F1 2021 season - the best ever ?

Three months back with about half a dozen races to go, I had posted that that the 2021 season was poised for a close finish - probably the closest ever across a whole season.

However even Netflix could not have scripted what happened next over the final races of the season! If the on-track racing was not enough, the off track controversies and shenanigans kept us at the edge of our seats. The driver’s championship lead swung one way then the other.

As we went into the title decider at Abu Dhabi, Max Verstappen led by a thin margin, but Lewis Hamilton seemed to have the stronger car.   Fittingly the two title protagonists qualified on the front row.  The controversies started on lap 1 of the race itself with Lewis’s pass at turn 1 not coming off clean. He took off to the runoff area and rejoined in the lead. Should he have given up the lead (lasting advantage)? Red Bull protested. The stewards deemed that Lewis only needed to cede the ‘time advantage’.          

The first set of pitstops (also expected to be the only one considering both drivers fitted the hards) went to plan. Hamilton seemed to have the advantage and started sailing off into the sunset with his 8^th title.  

Then Perez showed us why he is rated so highly. On older worn out tyres, he held up Hamilton just enough to allow Max to catch him. That was not enough though as Hamilton in clear air again extended his lead. All seemed lost for Red Bull and Max.

A safety car mid race allowed Max to stop for a fresh set of hards. Mercedes opted to stay out to retain track position for Lewis. While this move helped Max close up a bit, it still seemed not enough as Lewis kept the gap to around 10 seconds.

As the laps ran down, Christian Horner interviewed on live television admitted that they needed a miracle from the racing Gods. The miracle happened in the form of Latifi spinning off and hitting the barrier on Lap 53 bringing out the safety car. Red Bull quickly pitted Max for a fresh set of softs while Lewis stayed out.

Then came the biggest controversy of the race. After the debris was cleared up Michael Massi (the race Director) ordered the lapped cars between Lewis and Max to overtake the safety car (this was on the penultimate lap). Immediately thereafter the race was restarted (final lap). On a fresher set of tyres, Max did not even wait for the straights. He made an audacious move at the start and drove past Lewis.  Hamilton fought bravely on the two straights but Max held on for a famous win and a first world championship.

The controversies from race ensured that there were formal protests and counter protests post-race. The final classification was confirmed late into the night after the rulings on the protests. Even post that there was the threat of an appeal (subsequently Mercedes backed down)

Q1 – Should Lewis have ceded position on Lap 1? Would that have made a difference to the way the race panned out?

Q2 – Was it right to restart the race on the final lap? Should it have ended behind the safety car?

Q3 – Was it right to allow only 5 cars to unlap themselves behind the safety car?

Depending on which camp you are in, I am sure the answer for each of the questions would be diametrically opposite to the other! A few would point out to ‘dodgy’ decisions earlier in the season when the two title contenders came together.

The facts remain that both were worthy of the championship in 2021 – no one else came close to them on track and obviously on the leader board either. Unfortunately, there can only be one winner. Max had his share of bad luck earlier in the season and luck has a tendency to even out in the long run. Credit to Lewis that he was dignified in defeat. He has since been silent in the media and has also blocked himself out on social media – but he needs time to get over the loss.

Well done to both for giving us the closest title fight in living memory. Some say it eclipses even the Senna-Prost years. I cannot wait for an encore in 2022. What about you ?!?

Business sense

One of my acquaintances recently started a small business – that of preparation and packaging of a particular food product. Ahead of the launch he used to occasionally bounce ideas off me – but we had not been in touch for the past few weeks.

Last week when I called him to enquire, he informed me that he had launched the product –on a small-scale basis supplying it to retail outlets near his locality. Makes sense and nothing new here you might say.

But he had an interesting take on packaging. He said that he is packaging the same product in two different varieties – same stuff but different names and different colours on the packet. When asked why this was so, his response was that he was targeting potential customers of two different communities and thought it made sense to vary the packaging to match the sensibilities of the different groups.  Clever!

