2011 Indian Grand Prix – Race Report

The first ever Indian Grand Prix was a decent race for sure. There were a few interesting collisions and the new track is definitely ripe for interesting races. The fact that the top-tier cars are so dominant this year just didn’t give the middle group a chance to shine (the same is true for the entire season) and so next year I’m sure the race will be much more interesting.

Race Direction: Excellent

I’m rather stunned but the race director met my criteria more than admirably. There were no missed yellow flags, over half the pit-stops were caught on camera and thanks to some furious racing both in the middle and back of the lot, there was a well-balanced amount of attention given to all racing participants. My hat is off to this director and I hope other race directors will take notes from his example.

The Top-10

Sebastian Vettel is like an unstoppable juggernaut at this point. Jenson Button drove a solid race to finish second and Fernando Alonso defended his position well to finish third.

Mark Webber had another abysmal start to a race and finished a humble fourth. I think the Aussie has to get it through his head at some point that races are lost and won on the starting grid. Michael Schumacher rose the ranks from outside of the top-10 to finish a strong fifth. With his team-mate Nico Rosberg finishing on sixth, Mercedes GP can pat themselves on the back for a solid race performance.

There was plenty of grief for McLaren thanks to Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa running into each other during the race. Hamilton, who started from the top-5 was able to manage a seventh place after having his front wing replaced. Otherwise, he would have easily taken a much higher position.

For the first time in the longest while we’ve had seven different teams in the Top-10. Joining the Four Leafed Clover (McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes) are Toro Rosso, Force India and Sauber. Jaime Alguersuari drove an excellent race to finish eighth and the TR car has been up to pace all weekend which is fantastic, considering how poorly the team’s season has gone. Adrian Sutil made up for his team-mate’s poor performance by finishing a fairly solid ninth. Sergio Perez made an impressive rise from grid-20 to take the final point in the Top-10.

Golden Pineapple Award

Vitaly Petrov made an admirable rise after his penalty, but sadly couldn’t reach points. This is only his second Pineapple Award this season, so it doesn’t affect the standings.

Drop-out count: 5

Most of the retirements happened during the first half of the race. Although there was a sizable crash in the back-to-middle lot only two retirements resulted from this. Kamui Kobayashi, who drove another bad qualifying, was sadly the one to be taken out immediately by the crash. Timo Glock also retired after a few laps, presumably from the damage his car suffered from the accident.

Technical difficulties befell on Pastor Maldonado and Sebastian Buemi. Maldonado’s gear-box gave out in the middle of the race and Buemi’s engine blew out, rather sadly since he was also driving an otherwise excellent race for Toro Rosso.

Though Hamilton and Felipe Massa collided, Massa didn’t suffer much damage but received a drive-through penalty for blocking Hamilton which is what caused the accident. Massa suffered a similar suspension failure, as he did in the qualifying, by driving over the edge of the track.

Back of the Lot News

Most of the excitement in the race was provided by drivers in the middle group who were fighting furiously to reach points. The Toro Rossos taking on Bruno Senna was by far the most exciting battle. Senna, whose KERS wasn’t working properly, was even finding it difficult to keep a distance to Heikki Kovalainen‘s Lotus.

Heikki drove a fantastic race. At one point he was tenth in the standings and he not only left all his competition behind, but also Rubens Barrichello (though granted, Barrichello lost his front wing in the crash during the start). His team-mate, Trulli, did not have a happy day. After bumping into the back of Maldonado’s car, Trulli spun out and had to come into the pits, finishing 19th and dead last.

Narain Karthikeyan (replacing Vitantonio Liuzzi for this race) was able to race for the first time in his native country and was at least able to beat his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, though he lost out to another F1 new-comer, Virgin’s Jerome D’Ambrosio.

Mortal Kombat Arcade Review (3 Games)

I finally got what I had been waiting for a long time for: the first three Mortal Kombat games in a single pack. Mortal Kombat Arcade is available on Xbox Live Arcade, so if you want yourself some serious MK action, go get it. Here’s a review of all three games in the package: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.

***

Mortal Kombat

Gameplay: 4½/5 – I’m rather surprised at how fluid the gameplay actually is. You can easily make devastating combinations of punches, upper cuts and round-house kicks which is extremely admirable and makes the game feel very enjoyable. For some of the characters, learning their special moves can take a bit of practice but eventually you’ll master them all pretty quickly, and what’s more, there are no “unplayable” characters in this title. I’m chopping off half a point because I’ve never been a fan of the block-button (as opposed to pressing back to block), but you’ll get used to it very quickly.

