Finally Rosberg beats Hamilton to Pole in Spain

Nico Rosberg finally managed to beat Lewis Hamilton and score the first pole in this season in the Spanish Grand Prix 2015. Nico Rosberg scored a time of 1m 24.681 to Hamilton’s 1m 24.948 seconds. It was a convincing gap between the two. They ran on medium tyres.

In the top ten shootout in Q3 of the qualifying, the drivers generally go for two runs. Hamilton as well as Nico Rosberg set their top times in the first run. In the second run Hamilton couldn’t try and beat the provisional pole set by Rosberg and had to settle for second. Sebastian Vettel of Ferarri came in third behind the two Mercedes cars after he set a time of 1m 25.458. His teammate Kimi Raikkonen could only score a P7.


Valtteri Bottas of Williams came in P4 with a time of 1m 25.694. He was followed by Carlos Sainz Jr of Toro Rosso with a time of 1m 26.136. As a rookie and that too a Spanish, it must be a great feeling for Sainz beating the favourite Spaniard Fernando Alonso in Spain.

Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso came in P6 with a time of 1m 26. 249 seconds. Kimi Raikkonen whose contract with Ferrari expires end of this season is expected to do well and beat his teammate. However, he could only set a time of 1m 26.414 for P7.

Danil Kvyat of Red Bull was P8 as he came in at 1m 26.629. He was followed by Felipe Massa of Williams at 1m 26.757 and Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull with a time of 1m 26. 770.

Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado of Lotus will start tomorrow at 11th and 12th positions respectively in the race tomorrow. The Lotus duo were followed by the McLaren drivers who were lead by Fernando Alonso in 13th and Jenson Button in 14th.

Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson of Sauber will start in 15th and 16th positions. The Force India duo of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez will start in 17th and 18th positions. Their times are about 3.5 seconds behind the pole timing and it shows how low they have fallen primarily due to the lack of funds. It would be pertinent to mention that one of the promoters of Force India, Subroto Roy is in jail for nearly a year as his company has not been able to furnish a bail bond of 1 billion dollars. The other promoter of Force India and its principal Dr. Vijay Mallya is also in deep financial trouble. Mallya’s Kingfisher airlines went bankrupt and Mallya is also been hounded by banks to recover the money. So it shows that even a midfield team in F1 can’t sustain just based on their performance.

The last placed drivers are as expectedly from Manor racing. Will Stevens again out qualified his teammate Roberto Merhi. Will Stevens scored 1m 31.200 vs 1m 32.038 of his teammate. Both of them will start in 19th and 20th position.

Spanish Grand Prix Qualifying Results:

4.39 billion hit for Force India Promoter Sahara

Force India promoter troubles - Sahara asked to pay back Rs. 24,400 crores (4.39 billion dollars and interest) to depositors

Force India F1 team is having trouble with its majority promoters.

First the flamboyant Vijay Mallya who was the majority owner of Force India got into trouble when his Kingfisher Airlines went into massive losses. Last year before the Indian Grand Prix, Sahara group bought into the team with 45% stakes. It was expected that though at some point of time Vijay Mallya can pull out, due to the financial stability of the Sahara group the Force India team is safe.

That hope has now evaporated with the recent orders of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India. Two Sahara group companies - Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Ltd (SIRECL) and Sahara Housing investment Corporation Ltd. (SHICL) has been ordered by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India to refund Rs. 24,400 crores (4.39 Billion USD) collected from 2.21 crore (22.1 million) depositors at 15% interest.

These two Sahara group companies had collected this money through OFCD debentures. In November 2010 The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had restrained these two companies from raising funds in the form of optional fully convertible debentures and the litigation was going on first in the Allahabad High Court and then in the Supreme Court.

A Supreme Court bench of Justices K. S. Radhakrishnan and J. S. Khehar have ordered that the amounts collected through Red Herring Prospecturrs (RHPs) dated 13^th of March, 2008 (amounting to Rs. 17,400 crores or 3.13 billion USD) and 16^th October, 2009 (around Rs. 7000 crores or 1.26 billion USD) along with 15% interest should be handed over to SEBI by depositing in a nationalized bank bearing the maximum rate of interest.