Exciting end to the F1 season

With just 7 races to go, the current F1 season is turning out to be best in the past 10 years. For the first time in the hybrid era Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton have serious competition in the form of Red Bull and Verstappen.

While there never was a doubt about Verstappen’s immense talent, it is only this year that Red Bull have given him a car that can take the fight the to the Mercs.  And boy what a season we have had so far! The two title contenders have come together twice so far.  After more twists and turns than a murder mystery story, Lewis and Max are separated by just two points heading into Turkey next weekend.

While the two team principals and Lewis have played some mind games, Max has mostly steered away from getting involved, letting his driving doing the talking.

Lewis is on the hunt for a record-breaking 8^th driver’s title and Max is out to get his first.

The next few race weekends promise more intrigue and excitement than what we have seen since 2014. Can’t wait for the season finale at Abu Dhabi!

My (not so) new ride -Jawa

The reincarnation of the iconic Jawa brand in 2018 thanks to Mahindra’s licensing agreement with Jawa Moto created a buzz amongst vintage bike fans in India. The new Jawa bikes have a good mix of new technology with classic good looks. Though slow to get off the blocks, sales and deliveries picked up pace towards the end of 2019.

After researching a bit, I decide to go in for the Jawa 42 a couple of months ahead of the Covid pandemic. Thanks to the lockdown, I have not been able to go on any long rides yet but am enjoying short rides when I can.

A couple of weekends back I rode around for an hour in the outskirts of Trivandrum. As I was taking a break near the beach, some early morning joggers stopped to admire the good looks of the galactic green ’42. One person in particular, started reviewing the bike up close. He started chatting me up and asked a lot of questions – price, mileage, comfort etc. Then he revealed the reason – he owned a Jawa way back in the 80s – it was the first bike he ever owned. His point was that the looks of the new Jawa was very similar to the old. After spending a few minutes reminiscing about the good times he had with Jawa, he reluctantly brought himself to walk away.

Pictured here is my impression of the Jawa. These days I am taking lessons from my artistically talented children Nandu and Niya. Nandu in particular is no longer an amateur and is well versed with advanced art techniques she has learnt on her own. Niya is following in her footsteps and her art is way ahead of her age as well.

Farewell Diego!

Last week Diego Maradona, one of the greatest to have ever played the ‘beautiful game’ passed away.

Maradona was the quintessential tragic hero. Rising from a very humble background, he reached the heights of football super stardom in the mid-eighties. The peak was of course the 1986 world cup which Argentina won mainly due to the genius of the short stocky superstar.

Who can forget the quarterfinal vs England? That match saw the best and the worst of Diego within a span of five minutes. He opened the scoresheet with the infamous ‘Hand of God’ goal but a few minutes later we also saw the ‘Goal of the century’.  

With his drug issues and multiple bans, his career as a player ended on a sad note in the 90s. He was to make a comeback as a coach in later years whilst struggling with his health issues.

But none of that will take away the joy he has given to millions across the world with his football magic.

At a personal level, I was fortunate to watch the 1986 World cup with my cousins. We were teenagers then and we spent the sleepless summer nights of ’86 watching the matches on Doordarshan.

Here is a post from 10 years back that I penned ahead of the 2010 World cup

http://chellakilli.blogspot.com/2010/06/gooooooaaaal.html

Fond memories!

Thank you and farewell Diego. You will live on in the hearts of the millions who enjoyed your magical performances.

Technology adoption at home

The Covid-19 outbreak has changed almost every aspect of the way we go about our lives. One major enabler in helping humans adapt to the new realities or to the new ‘normal’ has been technology.

Those businesses that were already to an extent location agnostic could easily transition their workers to a ‘work from home’ mode. Others adapted their services or the way the services were delivered to factor in Governmental restrictions and of course increased use of tech.

Because I work in the technology industry, for me personally there was no disruption of work. But it has been interesting how the situation has changed the way my immediate family members were impacted and how they adapted.

My wife’s transition from a face to face to alternate modes (including online) for her counselling sessions was relatively smooth. Technology adoption was never a factor as she has been tech savvy right from the start.

