2010 FORMULA 1 TURKISH GRAND PRIX (Istanbul)

So... Mark W says it's his (Seb V's) fault... Seb V says that guy's crazy.... Whatever it is, Mark W put it most eloquently, "it was a f***king disaster!" Then of course, there's the part when the Lewis H got radioed to ask him to get into fuel saving mode. Sorry, but I think it's just cock & bull (pun intended!). If you ask me, it was code for 'Don't friggin take out your team mate & stay as you are'. Notice how they were both fighting just before then.... ? In other words, it was subtle team orders.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for team orders. After all, they are paid by the team & hence should be under the control of the team to determine the outcome in such situations. Seriously, if the team had said, 'Seb V, back off' on the basis that Mark W is now leading the drivers championship, why not? We wouldn't be seeing 2 stumbling bulls!

Kudos to Lewis H for not going crazy with celebrating the win as he, very sportsmanlike said, "... , winning today doesn’t feel quite as good as it sometimes does. That’s because it’s a little bit different from some of my previous race victories: ideally, the racer in me wants to win by overtaking the guys in front, not by seeing them crash out in front of me. Rather than inheriting a win, it’s much nicer to fight your way past your rivals and earn the win the hard way."

Some other notable points are that the Mercedes team was pretty good with Michael S at 4th & Nico at 5th. I suspect they are slowly but surely getting up there. There is of course, the Ferraris. Instead of being prancing horses, were more like hopping donkeys. Nevertheless, getting 7th & 8th is better than nothing at all especially since this is supposed a celebration of the 800th Ferrari race.

In any case, my apologies again for the delay. Technology failed me. In our little league, C&AL jumped from 3rd to 1st, swapping positions with Mr.CCK. No doubt, the fault of the red ones. Similarly, because of the red ones, I'm now right at the bottom, swapping with TC. Bummer... ! Anyway, here are the results for this race. ;-)

2010 Turkish GP Results
Position	Driver		Points
1	Lewis Hamilton	LH	25
2	Jenson Button	JB	18
3	Mark Webber	MW	15
4	Michael Schumacher	MS	12
5	Nico Rosberg	NR	10
6	Robert Kubica	RK	8
7	Felipe Massa	FM	6
8	Fernando Alonso	FA	4
9	Adrian Sutil	AS	2
10	Kamui Kobayashi	KK	1
11	Pedro de la Rosa	PR	0
12	Jaime Alguersuari	JA	0
13	Vitantonio Liuzzi	VL	0
14	Rubens Barrichello	RB	0
15	Vitaly Petrov	VP	0
16	Sebastien Buemi	SB	0
17	Nico Hulkenberg	NH	0
18	Timo Glock	TG	0
19	Lucas di Grassi	LG	0
Ret	Karun Chandhok	KC	0
Ret	Bruno Senna	BS	0
Ret	Sebastian Vettel	SV	0
Ret	Heikki Kovalainen	HK	0
Ret	Nico Hulkenberg	NH	0

2010 Turkish GP
	Choice						Points	Previous	Total	Pos
C&AL	MW	15	LH	25	JB	18	58	249	307	1
VF	MW	15	SV	0	JB	18	33	259	292	2
CCK	SV	0	JB	18	FA	4	22	264	286	3
NF	MW	15	SV	0	LH	25	40	245	285	4
TC	MW	15	LH	25	JB	18	58	226	284	5
R&SW	MW	15	SV	0	FA	4	19	232	251	6

FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX DE MONACO 2010 (Monte Carlo) -The Food!

Breaking from 'tradition' or practice, instead of a French menu that would be typical of a place like Monte Carlo, we went ballistic & major cholesterol binge & had the famous Nouilles au bœuf ala Tangkak.


Frankly this will beat any French cuisine that we would have attempted to conjure up!


So... following are the ingredients of just ONE dish!


As a starter... we had this fried wantan

 In addition we have duck..!

And then... the STAR!!! First... the beef

A closer look?

Then... of course... the spare parts!

Followed by the beef balls (it's not what you think!)

The spread.... 

Here's the spread again... notice the small bowl of soup where we would stuff all of the above & we had a choice of bee-hoon or kuey teow.

Finally.... it was also birthday celebrations... so here's the cake.

That's it...... actually.. that was quite enough! Compliments to Mrs.F for the excellent spread.


Great stuff!!!

FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX DE MONACO 2010 (Monte Carlo)

So... was it any surprise that the qualifiers were pretty much unchanged except for Mr.Kubica. The Bulls continue to dominate & suddenly Mr.Webber is now a contender for World Champion. Red Bull is certainly in the frame for the title, but then again, it is still very early days.

Unfortunately, the rain didn't come but irrespective of my support for Ferrari, Fernando was pretty impressive coming from the back to 6th place, in what was (& I still maintain) a pretty crap circuit. It not difficult to imagine where Fernando would be if he had not decided to redecorate the sidewalls with Ferrari red just before qualifying!

Apart from Fernando's bump to the wall, of course we had a few others from both the Rubens & Nico H but the one that takes the cake would be our very own Lotus deciding to mount HRT! Maybe Chandhok's car looked too enticing for Trulli!!

The end was a bit of an anti-climax, apart from the late overtaking by Michael who have since been penalised. To be fair, it was the boss (Mr.Brawn) who gave instruction that the race is still on once the safety car goes in based on the new rules of 2010.

I think it was Webber who said it best, if only the bosses/FIA would stop screwing around with the rules & just go racing. I can't agree more.

Results for this week.