Graphics: 4/5 – Of course the graphics wont look as impressive now as they did back in 1992, but the level of detail is admirable and the environments ooze of Enter the Dragon influence.

Animation: 4/5 – Really on the same level as the graphics. Midway definitely honed the motion-capture technology for the sequels but it still looks pretty good.

Music: 3/5 – I’ve always thought of the Mortal Kombat games’ soundtracks as really uninspiring. MK1 is no exception but I think the tunes have at least a little more meat to them and have some really nice Asian influences, which at least makes them sound distinct as opposed to the sequels.

Sound: 4/5 – The sound-effects are certainly colourful and though there’s a rather high repetition for grunts and groans there aren’t any sound-effects that would start to grate my ears.

Replay value: 3/5 – You can play as seven characters and unlike practically in all other MK games, you’ll want to play as them all. This pumps up the replay value up quite a bit. Also, you can try your luck at finding and fighting Reptile, but unfortunately the game doesn’t offer any extras.

Score: 75% – Mortal Kombat 1 has aged surprisingly well. It may not be the flashiest or the most expansive title in the franchise, but it’s certainly still a lot of fun.

***

Mortal Kombat II

Gameplay: 3½/5 – For some reason the gameplay doesn’t feel as fluid as the first game and suffers from really complicated special-moves. No matter how much I play, I can’t seem to get into the groove of the gameplay.

Graphics: 5/5 – Much more varied and detailed than the first game. The character sprites are also much more clean.

Animation: 5/5 – The animations look much more fluid than before and there are a lot more interesting animation effects. There are also interesting animated little details in the backgrounds and the new animated fatality screen-text with the dripping blood also looks really good.

Music: 2/5 – The music is definitely a step down from the first game. I have to make the sound-effects play only at half volume just to hear the music, which is hardly worth it.

Sound: 2½/5 – Although there’s a far bigger variety of sound-effects, some of the character yells and especially Raiden’s screams started to really annoy me at times.

Replay Value: 2/5 – You have a bigger variety of characters, but some of them are an absolute pain to play as. The game also kicks your ass hard no matter what the difficulty level happens to be. If you enjoy the challenge, that’s fine, but I tend to get very frustrated with the game.

Score: 67% – Although Mortal Kombat II is much more polished than the first game with a lot more characters and special-moves, it suffers from a massive lack of fun with its gameplay and challenge. The game is simply too infuriating.

***

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3

Gameplay: 4/5 – The run controls and the combo system make the gameplay feel a bit more fluid than MKII, but not quite as good as MK1.

Graphics: 5/5 – As detailed and clean as the second game. There’s also a lot bigger variety of play-areas with many interesting milieus. Plus, going from one play area to the next with the power of an uppercut is pretty hilarious.

Animation: 5/5 – There’s still loads more animation than in the prior game thanks to the larger character cast.

Music: 1/5 – What music? The soundtrack is so bland you might as well not have anything playing in the background.

Sound: 3/5 – The characters sound a bit more distinct thanks to Cyrax and Sektor as well as Sheeva, but there is still a lot of repetition. However, the game doesn’t begin to wear on my ears the same way as the second game.

Replay Value: 4/5 – I come back to the game more readily thanks to the improved controls as opposed to MKII, but the game still kicks my ass pretty hard, even on Novice difficulty. The variety of characters and fighting stages, however, keeps the game from becoming dull. Plus, for the truly hardcore MK fighters, there’s some groovy extras to unlock.

Score: 73% – Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is a step up from MKII on the entertainment front and is actually a fairly playable game. It has a few weaknesses, especially in the music and fairness parts, but is still an enjoyable, violent action romp.

***

Review History (Mortal Kombat Games)

	Score:	GAM:	GRA:	ANI:	MU:	SO:	RE:
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe	77 %	4	4	5	2,5	4,5	3
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon	78 %	4	4	4	3,5	4	4
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance	76 %	4	4,5	4	2,5	3	5

2011 Korean Grand Prix – Race Report

Though the Korean Grand Prix wasn’t the best race of the year, it was still okay and much better than last year’s race. Some might feel it was the opposite and I myself had a lot riding on the race since the Drivers’ Championship was wide open back then (as was whether the circuit would be finished in time for the race).