While delivering the judgement, the judges were not sparing in their words of condemnation. In a separate judgement, Justice Khehar said “It seems the two companies collected money from investors without any sense of responsibility to maintain records pertaining to funds received. It is not easy to overlook that the financial transactions under reference are not akin to transactions of a street hawker or a cigarette retain made from a wooden cabin. The present controversy involves contributions which approximate Rs. 40,000 crore, allegedly collected from the poor rural inhabitants of India. Despite restraint, one is compelled to record that the whole affair seems to be doubtful, dubious and questionable. Money transactions are not expected to be casual, certainly not in the manner expressed by the two companies.”

Will Majority promoter Sahara pull out of Force India?

It is not clear how soon this will pull down the Sahara group and affect the Force India team. With such a massive blow, it is to be seen how the Force India team copes up. The Sahara Group is yet to issue a statement on this and the fate of the Force India team. The last word on this is yet to be heard.

Force India to pay 5.61 crores rupees as legal costs

Force India team, which had got into a dispute with Caterham (the erst while Team Lotus) over IPR has been ordered by the London High Court to pay legal costs to Mike Gascoyne and Caterham to the tune of 650,000 pounds which is equivalent to Rs. 5.61 crores.

Mike Gascoyne will get 4,00,000 pounds out of that amount. The balance 2,50,000 pounds will go to Caterham's holding company - 1Malaysia Racing Team.

Narain Blasts Vettel calls him Cry baby

Narain and Vettel were involved in an incident in Malaysia where Vettel's rear left tyre got punctured while overtaking Narain. Stewards penalised Narain with a 20 second penalty, though many experts believed Vettel moved back too quickly. During the post race interaction with Media, Vettel had showered choicest of abuses on Narain saying he is a "cucumber" and "idiot".

Narain has blasted Vettel while talking with Hindustan Times. Narain said "For a world champion to say things like that is shameful". Calling Vettel unprofessional, Narain further added "For a driver who has achieved so much to take out his frustrations on me just because he is having a difficult year is really sad. One does not expect a professional sportsperson to be such a cry baby.

Nico Hulkenberg of Force India said that "I have seen the incident and it wasn't Narain's fault." Hulkenberg further added "It was a bad day for him. He had no points. He is emotional."

After watching the incident, it came as a surprise that Narain was penalised for the incident because Vettel had slightly moved towards Narain. The drivers of leading teams are known to try and bulldoze the drivers in slower cars. However, the stewards penalising Narain and going by the version of Vettel was surprising. Many commentators blamed Vettel for the incident and others like David Coulthard had said it is a racing incident. Narain expressing his unhappiness about the Stewards not listening to him said "They didn't care about what I had to say because Mr. Vettel told them God knows what when he went and talked to them."

The details of the incident and revised positions for Malaysia can be found here:
http://www.arjunaubacha.blogspot.in/2012/03/revised-classification-for-malaysia.html

Sebastien Vettel showed a finger to Narain Karthikeyan after the incident.

It is shocking that past world champions can be so rude and unprofessional. This kind of action immediately invites action in sports like Cricket and Footbal. Unfortunately, in Formula 1, this is accepted.

Formula 1 is all about Money Honey!

F1 is all about Money, Honey!

Formula One is all about money. First and foremost, Formula one is a business and then it is motorsports. 

This principle has been proved time and again and the formula one teams make no effort to hide it.

Driver Contracts:

In the last few days, this adage has been proved once again by the HRT team. Narain Karthikeyan was the first driver to be signed by the HRT team and at that time Narain Karthikeyan was quoted as saying that his contract is for the entire season. However, just before Silverstone race, Narain Karthikeyan was dropped by HRT team and Daniel Ricciardo was brought in with sponsorship from Red Bull. At that time, it was known that Narain Karthikeyan will return to the HRT cockpit for the Indian Grand Prix.