2010 Monaco GP Results
Position	Driver		Points
1	Mark Webber	MW	25
2	Sebastian Vettel	SV	18
3	Robert Kubica	RK	15
4	Felipe Massa	FM	12
5	Lewis Hamilton	LH	10
6	Fernando Alonso	FA	8
7	Nico Rosberg	NR	6
8	Adrian Sutil	AS	4
9	Vitantonio Liuzzi	VL	2
10	Sebastien Buemi	SB	1
11	Jaime Alguersuari	JA	0
12	Michael Schumacher	MS	0
13	Vitaly Petrov	VP	0
14	Karun Chandhok	KC	0
15	Jarno Trulli	JT	0
16	Heikki Kovalainen	HK	0
17	Bruno Senna	BS	0
18	Rubens Barrichello	RB	0
19	Kamui Kobayashi	KK	0
Ret	Lucas di Grassi	LG	0
Ret	Timo Glock	TG	0
Ret	Pedro de la Rosa	PR	0
Ret	Jenson Button	JB	0
Ret	Nico Hulkenberg	NH	0

2010 Monaco GP
	Choice						Points	Previous	Total	Pos
CCK	RK	15	SV	18	LH	10	43	221	264	1
VF	MW	25	FM	12	LH	10	47	212	259	2
C&AL	MW	25	SV	18	LH	10	53	196	249	3
NF	MW	25	SV	18	RK	15	58	187	245	4
R&SW	MW	25	RK	15	FM	12	52	180	232	5
TC	MW	25	FM	12	LH	10	47	179	226	6

2010 F1 GRAN PREMIO DE ESPANA TELEFÓNICA 2010 - The Food!!!

Of course, as my blog title implied, this is also about food. I've always wanted to do this but somehow missed the chance to do so, which is to remind us of what we had for the particular race. As it's been the practice or our so called 'tradition', we've always attempted to create a menu to reflect the race of the day & I've to say, this was quite close to the real thing!

So for those who missed the last event, here's what we had

For appetizers.... the salad....

Appetizer no.2... whether Spanish or not... this bacon-wrapped sausages was simply delicious!!

Appetizer no.3 ... the every popular Jamón  ibérico & melon

Appetizer no.4 ... this was not planned but a delight nonetheless. Boquerones Anchovies & Cheese Manchego Rosemary.... excellent stuff!

The anchovies on plain baguette is simply exquisite... mmmm mmm!

The main dishes .... the ever necessary spanish paela

and a seafood extravaganza (I don't know what it's called but this is serious seafood!)

 This is the whole spread

Of course... how could we forget the wines... !

And finally... to top it all off, an agar-agar cake.

So... that's quite a spread. Well done to all who made the effort. Next round will be an odd one, so look out for it.

Cheerio!

2010 F1 GRAN PREMIO DE ESPANA TELEFÓNICA 2010

Apologies for the delay as I was working on automating my spreadsheet for the scoring system.

Anyway, looks like Red Bull is really on some sort of steroids given that way Mark Webber wiped out everyone! (Maybe it was some Spanish Bull!). Certainly not entirely a boring race although I maintain that if Mark Webber was somehow overtaken by anyone else (other than Sebastian Vettel), they wouldn't have been able to maintain the position (as proven by SV's position).

I'm beginning to believe that Red Bull cars are pretty good & the problems that Sebastian V is facing seems to be related to driving style. Mr.Schumacher seems to be back in groove, so Monaco will be very interesting where it's all about driving style & grip, of which Mercedes probably have sufficient.
As for Lewis, what else can be said? The ghost of Mika Hakkinen's race returns! To be fair, according to reports, it was neither driver nor car that was the problem, but stones! Once again, lady luck don't want to friend Mr.Hamilton.
For all it's worth, Fernando, while lucky to get 2nd, did a good job on home ground given the pig of a car that Ferrari is. Certainly no charging bull... maybe just bulls***!
The team & driver championship is still a free for all although clearly limited to the 3 top teams. Based on latest report, heavy showers are expected in Monaco, so that will be interesting. If that really happens, we'll get to see a lot of the Alex Yoong maneuver! 
Even our little table is unpredictable! It is going to be an interesting year!

2010 Spanish GP Results
1	Mark Webber	MW	25
2	Fernando Alonso	FA	18
3	Sebastian Vettel	SV	15
4	Michael Schumacher	MS	12
5	Jenson Button	JB	10
6	Felipe Massa	FM	8
7	Adrian Sutil	AS	6
8	Robert Kubica	RK	4
9	Rubens Barrichello	RB	2
10	Jaime Alguersuari	JA	1
11	Vitaly Petrov	VP	0
12	Kamui Kobayashi	KK	0
13	Nico Rosberg	NR	0
14	Lewis Hamilton	LH	0
15	Vitantonio Liuzzi	VL	0
16	Nico Hulkenberg	NH	0
17	Jarno Trulli	JT	0
18	Timo Glock	TG	0
19	Lucas di Grassi	LG	0
Ret	Sebastien Buemi	SB	0
Ret	Karun Chandhok	KC	0
Ret	Pedro de la Rosa	PR	0
Ret	Bruno Senna	BS	0
Ret	Heikki Kovalainen	HK	0

2010 Spanish GP
	Choice						Points	Previous	Total	Pos
CCK	MW	25	SV	15	JB	10	50	171	221	1
VF	MW	25	SV	15	FA	18	58	154	212	2
C&AL	MW	25	SV	15	LH	0	40	156	196	3
NF	MW	25	SV	15	FA	18	58	129	187	4
R&SW	SV	15	LH	0	FA	18	33	147	180	5
TC	SV	15	LH	0	FA	18	33	146	179	6