What is wrong with Lewis Hamilton?

Lewis Hamilton has gotten himself into a lot of hot water. At the very start of the season he seemed ready to go to war with Red Bull. He was talking smack before the Monaco race, caused two retirements with his over-excited driving and then stirring up a storm about off-hand comments about his race. Hamilton has gone off the handle. He’s even threatened to leave the sport if the stewards’ decisions are threatening his style of racing.

Firstly, I have nothing against Hamilton as a driver. He is one of the best, no-one can deny that and he’s got a driver’s championship to his name to prove it. Secondly, Hamilton’s problem is that he keeps mouthing off to the wrong people at the wrong time. Alonso might be a prissy prima donna, Hamilton is just an ass. Look Lewis, accidents happen – especially on track.

If the stewards rule that you were responsible, you take your punishment like a man and don’t start pointing fingers and blaming people of racism. There was no prejudice involved with the drive-through penalty he got for bumping into Massa, Adrian Sutil received the exact same penalty earlier in the race for the same exact reason. If you’re going to start an argument, make sure that you at least have one to begin with.

The best thing Lewis can do now is get his head back in the game, concentrate on racing and not fly off the handle when things don’t go his way.

First Impressions: Naruto

So I finally decided to sit down and watch Naruto. Note, that I’ve seen an odd episode here and there, but I’ve never actually stopped to watch the series or try to make sense of its plot. I feel I’m in a comfy spot to watch the series since the worst of the hype subsided long ago.

So in case you have not seen or heard of this series here’s the gist of it. Naruto is a ninja-trainee who’s had an evil fox demon trapped in his body. His parents died as a result of the battle with the demon and now the boy wants to become the head ninja (Hokage) of his village. He’s taken under the tutelage of the unpredictable Kakashi (a dude who never reveals his face and keeps his ninja-headband over his right, freaky eye). Under Kakashi tutelage are also his crush, the pink-haired Sakura (= most over-used character name ever) and the token emo-kid, Sasuke. Though the three don’t get along at all (Naruto being in love with Sakura who despises him, her adoring Sasuke who couldn’t give two shits about her, Naruto and Sasuke both hating each other) they work surprisingly efficiently as a team.

I’m about 14 episodes into the series, so a little late for a First Impressions – but this is a long series so I’m probably gonna do another review blog somewhere down the line. So the essentials:

• Story: Not too shabby and at least it seems to move at a fair pace (that might change as I hear there’s quite a bit of filler later in the series). Nothing about the story has really grabbed me to be honest, there’s a lot of back-story given in the first few episodes which at this point still seems rather redundant.
• Animation: Excellent. Apart from the very first episode, the animation is consistently above average – which I have to give the creators credit for. There isn’t any still usage that I’ve seen either which is a positive sign. The colours used in places are a little wonky but I’m beginning to think this is a style choise.
• Music: Not my cup of tea, but not bad. The first opening theme is growing on me which is a shame since I hear the intro themes change quite a bit as the series goes on.
• Characters: There are no favorites as of yet – but I like the fact they’re giving the main cast time to develop before bringing in all the supporting actors. Naruto has brushes of likeability – he’s a “comedic hero” with the emphasis on comedic. He’s funny in places but at times it feels like they are overdoing his silliness a little bit. I don’t really care for Sasuke but Sakura is quite funny at times. Kakashi might have potential of becoming my favorite character at this point – he’s so unpredictable but clearly means good, plus he has that crazy eye which is pretty cool.

In the general areas Naruto is fair. Not the most awesome anime I’ve ever seen but interesting enough that I’d want to see where the story goes after the first couple of dozen episodes. However I’m noticing Naruto commit some massive anime faux pas‘s which I’d like to address here.

