Geoff Arnold

Ashes 2005 - the DVD

When I was in England last week, the most prominent DVD displayed in the shops wasn't a blockbuster film, or a music video: it was the three DVD set covering this summer's Ashes - the cricket series between England and Australia. However it bore the dreaded Region 2+4 logo, meaning that it wouldn't play on US DVD players. (Yes, I know I could unlock mine, but I'd prefer not to have to.) So I was delighted to find that a company called Dreamcricket is about to start shipping the US (NTSC) version. Warne, Flintoff, Vaughan... and Richie Benaud's farewell. I can hardly wait!

From 17th to 1st

I went to bed early to get a few hours sleep before getting up to watch the Japanese Grand Prix in the middle of the night. It was definitely worth it: it was a thrilling race, with an inspired performance by Raikkonen in the McLaren. The TV coverage of the final battle between Fisichella and Raikkonen was great, enhanced by side-by-side telemetry readout of brake and throttle from both drivers at the bottom of the screen.

It was fascinating from a technical point of view. The McLaren is almost perfect, but it has one weakness: the front wing tends to be slightly less effective under asymmetric airflow, so when it's following another car closely the front end can lose grip. The effect is small, but it shows up quite clearly from the in-car camera. The result was that Raikkonen took a long time getting around Michael Schumacher, and was unable to overtake Mark Webber until the Williams driver pitted. Without those delays, the final dual wouldn't have been necessary: Raikkonen would have been long gone. (After the last pit stop he was hauling in Fisichella at better than a second a lap!)

(So much for those who think that there's no passing in Formula One!)

England wins the Ashes

Pietersen reaches his century on the way to a total of 158, as England draw the Fifth Test and thereby win the Ashes for the first time since 1987! According to reports, England has gone cricket crazy; one writer compared it with the Red Sox winning the World Series last year. (I'm not going to risk commenting on that!) Anyway, congratulations to both teams. (I wonder if the BBC will release a "highlights" DVD that will play on Region 1 players.)

What happened between Montoya and Pizzonia?

I've been following this morning's Belgian Grand Prix via the BBC's lap-by-lap reports on their website. I think I understand everything that happened, except for the Montoya-Pizzonia incident. Could someone who was watching the TV feed explain what happened? The BBC reported it thus:

Lap 42: Out of the blue, from second place, Montoya and Pizzonia clip one another - Pizzonia loses one of his front wheels, and Montoya ends up in the pit wall.

I know there were reports of drivers changing tyres throughout the race: was this simply a coming-together in the rain and mist? Anyway, congratulations to Kimi, and (I guess) to Alonso, who has almost clinched the title.

The year of the tyre

A nail-biting Italian Grand Prix... and once again it all came down to tyres. First we had the astonishing qualifying performance by Raikkonen: he had to change an engine, so he was penalized 10 places on the grid. To compensate, he opted for a one-stop strategy and filled his fuel tank to the brim - and he still got the fastest time in qualifying! Stunning. Next, Raikkonen fought all the way up to second place, only to have the left rear tyre fail; the pit stop dropped him to 12th, and he wound up 4th. Finally, Jan-Pablo Montoya, who had led the race from the pole, started to experience the same kind of tyre failure. It was hard to repress memories of Raikkonen's last lap crash at the European Grand Prix, but Montoya had enough of a lead over Alonso that he was able to slow down* and hold on for the win.

Two interesting notes. First, there were no retirements from the race; Montoya reported that this caused real traffic problems for the leaders. And second, Michael Schumacher finished out of the points, in 10th place. This means that he's mathematically eliminated from the race for the championship, even though there still are four more races in the season.

Next week is the Belgian Grand Prix from one of my favourite tracks, Spa. Unfortunately I'll be at a hotel in Louisville, Colorado, and they don't offer Speed TV on their cable system. So I'll have to follow the race via the web.

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* Of course, "slow down" is relative: we're talking about no more than 2 or 3 percent

Cricket for baseball enthusiasts

Many of my American friends are mystified by cricket: not just the rules, but the very mechanics of the game. They assume that bowling is like pitching, and can't seem to understand that in cricket one is dealing with movement in the air (as in pitching) and movement "off the pich", generated when the spinning ball bounces. The BBC have put up a series of brief video masterclasses on various cricket techniques; the one called Learn the basics of leg-spin is particularly good. Recommended.

