It’s time to talk about Formula One again; Lewis Hamilton has failed to continue his amazing run of podium finishes only managing a rather disappointing 9th. Which means that with team mate Fernando Alonso snatching victory away from Felipe Massa with just four laps remaining means that Hamilton’s lead in the world championship has been slashed to two points. Hamilton had a bit of a nightmare weekend in Germany, first crashing out of qualifying and starting the race from 10th. Today things seems like they were going better making up a number of places from the start line only to get tagged by the duelling BMW drivers in slippery conditions. Then the heavens opens and Lewis Hamilton went flying off the track at turn one when his car aquaplaned in the braking zone, but the Briton managed to get away with it as he managed to keep his engine going and was lifted back onto the track due to a technicality in the rules that Michael Schumacher exploited a few years ago. Jenson Button, Adrian Sutil Nico Rosberg, Scott Speed and Vitantonio Liuzzi weren’t so lucky and were beached in the gravel trap. Kimi Raikkonen failed to capitalise on Hamilton’s disastrous day going out of the race with a hydraulic failure on lap 35. Big surprises of the day was the Red Bull pairing of Mark Webber and David Coulthard managing to finish in 3rd and 5th respectively, keeping their heads during the rain interrupted race. Nick Heidfeld brought his BMW home in 6th followed by team mate Robert Kubica, Heikki Kovalainen claimed the final point for Renault. Despite everything Hamilton could have still finished on the podium if he didn’t take the ill fated decision to switch to slick (grooved) tyres early when the track clearly wasn’t ready for slicks, guess it’s a learning experience for the young Briton, and I am sure he’ll be firing on all cylinders for the next race in Hungary wanting to make up for his poor decisions this weekend. Although Hamilton lost his 100% podium finishes record, I am happy to see a different manufacturer on the podium in the shape of the Red Bull and a good result for DC as well. Although these results don’t really surprise me as both Mark Webber and David Coulthard are very good in difficult conditions!
England are in a good position after the fourth day of the first test against India, England made a decent total of 298 all out in the first innings after winning the toss. Andrew Strauss top scored with 96 off 186 deliveries and Michael Vaughan hit 79 off 209 deliveries. It was the Ryan Sidebottom and James Anderson show as England demolished the Indian batsmen claiming nine wickets between them to bowl out India for 201, this gave the English a first innings lead of 97 runs. Kevin Pietersen found some form from somewhere to post a score of 134 before being bowled by Singh, Matt Prior and Vaughan made useful contributions of 42 and 30 respectively posting a score of 282 all out; setting the Indians a target of 380 to win. Chris Tremlett removed Rahul Dravid and Monty Panesar removed Sachin Tendulkar from the crease both trapped LBW. India finished the day 137 – 3 still 242 runs behind England’s score. Let’s hope that rain doesn’t come to the rescue of the Indians and England manage to polish off the remaining seven wickets to take the lead in the series. There’s only two matches in the test series (which seems strange to me) so if England win this test, they can’t lose the series and only require a draw from the second test to clinch victory.
It was a disappointing night in The Voodoo Lounge, the bands were great, but the turn out wasn’t so great, only 16 people paid to see five excellent bands. That’s 60 pence per band, bargain of the century I think, but this is Plymouth; a city full of people that would rather spent five quid going to a nightclub and listen to CD’s than paying a couple of quid to see live music. In London people will pay a hell of lot more to see local or touring bands. A few bands I know that went to London to play reported back that hundreds of people came to see them, an unknown band from Plymouth and they appreciated the band for playing! Getting people to live gigs in Plymouth is like pulling teeth, I don’t understand it! I can’t go to many gigs because of working in Voodoo, but it’s a nightmare when I do, it’s hard to enjoy gigs when you are a sound engineer, I always end up analysing the sound! Anyway, you’ve missed out, I still maintain that no-one actually comes to see the really good bands