Posts Tagged ‘Race’
Vettel holds off Hamilton for tense Spanish win
May 23, 2011 | 
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There may not have been as much overtaking as we saw in Turkey, but Lewis Hamilton made it a gripping Barcelona race on Sunday as he hounded Sebastian Vettel from the 20th to the 66th and final lap. The reigning world champion had to work every inch of the way as he took his fourth victory of the season for Red Bull, and the two drivers were separated by a mere 0.6s after more than 300 kilometres of flat-out racing.
There was drama that the crowd loved at the start when Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso burst through from fourth place to slam down the inside of poleman Mark Webber going into the first corner. It was the prelude to a disappointing afternoon for the Australian, who had been focusing on keeping Vettel at bay and didn’t spot the Ferrari in time.
Alonso kept it in the lead until his first of four pit stops on the 10th lap, and his second on the 19th, but thereafter the race was between Vettel and Hamilton, who stopped initially on Laps Nine and 11 and then 18 and 23 respectively, and also stopped four times in total.
As they raced ahead, Alonso kept a frustrated Webber at bay, and McLaren’s Jenson Button worked his way back from a terrible start that dropped him initially from fifth on the grid to 10th at the end of the opening lap.
Alonso was third when he pitted for the third time on the 29th lap, and again he held off Webber, but the Spaniard soon blistered a set of hard tyres and gradually dropped away as he had to make his final set of hard Pirellis last from the 39th lap to the end.
Not so Vettel and Hamilton, who went at it hammer and tongs. The gap fluctuated between two seconds and half a second, but in a race in which DRS failed to generate as much overtaking action as had been expected, a 0.6s to 0.7s stalemate set in over the final 15 laps and Vettel worked the traffic well to maintain this small but crucial advantage after a super-cool drive. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in F1, Racing | 
Tags: Barcelona, f1, Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, Hamilton, Jenson Button, Mark Webber, McLaren, Mercedes, Michael Schumacher, Race, Red Bull Racing, Renault, Spanish, Vettel | 
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A Guide To The Oxford And Cambridge University Boat Race
I have been fascinated with the annual Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge University for as long as I can remember. I didn’t attend any of these top two British Universities, nor do I have an avid enthusiasm for rowing but this traditional race of the two boats over exactly 4 miles and 374 yards still holds a fascination for me. I am not alone as the televised event is broadcast, from the historic River Thames, to hundreds of countries and has an audience of millions. The idea for the boat race between these paragons of academia was dreamt up by two students, both named Charles, funnily enough. Charles Merivale was at Cambridge University and Charles Wordsworth was at Oxford.
Cambridge issued their challenge to Oxford on March 12th 1829. Ever since then, it has been a tradition for the loser of a year’s race to challenge the other boat to a rematch the following year.
On 10th June 1829, thousands of enthusiastic people descended on the small town of Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire. They were there to witness the first ever staging of the Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge’s best rowing teams. In a rather embarrassing turn of events the race had to be stopped shortly after both boats had begun to be rowed. It was restarted and Oxford was the winner of the first boat race against Cambridge.
One thing that I didn’t realise about the Boat Race until fairly recently was that the members of both crews do not get any special dispensation as far as their studies go. If they can’t keep up with their academic commitments then the students must resign from that year’s boat squad.
The Boat Race is on a Sunday in March or April and the main event is preceded by a competition between Isis and Goldie. These are the reserve boats for Oxford and Cambridge in that order. About half an hour later the Blue Boats, as the first teams of each University are known, takes place. Cambridge is light blue and Oxford dark blue.
Posted in Boats | Tags: academic commitments, boat, boating, Boats, Cambridge, Charles, Charles Merivale, Charles Wordsworth, Goldie, henley on thames, Henley-on-, Isis, Oxford, oxford cambridge, Oxfordshire, Race, river thames, sailing, Thames, two boats, University, yachting, yachts | No Comments »