Ashes 2005

If British Airways wasn't all screwed up... and if I could get a ticket for the match... I'd be sorely tempted to fly back to England tonight to watch tomorrow's play in the Third Test match at Old Trafford. How often do you get to savour news like this? "Simon Jones and Ashley Giles took three wickets apiece as Australia closed in deep trouble 234 runs behind England."

60 laps of unremitting concentration

Watching the British Grand Prix this morning, I was trying to imagine what it would be like to spend nearly an hour and a half at an average speed of 135 MPH, at the limits of adhesion, with no opportunity to relax. Even pit stops don't offer a break - witness the way that Fisichella threw away points in both the French and British Grands Prix by stalling in the pits. Anyway, Montoya executed flawlessly today to beat Alonso; Raikkonen was third, but only because he was moved 10 places down the grid because of an engine change. Without that, it would have been a McLaren 1-2.

As David Hobbs just reminded us, the British Grand Prix is perpetually under threat from the Formula One organizers. This makes no sense: for most teams it's the "home race" (even the Renault team is based in England), and the event always attracts a huge, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic crowd.

And Michael Schumacher, who completely dominated the 2004 season? The only time the camera picked him out was to show how he was holding up Raikkonen's progress towards the front. Other than that, he was curiously irrelevant, finishing 6th.

Tim puts the U.S. GP into perspective

Molesworth channeling Raymond Baxter, as it were: "nobody in the crowd was really noticing a number of heated exchanges in the sand pits. we're english, we don't notice heated exchanges... out of the corner of my eye, I could see bernadette ecclescake and baxter moselyshoals striding into the maths room, waving their arms in the air and saying something about shoe shops". Sorted.

No point

Normally I would be posting my thoughts about the latest Formula 1 race: the U. S. Grand Prix, which was scheduled to be run today at Indianapolis. However since what actually happened does not deserve to be called a race, I don't think I have anything more to say.....

Actually, I do have one thing to say:
"Earth to FIA: remember that the fans come first. Without an audience, you have nothing."

[UPDATE] You can see here just what the Michelin problem was.

European Grand Prix (Nurburgring)

The story today is about tyres and gravel. It used to be the case that gravel traps were supposed to stop cars, quickly and safely, but in today's race car after car was running off the track, through the gravel, keeping going, and able to drive back onto the track. Schumacher, Alonso, Raikkonen, Massa.... And the tyre problems for Raikkonen, Massa, and others were spectacular. First, watching a strip of rubber from Massa's left front slice off the end-plate of the wing, and then just now, as I'm typing, Raikkonen's crash at the start of the last lap, while he was leading; his flat-spotted right front tyre vibrated so much that his suspension finally failed.

My man DC wound up in 4th place (beating Michael Schumacher!) after leading at one point; he might have been 3rd if he hadn't incurred a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

Oh yes, the result. Alonso/Heidfeld/Barrichello.

Liverpool! Liverpool!!

GO REDS!!!! What a stunning performance by Liverpool tonight in the Champions League Final. 3-0 down to Milan at half-time, they looked crushed. Then in the second half they came back to make it 3-3 at full time. They survived several near misses during a goalless extra time, and won the penalty shoot-out 3-2 to win the title. Sheer determination. Congratulations!

(And now as the officials prepare for the medal ceremony, the Liverpool fans are singing "You'll never walk alone"....)

Monaco Grand Prix

Just finished watching the Monaco Grand Prix. Traditionally, this is a race where it's almost impossible to overtake, because the streets are so narrow. Not this year - just ask Villeneuve, Alonso, Heidfeld, Webber, Schumacher.... Congratulations Raikkonen and McLaren (sponsored by Sun).

BBC SPORT | Motorsport | Formula One | Live: Monaco Grand Prix

Lap 78: Raikkonen crosses the start-finish line for his last lap. And sure enough he cruises to a lights-to-flag victory.