• Over-explaining the plot – This is something which I’m getting seriously sick of in anime and manga. It seems to me characters will take the time to relay every bit of backstory and mechanics of ninjitsu to the audience, but none of it is really interesting and most of it is derailing from the main point of the episode since I just want to see the plot move on. If you ask me, Dragon Ball (/Z) did these types of exposition pauses better. They were shorter and often in a few words.
• Over-using footage from the prior episode – As much as I hate recaps, when done well (Sandybell) they’ll serve the series and give you a clarifying explanation of what happened in the last episode. Naruto takes a different route where it seems that they reuse the last five minutes of the prior episode to move into the plot of the current episode. However when the whole episode is only 25 minutes that’s five minutes you’re robbing us of new stuff. If you’re going to use the last episode’s end as a pick-up point to the next, one-and-a-half-minutes is the absolute acceptable maximum amount of time and footage that should be used.
• Instant flashback – Another really poorly implemented plot-device is using a sudden flashback to something which happened not two minutes ago to explain something.
• Ending an episode on an action scene – Why would you do that? More over, why would you do that numerous times in a row. So many times it seems that as soon as something exciting is about to happen, the episode ends. But it’s not like the episodes end when “the fight” is about to start (like in most animes), usually the fight has already started and the episode will end on a seemingly arbitrary break in the fighting. That is just bad pacing (even Dragon Ball knew that if a fight was going to carry over they’d smooth the transition to the credits with that bad ass narration).

These are my personal nitpicks, however, and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Hopefully the series dispenses at least with some of these elements – but still I’ll keep on watching to see where the story goes.

2011 Monaco Grand Prix – Race Report

The Monaco Grand Prix was easily the most exciting race of the season up till now. Due to his crash and concussion during yesterday’s qualfying, Sergio Perez obviously couldn’t attend. Two safety car sessions, a red flag and a restart for the final five laps.

The Top-10:

Sebastian Vettel drove a solid race and was able to win despite a botched up pit stop. In the end not even Fernando Alonso, who finished second, was able to challenge him as Vettel received new tyres on the restart. Jenson Button lost one spot only and drove a solid race to finish third, thus ensuring there were again three World Champions on the podiums.

Mark Webber was dropped way back because of his horrible pit stop which happened straight after Vettel’s, but he battled his way all the way back to fourth place. The most daring rise to points was by Kamui Kobayashi who finished fourth and was forced to forfeit the battle for fifth position when he went long on the Swimming Pool chicane.

Lewis Hamilton was really in the thick of things all through the race. He crashed with Massa at Monaco’s infamous hairpin turn, received a drive through penalty, smashed up Pastor Maldonado’s car and even received a 20 second penalty after the race. His position, sixth, wasn’t changed however since he was the final driver on the same lap as Vettel. The second massive crash also damaged his rear wing which the McLaren pit crew were able to fix during the restart. All in all, Hamilton acted like a total ass on track and quite frankly he deserved every single penalty he’s got (and will get as soon as the Stewards come to a decision over them).

Adrian Sutil brougth Force India back into points after a long absense. An admirable feat considering the problems in his personal life and that many believed he wouldn’t be racing this weekend. He received a drive-through penalty earlier in the race for trying a botched overtake in the hairpin (just like Hamilton a little later) but was able to recover and finish seventh.

Nick Heidfeld also brought some points to Renault, finishing eighth. Rubens Barrichello finished ninth and finally brought Williams its first points of the season. Had Hamilton not trashed Maldonado’s car they would have had two drivers on points. Sebastian Buemi also alliviated Toro Rosso’s lackluster start to the season by taking the last point for the team.

Golden Pineapple Award

Nico Rosberg started in the Top-10 so his drop back was quite surprising and disappointing. All around it was a disappointing day for Mercedes GP so hopefully they’ll pull themselves together for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Drop-out count: 6

There was only one technical retirement when the suspension on Timo Glock‘s Virgin gave out.

After Hamilton rammed his car to the side of Felipe Massa‘s Ferrari the Brazilian lost control in the tunnel section and smashed against the wall, starting the first Safety Car session. Michael Schumacher‘s car also had a small fire and the car stopped right in front of the pit lane entrance during the Safety Car session.

