Formula 1

F1
I really do not remember the year but my first experience of formula 1 has been a poster of the great Ayrton Senna standing beside his machine and captioned " I race with God". It must be the late 80's or the early 90’s and I did not know what F1 was. However the caption did inspire me .

My brother was a keen watcher of F1 on television and somehow I got hooked to it by the late 90's. Mika and Coulthard were my favourites till Kimi joined. Like all McLaren fans of that time, I did dislike Michael Schumacher. While I did admit to my admiring his talent, I did not somehow approve of his overt, aggressive tactics.

I shifted my allegiance reluctantly along with Kimi and more so because of a rookie called Lewis Hamilton. I admire the talent and the controlled aggression of Kimi and more so his inability to accept defeat. His last race in the 2007 season is testimony to this. Having made this statement, Michael Schumacher's race to the championship after missing a good 2 - 3 months due to injury a few seasons ago is equally inspiring.

This season, my support is for Kimi and I hope he wins this season of highly competitive racing.

One irritant that bothers me is the naming of a race team after my country. None of the teams , as far as I know, have done this. The publicity hungry owner can hog as much limelight as he can but it cannot be by naming a lower tier team after my country. I would be happier if he spends as much as the Ferrari or McLaren on R&D, Drivers and others. Going by its performance, I would be happy if the team is instead renamed Force Kingfisher or better still Force Mallya.