride". This "going to the edge" has caused many controversies. But then that is way he is..

F1 will never be the same without him.

Doping

Talking about racing, cycling is one other sport which I follow closely, well atleast the Tour de France for sure. This is the flagship race in all of cycling and and a win in this is tour is one, all endurance cyclists would covet. The race goes all over France for a distance of nearly 3500 Kms over the span of 3 weeks, huh.. a gruelling race for sure.

I am sure many of us have heard about Lance Armstrong, he has won the race 7 times, that is an acheivement in itself. But add in a twist that he was suffering from cancer and he fought it and came back to win it 7 times is almost unparallel. It is amazing what a man can do if he has the will. One of the most toughest endurance races and person comes back from cancer to win it 7 times, phew that is something

Last year he retired from the sport, of which he had a strangle hold on for the past 7 years, opening up the field for the other contendors. But this year race started in a very ugly manner, the top 3 contendors all pulled out with less then 24hrs to go for the start. Reason-- all of them were named in a doping scandal in one of the earlier races leading up to Tour De France. Now this made it more interesting as the race was much more open now.

But as the race progress there was lots of leaders as there was no one person who could be named as the winner. But with 3 stages to go Floyd Landis, the leader then and a strong contender, broke down during a mountain stage and lost quite a bit of time. So he was almost ruled out of the race. But he comes back the next day with an amazing stage where he gains most of the lost time. It was a stage win which shall stay as one of most spectacular comebacks. He goes on to win the Tour. His comeback stage was talked about lot and was really appreciated by one and all.

But alas, things had to take a nasty turn, and he was found out have had higher levels of testesterone and both the A and B tests showed him postive for the same on the day of his dramatic stage win.

There we go, doping is back in the game. I am not sure whether he really took performance enhancing drugs, but then the tests talk that way. So most probably he might loose his title. It is sad that when we all like the way he fought back to win the title, it has to be marred by such incidents.

As I had started this article, I had said, what a man can do if he had the will. I guess the same still applies here too. Doping is one thing which has put many an athelete to disgrace. Justin Gatlin, Ben Johnson now Floyd, this is something which I guess we have come to live with. Man in trying to push himself to the top most ladder, sometimes does go over the board and uses unethical means. We see it in all fields of life, be it corporates or sports or wherever.

I guess it is the inate nature of us to be the best of all, makes us do things which we should not be doing. I am sure, it takes a lot of courage for one not to fall in the trap. If at all Floyd was at fault, he must not have had the courage to accept the fact that he had been beaten in the Tour this year. He was one of the hot favourites and he was supposed to excel in that part of the tour where in fact he buckled. That might have been too much for him. So may be he went overboard. Well we will never know until it is proved, but the tests show that way and his team has sacked him.

Another sad incident in realm of sports. I really wished he had won it cleanly as I really liked the way he came back in the Tour.

Opportunity Lost

Continuing to talk about F1, this weekend's race was a complete let down for me. But it was one of the most topsy turvy races I had seen. The race was in Hungary and the championship was hotting up between Micheal Schmuacher and Fernando Alonso, 11 points in favor of Alonso.

Now the drama starts.. Alonso loses his cool in practice and brake tests Dornboos, a Torro Rosso driver and gets a penalty of 2 secs on his qualifying time effectively putting him down in the grid. This was a golden opportunity for Michael to close the gap. But then, to increase the dramatic element of the race, Micheal makes a mistake and overtakes a car during the final practice session minutes before the start of the qualifying and he too is awarded a 2 sec penalty. So it was even-stevens between the 2. But Micheal qualifies better at 11th and Alonso ends up 15th.

Now for the race.. To spice it up, nature throws in its bit too. It is a rainy race day. So anything could happen. The race starts and Micheal though he gains lot of positions in the opening lap, is pathetically slow and starts dropping back. Alonso goes past him. Looks like the bridgestone rain tyres were doing bad this time. His speed upto 4-5 secs off Alonso's. All Bridgestone drivers were dropping down the order.

Then the rains stops, and it starts to dry. Soon Micheal gets faster and faster and starts to close the gap. And lo one more twist, soon after the pitstop, Alonso seems to have a problem and he crashes out. This is it.. this was the first time the Bullet Proof Renault had buckled.. Ferrari and Micheal could stand to gain the most and close the gap tremendously. But then, the script for the race would have been too predictable.. can it be. Ferrari and Micheal make a tactical blunder. The track was drying fast, everybody was switching to dry weather tyres, but Micheal opts to stay with wet tyres hoping to finish the race without losing the track position. That was the serious mistake. He started going slower and slower, and the others with slick started going faster and faster. Guys like Pedro and Nick, closed up on him soon as he was upto 6 secs slower than them. Though he held them for quite some time behind them actually around 6-7 laps, he eventually was overtaken and to add that, Nick and Micheal collide putting Micheal out of the race.

That was very bad planning by Micheal and Ferrari. It was race where they should have tried to get as much points as possible as Alonso had crashed out, but ended up getting only one point due to the disqualification of Robert who finished ahead of Micheal.

Now something about speed

Speed.. As I have said, this is something which thrills me. I adore fast racing, an hardcore fan of Formula 1. For that matter, I like any kind of racing either on 2 wheels, 4 wheels, machine powered, man powered.. anything, but still F1 is the best. As they racing purists say, it is the "Pinnacle of Motor Sport". But I guess the Americans would beg to differ, coz they would say NASCAR is the best.

Anyways, today was the German Grand Prix, and my favourite Michael Schumacher.. drove to victory in a flawless race. I am amazecd at this guy.. he is 37, and he manages to have the same kind of motivation as a new kid on the block. It is so evident from his face when he comes to the podium after winning a race. He does his traditional victory leap, which I guess has become is trademark. I mean this guy has been racing for 15 years now, and has nearly 89 wins to his reportiere, but still is so focussed. People wrote him off after the dismal performance in 2005, and also at the beginning of 2006, but now he is back with a vengence. I really like his spirit.

I feel that this is something which all of us need to emulate, the "Never Give Up" attitude. Talking of this attitude, I had come across a cartoon once hanging in somebody's office. The cartoon depicted a frog or some such animal being swallowed by a stork. The frog is halfway in the stork's mouth, but the frog is strangling the stork's neck. The cartoon, though amusing, speaks volumes on this attitude.

Coming back to F1, a F1 car is believed to accelarate from 0 - 200kmph in 7 secs. That is awesome !!! Wish I could be in one :) !! Putting that in perspective, most of our road cars can hardly touch 200Kmph, let alone accelerating to it, and even to accelerate to 100 Kmph, it would take more than 10 secs.

Okay more about racing later. I can keep writing about it :-)

Jump Start

I am starting this blog with a Jump Start. Basically, I have been thinking long to start blogging, but always never found the "Time". So I am writing this with an aim of "Jump Start"ing my blogging career, just like one would jump start a car with a dead battery.

But coming to think of it, even a race car driver who leaves the grid before the green light is also supposed to "Jump Start". But in effect, these 2 jump starts are so different, one talks about bringing a dead car to life, while the other one talks about having more "life" than the cars around it.

Lets go !!