The final big crash was the starter for the second Safety Car and the eventual Red Flagging of the race. Adrian Sutil lost control of his car when he hit the side of the track and plowed ahead causing Lewis Hamilton, Jaime Alguersuari and Vitaly Petrov all to collide with one another. Amazingly Sutil and Hamilton both drove away practically unscathed (Hamilton’s rear wing was broken by Alguersuari but fixed during the race’s restart). Alguersuari retired as did Petrov.

However, Petrov was unable to get out of his car which lead to the eventual red-flagging. Petrov became the second driver who had to be taken away by ambulance from the Monaco track this weekend (the other being Sergio Perez who didn’t start the race). Petrov was reportedly conscious so hopefully he wasn’t seriously injured.

Obviously the most disappointing retirement was that of Pastor Maldonado. The F1 debutant came close to not only scoring points by finishing sixth, after his best qualifying of the season but also ahead of his far more experienced team-mate. However, Hamilton bumped the back of Maldonado’s car at the end of the main straight and the Venezuelan wound up nose-first in the wall. My sympathies go to Maldonado but now that the Williams car is finally up to speed, I hope he wont let this setback upset him but instead he’ll give it it’s all in the Canadian GP. Mucha suerte, Pastor!

Back of the Lot news:

The new teams’ performances were unimpressive except for Jerome D’Ambrosio who was actually able to keep the Lotus cars behind him, at least until the restart. D’Ambrosio finished third-to-last ahead of the HRT drivers. Trulli and Kovalainen drove a mediocre race to a relatively good finish as 13th and 14th respectively.

Given the chaos on track the biggest failure was most likely Paul Di Resta who could only rise two positions and couldn’t even land on points unlike his much talked about team-mate.

Severe crash at Monaco Qualifying

Sauber newcomer Sergio Perez was taken away by ambulance after he crashed his car in the third Monaco qualifier. Perez lost control of his car on the exit of the Monaco tunnel, the same place where Nico Rosberg crashed this morning, and then glided past the following swimming pool chicane and crashed (right-side first) into the safety barrier between the race-track and the buildings.

The session was red-flagged and the ambulance arrived quickly. According to reports Perez was conscious and the only injury reported is a hurt leg, though nothing has been revealed about the severity of his injuries. Perez’s monocoque remained mostly intact except for the front which explains why his legs may have been injured. Perez’s crash was a particular shame since this was the first time he’s been in Q3 this season – but of course the more important thing is that the man is okay.

However it’s very likely that he will not be able to race tomorrow.

Lotus Name Dispute and Kubica’s Recovery

The Lotus name dispute has now reached at least a temporary resolution. Yesterday a court-hearing ruled that Team Lotus (owned and run by Tony Fernades’ 1Malaysia Company) is allowed to keep using the Lotus name but only under the full-title “Team Lotus”. Lotus Cars which is now the official sponsor of the Renault team has full control of the Lotus-brand in the sport but their official team is still known only as Renault. Lotus Cars is planning to appeal the decision – but unless there’s a dramatic change in the ruling, there will be Two Lotuses next year as well.

I’m not entirely happy with the situation myself and the whole affair of the Lotus name has gotten quite ridiculous to be honest. I can understand that Tony Fernades feels he has the right to use the Lotus name – but at the end of the day it’s just a name. Lotus Cars cut off their ties with Team Lotus early last year and it feels incredible Fernandes would want to keep racing under the Lotus flag when the car-company no longer wants anything to do with them. Just to set the record straight – yes, Lotus Cars were the original assholes for dropping support for Fernandes’ team at the start of the season, before they had even had a chance to improve the car. However, it’s ridiculous that Fernades would go so far with the name dispute just to spite the Lotus Company.

Speaking of Renault, Kubica’s recovery is progressing but his manager  Renault’s head of PR has debunked Eric Boullier’s earlier suggestions that Kubica would be driving in Friday practice sessions later this season. Kubica is simply not in a condition to get into an F1 car this year and we will have to wait until 2012 before we see The Lone Pole behind the wheel again. I don’t mind the wait and I wish all the best to Robert.

Correction 29.4.: Apparently it was Renault’s head of PR that had claimed Kubica wouldn’t be driving later this year and now it’s his manager who has now confirmed Kubica will. Sorry about the mix up.