I’m a big fan of motor sports and Formula 1 in particular. My love for F1 started way back in 1998 when I used to follow the McLaren F1 team and one of my all time favourite driver, Mika Hakkinen. Some believe he’s not a legend like the now retired 7 time world champion, Michael Schumacher but to me its about speed and all about speed. I loved the way Mika raced with Schumi on course to become back to back world champion in 1998 and 1999. After the retirement (or so called sabbatical) of Mika, I was very impressed with a new talent called Kimi Raikkonen.

Incidentally, he is also a Finn just like Mika and believe me Finns are fast when it comes to racing. Kimi proved that again and again during his 5 year tenure with Team McLaren Mercedes. I put the blame entirely on his team for not being able to provide him with a reliable championship winning car. Though, he came quite close to winning it on two occasions. First in 2003, battling against the mighty Michael and then in 2005 against Alonso, the two time and reigning world champion. Since then a lot has changed for all three of them. Schumi retired, Kimi switched to Ferrari and Alonso to McLaren and all these promises to bring us an exciting and unpredictable season of F1 ahead, a first in several years. Some people believe it also marks the beginning of a new era in F1.

Almost all participating teams have launched their cars for this new season. Some teams have got new designs while others were more than satisfied with adding a few modified parts and aero enhancements. As I write this, many of those teams are testing in Catalunya circuit in Spain. Although the times posted in testing aren’t official and their accuracy can’t be guaranteed, its a good indication of how the teams stack up against each other in terms of performance. Over the period of the season, teams will continue testing new parts and keep adding them to their cars to be able to strike that perfect balance between speed and reliability. As of now McLaren, Ferrari and Renault seems to be the top contenders while Williams, BMW Sauber, Honda and Toyota are expected to perform better than they did last year. New cars from both Williams and BMW are upto the speed with top contenders and their aim should be to match that speed with consistent reliability.

I hope to keep you people updated with the latest news from F1 through this blog.