Starting with F1; not that I actually managed to watch the race as I fell back to sleep within a lap or two of the race starting but Jenson Button took his fourth race win out of five this season at the Circuit de Catalunya. The Briton was initially jumped at the start by team mate Rubens Barrichello but the Brazilian fell behind behind as Ross Brawn switched Jenson’s strategy. Barrichello could have still won the race but failed to do the required lap times to achieve the victory blaming his tyres for his uncompetitive lap times. There has been a lot of discussion about whether Barrichello has what it takes to win after playing second fiddle to Michael Schumacher at Ferrari for so many years, and this performance hasn’t indicated different! Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel got jumped off the start by Barrichello and the KERS enabled Ferrari of Felipe Massa and was stuck behind both Brazilian for the majority of the race which massively compromised the Germans race. To add to Vettel’s misery of being stuck behind Massa, the German was jumped by his team mate Mark Webber who opted for a slightly different pit-stop strategy. Vettel finally got past Massa’s Ferrari during the closing laps to finish fourth behind his team mate to make it a Red Bull 3 – 4 behind the Brawn duo of Button and Barrichello. Felipe Massa eventually finished in sixth behind Spaniard Fernando Alonso as the Brazilian switched to a fuel saving mode as he didn’t get enough fuel in the car on his final pit-stop. BMW’s Nick Heidfeld finished in seventh and Williams’ Nico Rosberg claimed the final point in eighth place. Lewis Hamilton had another disappointing race managing to battle his way upto ninth place from 14th on the grid. It seems that the improvements to the McLaren were a step backwards as the Woking based squad failed to walk away with a single point from Spain. Jenson Button extended his lead in the world drivers championship to 14 points over his team mate. Right now it seems like Brawn have got it all sown up but I expect the likes of McLaren and Ferrari to bounce back and challenge for the win in the next few races but it maybe too little too late by that time as Brawn and Red Bull will have disappeared off over the horizon into the sunset!
In football there’s nothing to report from Plymouth Argyle as the Championship season is done and dusted baring the play-off games and Argyle’s status as a Championship club is secured for another year (albeit by the skin of their teeth). But the battle for the Premiership title rages on as both Liverpool and Manchester United win their games this weekend. United are still top of the league by three points and still have a game in hand; therefore remain hot favourites for the title. The Mancunians don’t even need to win their final game against Hull to take the title so myself and millions of Reds fans will be hoping that Arsenal avenge their drubbing in the Champions League and beat United. Then Ferguson’s XI will need to win their final game against Hull assuming Liverpool can win all their remaining games. I don’t believe that Hull will be an easy team to beat especially when their Premiership status is likely to be at stake in that game!
Now for something I haven’t written about for a while because of the atrocious form of the English national cricket team! That’s right England managed to actually win a test match; the Englishmen beating the West Indies by 10 wickets. England set the Windies a target of 377 in their first innings with Ravi Bopara knocking up a fantastic 143 runs including 17 fours. Bowler Graeme Swann was the only other Englishman to make more than a half century hitting 63 not out! England went on to bowl out the WI for 152 with Graham Onions taking 5 wickets for 38 runs in 9.3 overs. England captain Andrew Strauss elected to force the West Indies to follow on. The Windies put up more resistance in their second innings with Brendan Nash and Denesh Ramdin adding 143 runs to the cause, but it was too little, too late. England eventually bowled out the Windies for 256 runs, only 31 runs ahead of England’s first innings total. On day three, the Englishmen only needed 32 runs to win and openers Andrew Strauss and Alistair Cook knocked up 14 runs a piece with four extras to take a comprehensive win in the first test! It’s an encouraging win for England in this Ashes year but many of the top six failed with the bat and were saved by an excellent individual performance from Ravi Bopara and some brilliant batting from a bowler. Not taking away anything from the WI but they are no Australia, England need players that consistently hit centuries to have a hope in hell of beating the Aussies!
For something non-sports related; 3D Realms who created the seminal games Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein 3D have closed their doors for the final time. For someone that was massively into gaming in my younger days breaking my gaming teeth on games like Duke Nukem “I come here to chew gum and kick alien ass; and I’m all out of gum!” it’s a sad day indeed! I guess it’s been a long time coming with the sequel Duke Nukem Forvever being in development for 12 years, it was unlikely to ever come out as it switched from rendering engine to rendering engine to keep up with current technology. Publishing company Take 2 Interactive still hold the rights to the game but it’s likely to never make it onto shop shelves as the game is nowhere near completion!