Anyway, race direction grade and results as follows…

Race Direction: Okay

I’m letting the race director off on an Okay grade, though officially according to the standards I laid down he should have gotten a poor rating. There were only three yellow-flags in the race but only one (and admittedly the most important one) got caught on replay. I was teetering on wether or not penalize the director for Pit-stops. However, I do have to – while over half of the first pit-stops got caught on camera I was going to be generous and started counting the second pit-stops even before the half-way point of the race. Even after three retirements, however, the second half of the pit-stop count was short by two so I can’t give it a pass. However, why the rating got bumped up from Poor to Okay is because the director did focus on events all through the different tiers of racers, even the back lot. And for this I can’t give a poor rating (besides which all retirements got caught on camera).

The Top-10:

Sebastian Vettel was unstoppable once he overtook Hamilton on the start. However, Lewis Hamilton fought back and defended his position admirably until the end. A good day for Mark Webber, whose third position has now won Red Bull the Constructors’ Championship as well. Webber also gave Hamilton a run for his money on the final laps though couldn’t manage to overtake him.

Jenson Button drove an okay race. The most excitement he experienced was racing with Nico Rosberg in and after the pit-lane since the two would not let off. In the end though, Button finished a respectable fourth while Rosberg finished a rather humble eighth.

The Ferraris switched places from the start with Fernando Alonso finishing fifth and Felipe Massa finishing sixth. The most excitement experienced from them today was a bizarre and cryptic radio message from Alonso caught by the broadcaster: “I give up.” What this message was referring, I’ve no idea, but it certainly sounds very out of character for Alonso.

Toro Rosso had probably their best race of the season. Jaime Alguersuari drove  fantastic race, was at one point third in the running and finished a solid seventh by the end. His team-mate Sebastian Buemi didn’t shine quite as brightly but took ninth place for the team.

Force India slumped today though Paul Di Resta landed only one position down from the start, to tenth.

Golden Pineapple Award

Adrian Sutil is strengthening his hold on the Pineapple throne with his fourth Pineapple victory. A disappointing result for him considering he started from tenth place. Hopefully things will look up in India.

Drop-out count: 3

The most excitement experienced today on track was due Vitaly Petrov ramming his car to the back of Michael Schumacher. Petrov damaged the suspension on his left front wheel as well as totalled both his own front and Schumi’s rear wing. Schumi couldn’t go on and the debris left on-track caused a Safety Car session. Petrov made it back to the pits, but even with a replacement wing on hand the Renault mechanics couldn’t fix his suspension and the race was over for the Viborg Rocket.

Pastor Maldonado suffered a drive-through penalty for cutting straight to the pits rather than using the entry lane and his pathetic race day was ruined by technical difficulties that forced him to retire.

Back of the Lot-News

It seems whenever Toro Rosso is thriving Force India and Sauber suffer as a result. Today Sauber were particularly bad with neither driver making it to points. Kamui Kobayashi drove an uncharacteristically bad race and even Sergio Perez couldn’t keep up with the middle group. Both finished behind Team Lotus’ Heikki Kovalainen, which is great news for him and Tony Fernandes, but very embarrassing for the Sauber team.

The Williams team was already doing poorly due to Maldonado’s drive-through and retirement. Rubens Barrichello’s rise from 18th to 12th was a slim consolation, though he did manage to beat Bruno Senna on pure one-on-one basis.

For the new teams it was the same old, same old, though I’ll applaud Daniel Ricciardo for leaving both D’Ambrosio and Liuzzi behind him. The fact that he wasn’t a match for Timo Glock is in part due to the fact that he is driving an inferior car and that Glock is in fact a really good driver (just stuck in a really sucky team).

Chandhok will not race in India

Bad news for Karun Chandhok, Team Lotus will not be letting their Indian test-driver behind the wheel for the premier of the Buddh International Circuit in the Indian Grand Prix. Chandhok must be quite disappointed by the fact, considering he himself is Indian.

The reason Lotus doesn’t want to put Chandhok behind the wheel in India is because of Heikki Kovalainen’s promising performance in the last few races. The team wants to ensure that Lotus will again be the 10th ranked team at the end of the season to ensure its share of the F1 Team’s TV broadcast profits.

Kovalainen’s record speaks for itself. Out of the seven races which both he and his team-mate Jarno Trulli have both finished, Kovalainen has beat his team-mate 4 times and always been higher ranked than either the Virgins or HRT. I don’t personally think Lotus’ position as the highest ranked of the back-lot team is in any serious danger, considering Kovalainen and Trulli were the last two cars on the same lap with the leader in the Japanese race. However, since Tony Fernandes is hell-bent on the team scoring a championship point, this might explain why he’s reluctant to let Chandhok drive.

