That’s what Lewis Hamilton did to the rest of the grid in the Canadian Grand Prix yesterday leading the safety car interrupted race from start to finish while other high profile drivers fell by the wayside. Fernando Alonso went for broke in the first corner only to outbrake himself and go off onto the grass which allowed Hamilton to sail away into the lead while Alonso rejoined the track in fourth. It was a day of off track excursions for both Fernando Alonso and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen who eventually finished 7th and 5th respectively, Alonso had to take a 10 second stop/go penalty when he was forced to pit while the safety car was out or run out of fuel, which dropped him behind the Finn on the track and never really recovered. BMW’s Robert Kubica had a spectacular crash on the way down to the hairpin bouncing off the wall at 175mph into the opposite wall, almost totally destroying his car after a coming together with Jarno Trulli’s Toyota. The Polish driver managed to escape serious injury, which shows that the tough regulations in F1 to make the cars as safe as possible is working, if you crashed at more than 100mph in a normal road car it would mean almost certain death. Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Renault’s Giancarlo Fisichella both got black flagged and disqualified from the race for leaving the pit lane while the red light was on driving around the waiting Robert Kubica. It was another poor day for the Brits with David Coulthard and Jenson Button both failing to finish the race and Anthony Davidson finished a distant 11th after running in 3rd earlier in the race but hit a beaver crossing the track, so pitted straight away and his team wasn’t ready for him which lost him even more time. Although his Super Aguri team mate Takuma Sato finished the race in a strong 6th place after Massa and Fisichella were disqualified. Honda won’t be happy that they are being beaten by their ‘B’ team at the moment, Honda are really nowhere this season much to the dismay of Jenson Button and his many fans, myself included. Nick Heidfeld brought his BMW home in 2nd place, which is his best finish for BMW, which will please the bosses back in Bavaria. Alexander Wurz brought his Williams Toyota home in 3rd; 1.4 seconds ahead of Renault’s Heikki Kovalainen. Ralf Schumacher claimed the final world championship point bringing his Toyota home in 8th place behind Raikkonen, Sato and Alonso. All this means that Lewis Hamilton now has a lead of 8 points over his more experienced team mate Fernando Alonso and 15 points lead over nearest Ferrari rival Felipe Massa. It’s too early to make any claims that Hamilton will be world champion on his first attempt, but if he can keep up this kind of performance and keep his feet on the ground, I see no reason why the Brit can’t claim the world drivers championship in his maiden season. I think that the only person that take the championship away from him is team mate Fernando Alonso as McLaren are leagues ahead of every one else at the moment, and BMW are fast becoming the second best team on the grid ahead of Ferrari, if only on the track and not in points, but BMW seem to be going from strength to strength and probably would have had another double score today if Kubica didn’t have his big accident. Although I am happy with a Brit leading the drivers championship, I still want Ferrari and BMW to really take the fight to McLaren, a one team championship isn’t very exciting to watch for the spectators.
It’s the final day of the third test at Old Trafford, England were forced into the final day after a plucky performance from Shivnarine Chanderpaul batting for 4 1/2 hours to see out the fourth day for the Windies. The West Indies were 301 – 5 at stumps on day four which frustrated the English, but Monty Panesar is doing the job for England again taking a further 3 wickets for 87 runs. The West Indies need another 154 runs to break records in test cricket and demoralise England. At stumps on day three England were comprehensively on top of the game having set a target of record second innings total of 455 to win for the Windies. At that point, everyone assumed that the game would be over and done with by the end of play on day four, but the Windies dug deep and made it through the day and have a realistic chance of taking the win. Hopefully Monty can do the business today to get rid of Chanderpaul, then I think it will be a case of dominoes, push one over and the rest are sure to follow. I still think that England are on top, but not as comfortably as they would have liked, and there is a threat of rain as well, so that may play into the hands of the West Indies saving the series for them with only one test to play, should England win this test, that would mean that the Windies have lost the series as England would be 2 – 0 up.
More drunkenness on Saturday night and Sunday morning, eventually got home at about 7:15am, then had to be up for 11am to go to my dads for Sunday Lunch, well I should have been up at 9am, but there was no chance in hell of that happening. I made to to my dads but couldn’t eat because I was feeling so ill from the night before. I don’t even drink socially anymore, I am just drinking for drinking sake, which really isn’t good, the whole Ali situation has hit me hard, but I know I need to get a grip of my life, it’s disappearing before my eyes at the moment. I am wasting between 60 and 100 pounds per week on alcohol, then come the end of the month I find myself struggling financially which really isn’t good. It’s time to go tea-total for a while again, stop drinking completely, maybe get Sky TV installed, so I have something to watch while at home, I get bored at home with barely any TV to watch and I am now starting to get bored of being online, again all related to the Ali situation, I’d rather not get hurt again, so if I withdraw from the world I can’t get hurt can I?
And finally… A wheelchair bound man in Michigan was pushed along a US highway by a truck reaching speeds of up to 50mph. The truck driver was completely unaware of the man and wheelchair attached to the front of his truck. The man got snagged on the truck as the truck pulled away from traffic lights. The driver refused to believe it until he saw the evidence for himself, Luckily the truck was only returning to the depot rather than a long haul journey. It’s funny because no-one was hurt, it’s a completely freak occurrence that’ll probably never happen again, at least the man in the wheelchair saw the funny side of it, some times you just have to laugh at the way things happen in life! [read the full story here]