One place back, Montoya tries to force his way past Alonso but he fails to make it count in the dying few hundred metres of the race. A thrilling finish to the Monaco Grand Prix.

Raikonnen in Spain

Today's F1 Grand Prix was from Spain, and once again it was being televised on network TV five hours after the event. Again I face the dilemma: whether to avoid all sources of news so that I can watch the race without knowing the result. I decided to do so, with some difficulty - even my screen-saver is a news channel! (Mac OS X "Tiger" includes a cool RSS reader screen saver.)

An impressive performance from McLaren (which is sponsored by Sun - so where do I find a T-shirt?) and Kimi. Ferrari's awful season continues: perhaps Bridgestone tyres should quit....

Congratulations Chelsea

I took a few minutes this afternoon to watch the culmination of a great season for Chelsea FC: defeating Bolton 2-0: "Chelsea sealed their first championship for 50 years with victory at Bolton. Frank Lampard struck twice in the second half as manager Jose Mourinho added the Premiership to the Carling Cup in his first season in charge." I watched all of the second half of the match, and I thought that both Lampard's goals were delightful. I'm not particularly a Chelsea fan (in fact I'm not a dedicated supporter of any one team: I'll cheer for Manchester United, Arsenal, and Liverpool - sorry, Steve), but Chelsea's championship victory is very well-deserved.

Thread convergence: Formula 1 and Jini

Regular readers will have noted that two of my greatest enthusiasms are for Formula 1 motor racing and Sun's Jini™ distributed computing technology. So one item in today's quarterly "customer wins" press release from Sun is particularly sweet:

"Magneti Marelli Holding (Italy) -- Sun designed, for Magneti Marelli Racing Department, a new system to manage telemetry data for Formula 1 teams in real time, using Java and Jini(TM)/Rio technology with the aim of achieving the required performance, to support multiple platforms, such as Linux and Windows, and to provide high availability and location transparency of components."

I don't think I'm supposed to identify individual teams, but every time you see a car with this logo, think Jini.

Go Alonso!

Time for the 4th round in the 2005 Formula One season: the San Marino Grand Prix. (San Marino? Relax: it's just an excuse for the Italians to get two races in the season.) Here in the US, most GPs are televised live on Speed TV, with pretty knowledgeable commentators who treat the audience as fellow enthusiasts. However four of the races are shown on network TV (CBS) instead. This was one of those, which meant (1) it was tape-delayed until 1PM EST, and (2) we had to put up with inane, hyperactive commentators who assume that the viewers know nothing about the sport. So turn the sound DOWN, and make sure you have a good book to read during the interminable commercial breaks.

Fortunately I managed to avoid hearing the results in advance, so I was able to enjoy the thrilling battle between Alonso and Michael Schumacher over the last few laps. The Ferrari was clearly quicker, but Alonso never put a wheel wrong, and he was able to make it four out of four for Renault. (Of course if Schumacher hadn't screwed up during qualifying, he'd have run away with the race.)

(As for my man David Coulthard, let's just say that it wasn't one of his best days....)

Another Grand Prix... but this time I'll sleep on it

The Malaysian Grand Prix takes place this weekend, and reports from the first qualifying session suggest that it's going to be a very interesting race. Once again the Ferraris seem to be out of contention. (Sadly, so is my man DC - though at least he was faster than Michael Schumacher.) However I think I'm going to put common-sense ahead of enthusiasm, and let the VCR watch this one for me - the TV coverage runs from 1:30am to 4am here in Boston....

Formula 1 the way it's supposed to be

I just watched an excellent Grand Prix in Australia. [My sympathy for my SunUK colleagues: if they stayed up to watch, it's now 4:45AM over there.] Close competitive racing, plenty of passing, general uncertainty because of all the new rules.... In the end Fisichella scored a solid win for Renault, while Michael Schumacher's Ferrari was in the garage.

I've always been a David Coulthard fan, and I was disappointed when McLaren let him go at the end of last season. While it was gratifying that the new Red Bull (ex-Jaguar) team picked him up, nobody expected very much from them. I was therefore delighted that Coulthard was able to hold on to 3rd for most of the race, and finished 4th, ahead of the Williams and McLaren drivers. Stunning!