After two months of summer break locked up at home, the kids went back to virtual school. And they both took to it like fish to water. ‘Microsoft Teams’ was the tool of choice selected by the school and both kids became experts at handling it within hours of getting acquainted with it!

My father – though officially retired for several years now – has always been used to being busy since he never retired from his passion. I expected the lock down to be hard on him since he would no longer be able to meet his associates / students and conduct classes anymore. But he adapted fast – he switched to writing a book and as you will read below started ‘teaching tech to a newbie’. His new booklet incidentally was typed out entirely by him in less than a month!

But the person who has had to take a giant leap on the technology front has been my mother.  She had never used a smart phone till now.  

A few weeks into the lock down, her spiritual classes (which had stopped since mid March) went online. WhatsApp groups were created and Google Duo group calls scheduled.  With the help of her tech gurus – my father and me, she was able to chat with others and attend group calls within a week. While this might seem simple to others, for her it was a huge leap forward.   What really helped fast track this was when the kids came back from their vacation. Now she had two patient little ones guiding her to bridge the learning curve!   

These days it is not uncommon to see all six of us glued to our respective IT devices at the same time – going about our ‘work’.

We have seen how a humble microscopic virus has brought humanity to its knees. But if the scenes at my home are anything to go by, humans learnt to adapt fast!

Polarization

Over the past couple of years, one would have observed an increasing polarization across the board in India. With the general elections in 2019, this was to be expected in the political space. But it has been interesting to see that permeate across various mediums. I was kind of hoping that once we were done with the elections and the dust settled down, things would go back to normal.

Let us talk politics first and how it has changed. Earlier, around election time, the public discourse would be vitriolic with those in the running calling out the mistakes (perceived or real) of their opponents – with the stray ‘below the belt’ comment. This time around it has been an endless stream of abuses hurled against each other and the level of discussion during the campaigning stooped to new lows.

Well, you might say that is to be expected – after all they are politicians and the stakes are very high. But you switch on any of the news channels and you get the same thing. The recipe does not vary much across national or regional channels. During prime time you can see various people in small boxes (at least six boxes to start with but more little boxes the merrier) shouting over each other (and the anchor) to make their point. After 20 minutes of this fun, the anchor would presumably activate the mute button and go off on a rant with his/her ‘views’ on the topic. There just does not seem to be any ‘news’ anymore on news channels – just ‘views’.

The most interesting thing about television channels is that how polarized they have become. There just aren’t any shades of grey. Its all black and white. The government of the day is either the best thing that has happened since sliced bread and can do no wrong – or – they are the most despicable lot whose every decision /action is wrong and must be criticized.  Of course, when it came to the Prime Minister, the TV channels took it to a level that was beyond absurd. They either deified him or demonized him to extreme levels.

We tried to reason earlier that politicians need to do what they need to do. You could extend that argument to television too. You could argue that they were either showing their editorial biases or were trying to sensationalize their content to get more eyeballs and sell more advert space. Maybe maybe…but wait there’s more.

Coming to a space that’s entirely non-commercial and private  – WhatsApp groups. They not have been immune to this either. I am part of a residential group where most of the active members are pro-Government and pro-PM. Every decision / news event is a means to glorify the PM. He can do no wrong. On the other hand, I am also part of an alumni group where the majority of the active members are anti-PM. Every decision / event is dissected, and a negative spin attached to it.

As I said earlier, I was hoping that once the elections were done and dusted, things would go back to normal. Well, neither the television channels nor the WhatsApp groups have settled down.

I have a new formula for getting my daily dose of news. I depend on news aggregator apps as my primary source of news. During the rare occasion that I do watch TV news channels or read WhatsApp messages, I treat them as a means of entertainment! I do not depend on them for neither news nor views.

As for the Government and its doings, I like what Sadhguru said a few years back on this topic. Every five years we have a chance to decide on their fate. Let’s debate on their rights and wrongs in the last six months of their stint. For the rest four and half years, let them get on with the job of governance. Common sense, eh?