Liuzzi had earlier mentioned that he has contract for the entire season so there was no question of Narain replacing him in the Indian Grand Prix. Daniel Ricciardo during his promotional demonstration for Red Bull in New Delhi had said that he expected to sit out for Narain as it is contractual and had said that he would take part in the first practice on Friday. However, HRT team has now issued a statement that it will be Liuzzi who will sit out in the Indian Grand Prix.

With so much of money riding in on Daniel Ricciardo - who is highly valued by the Red Bull team and is expected to replace one of their drivers from the Torro Rosso team – it is natural that Daniel Ricciardo gets to drive in Indian Grand Prix and Tonio Liuzzi is replaced by Narain. It is purely a case of money, and contracts are never a obstacle in Formula 1. In Cricket they say, Records are meant to be broken. Similarly, in Formula 1 they say, Contracts are meant to be broken.

Interestingly, Vintanio Liuzzi who was driving for Force India team in 2010 had a valid contract to drive in 2011. However, the Vijay Mallya led team decided to give chance to the Mercedes backed Paul DiResta and decided that it was lucrative to replace and compensate Vintanio Liuzzi.

Name change:

The formula one teams routinely try to interpret the clauses to get some extra amount of money. The formula one rules state that the Formula One teams can change their name subject to ratification by all the other teams. Though this clause was created to stop any team from infringing on the brand name of another, the teams routinely try to use this clause to stop other teams from changing their names. For example, even after BMW exited the sport, the Sauber team continued to use the BMW name else, they would have forfeited the prize money. Similarly, Renault exited the sport after the team was indicted of deliberately conspiring with its driver Nelso Piquet Jr. to crash in Singapore race. So though Genii capital became the majority shareholder, the team still bears the name Renault. Recently, the Mercedes Team Principal Ross Brawn also shared his view on this topic and said that a few teams want to derive benefit out of this issue.

Team orders aka Match Fixing:

Each team in formula one is allowed to have two drivers and team orders were banned. So technically one driver of a team cannot be asked to move aside to give way for his team mate. In the past, teams used to send coded messages to their driver to give room for their higher ranked fellow driver to pass. However, recently the team order controversy has been given a burial as FIA has legalized team orders saying that it is difficult to implement. So what amounts to match fixing in other sports, is a routine thing in formula 1. In the commercial world of Formula 1, money comes first and sport later. 

Sachin Tendulkar doesn't support Indian Driver

Sachin Tendulkar - the God of Cricket - will neither support his friend Michael Schumacher nor India's only driver in the Indian Grand Prix Narain Karthikeyan, but will root for Sahara Force India team which has majority ownership with Indian groups Sahara and UB. Sachin said that he is excited about the Indian Grand Prix. "I will support the Force India Team. I have friends like Michael Schumacher but I will support Force India because it is an Indian team and the country comes first".

Whereas Sachin supporting an Indian team is logical, however, it seems he is improperly briefed as the Force India aka Sahara Force India cannot claim to be an Indian team as the only thing Indian is the majority ownership. See my earlier article on this issue titled "Force India: Neither Force nor India"  http://arjunaubacha.blogspot.com/2011/08/force-india-neither-force-nor-india.html  The question is if UB group buys a Pakistani team and names it Super Force India or something like that, will we agree that it is an Indian team? Force India has nothing to do with India, except that its majority ownership is Indian and they are eyeing sponsorship from India. Its the Indian money they are after and nothing else. Neither they employ many Indians nor do they take Indian drivers. Just to divert the issue of not taking Indian drivers, the FI Team Principal has started a cart competition in small cement tracks.

After Sahara group's recent take over of 42.5% ownership, the policy of No Indian drivers remains. Read No Indian drivers for Sahara Force India (http://arjunaubacha.blogspot.com/2011/10/no-indian-drivers-for-sahara-force.html )

In this scenario, it is unfortunate that a man of integrity and patriotic Indian who always values India above everything else, has been made to believe that the Sahara Force India team is an Indian team. Sachin Tendulkar has been cheated into believing that he is supporting an Indian Team. If they can cheat Sachin Tendulkar, that means that their propaganda machinery is working well.