This announcement puts a slight snag on the Indian fiesta that would have gone down in India since HRT is letting Narain Karthikeyan behind the wheel and of course Team Force India (soon to be renamed Sahara Force India) will be fully present.

As a side-note: Lotus and Renault have as of late come to agreement over the Lotus brand name and Team Lotus will change its name to Caterham next year, while Renault will become the new Team Lotus.

In addition, Toro Rosso is allowing a new face race in the last two Grand Prixs of the season when Jaime Alguersuari will make way for a new-comer, last year’s British F3 champion and this year’s World Series by Renault runner-up, Jean-Eric Vergne. I don’t know if this means that Alguersuari is on his way out or whether Vergne is simply getting some practice. Either way, it’s not gonna look good in Toro Rosso’s performance which has been pretty poor all season.

2011 Japanese Grand Prix – Race Report

Sebastian Vettel secured the drivers’ championship in the unspectacular Japanese Grand Prix. This years race was a massive let down in comparison to last year, second only in its lack of excitement to the Valencian Grand Prix.

Race Direction: Good

To be fair, not a whole lot happened on track but the race director did manage to stay focused on what was relevant and interesting. No missed yellow flags, most of the pit-stops were covered. I can’t give an Excellent grade since there was practically nothing shown from the Back of the Lot, but other than that a Grade A showing from the race director.

The Top-10

Jenson Button tried challenging Vettel at the start but fell behind and only rose gradually after Vettel had to make an extra pit-stop. Jense drove a solid race though and I’m happy for him. Fernando Alonso also showed massive improvement from the start of the race and finished second. Sebastian Vettel only had to score in order to secure his championship, but a third place meant that at least he’d be celebrating his championship from a podium.

Mark Webber had a weak qualifying but finished a strong fourth at the end. Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa butted heads on-track once again. This time a piece from one of their cars landed smack middle of the track and caused the safety car to come on. Unfortunately, this didn’t add much excitement. Hamilton finished a respectable fifth and Massa dropped to seventh by the end.

Michael Schumacher had  a good day and even lead the race for a brief moment before his first pit-stop. He finished sixth. His team-mate Nico Rosberg made the most impressive rise of the day, from 23rd in the start to 10th  in the finish, taking the final point for Mercedes GP. It’s sort of expected, given he’s driving the fourth best car in the series – but also a great accomplishment as he no doubt had to pass several to contenders.

The second most impressive rise was achieved by Sergio Perez who started from 17th and finished eighth. Vitaly Petrov drove an unspectacular but safe race to finish ninth.

Golden Pineapple Award

Adrian Sutil takes the lead of the pineapple chart with a total of three positions. Force India had a really lackluster race day in Japan.

Drop-out count: 1

Almost a record low for this season. Sebastian Buemi‘s wheel came off mysteriously when he entered a curve. It’s not at all clear what really happened but Buemi’s retirement was the final nail on the coffin for Toro Rosso’s massively unspectacular day.

Back of the Lot News

A rather shocking lack of improvement by most drivers this race and I’m not entirely sure why that was. Kamui Kobayashi and Bruno Senna were the biggest failures on-track, both falling out of the top-10 early on. It’s quite remarkable, given Senna’s otherwise solid (half-)season and especially for Kobayashi who really wowed the crowd in his homeland last year.

Force India, Toro Rosso and Williams all failed massively today. Jaime Alguersuari rose a measly one position due to his team-mate’s retirement, Di Resta and Maldonado made absolutely no improvement on their positions and Barrichello fell four positions down. Come on, guys! You really need to start getting your shit together. Williams have had a crap season anyway, but now it seems like Toro Rosso and Force India just weren’t trying at all.

Once again, nothing new for the new teams. Lotus occupied the top-spots and we already know which of the two drivers was the better of them (hint: Heikki Kovalainen). The only thing worth mentioning about the rear-end teams is that HRT’s Vitantonio Liuzzi was permitted to race despite not putting up a time within the 107% rule. This time around I can’t imagine why the FIA let this one fly because clearly Liuzzi should have been disqualified from the race. The FIA has only really enforced the 107% rule in the season opening race and since then every instance of the 107% limit not being reached the cars have been permitted to race regardless. What the fuck…