Fisichella move to Ferrari – a boon or a bane for Force India

Fisi celebrating his 2nd place at Spa

Force India has lately been going through exciting times! The Kingfisher of good times has suddenly found a sweet spot and largely has it’s lead driver – Giancarlo Fisichella – a Formula 1 veteran, to thank for it when they secured their first podium finish and points of their Grand Prix history.

I have written about Mallya’s brave moves when he, alongwith the Mol family, bought out the Spyker F1 team (the rechristened Midland F1 or the erstwhile Jordan team) in 2007. It’s been a seesaw two seasons for Vijay Mallya. The VJM01 was nowhere close to competitiveness and the VJM02 showed signs of promise with the new regulations but somehow their first points were eluding them.

Seventymm – India’s answer to NetFlix/Slumdog millionnaire/F1 update

Seventymm.com is India’s answer to NetFlix.

I have been using this service for an initial subscription of Rs. 849 unlimited for 1 DVD per day for 3 months and so far, my experience has been very good. The DVD quality has been excellent and their pick-up/drop is a hassle-free experience for us.

We are putting our DVD player to maximum use with an average of 5 movies in 5 days! In just a week we saw the following:

Rolls Royce Phantom – my chance encounter!

Keeping with the uniqueness of my posts, here is one more: On my way back from work, I chanced upon an exquisite beauty!

Near the Forum Mall, Whitefield, was a Rolls Royce Phantom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Phantom) on display! I quickly took out my Blackberry and snapped out a few pictures courtesy of some of the chaps from the Mobile Store who were there. They even offered to take pictures of mine with the car and put it up on their website but I politely declined.

Economics of a Tata Nano

The Tata Nano logo

Image credit/source: The Tata Nano website (http://tatanano.inservices.tatamotors.com/tatamotors/)

http://ecofin.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/the-tata-nano-launched-in-multiple-variants/

http://ecofin.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/specifications-of-the-tata-1-lac-car/

http://ecofin.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/the-tatas-1-lac-car-the-nano-officially-lauched/

Can they really achieve profitability or is it just an exercise for Tata Motors to say they did it first, build market share in the entry level segment (they have effectively created an A- segment in the entry level segment in automobiles in India!) and built the world’s cheapest car ever even if they don’t make any great profits as their margins would be wafer thin?

Brawn GP scores 1/2 in the Australian Grand Prix

Congratulations to Ross Brawn. The ex-bosses of this team back at Japan must be kicking themselves that they were so near yet so far from their incorrect decision in withdrawing from F1 a tad early after all the hardwork!

But, nothing can be taken away from Ross Brawn and the way he interpreted the rules for the 2009 season and even managed to rope in their first main sponsor, Sir. Richard Branson’s Virgin group!

Brawn Grand Prix scores 1/2 in Melbourne qualifying!

Brawn GP 2009 car - BGP001 - Jenson Button

Isn’t life full of surprises?

This is exactly what Brawn GP pulled off with Jenson Button on pole and Rubens Barrichello on 2nd position followed by Sebastian Vettel (who won a GP last year and I had blogged about him then as well) in the season opening Australian Grand Prix!

The car is just awesome and Ross Brawn at the head offers tremendous promise to what is tipped to be one of the most exciting seasons in recent times!

They got their first sponsor – none other than Virgin group’s – Sir. Richard Branson! Way to go! I have followed Ross Brawn and he was the technical brain behind Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher victories during the late 90’s and the early 2000’s era! The killer combo of Schumacher + John Todt + Ross Brawn was too hot for any team to handle in those days and it is great to see Ross Brawn at his thinking best with a car that truly ‘performs’. Remember this is the erstwhile Honda team that he bought and also remember that these very drivers we are talking of as pole sitters today used to be the first from the back of the grid along with the Force India’s last season! Just goes to show nothing can be taken for granted in this world of competitiveness in every walk of life!

http://www2.brawngp.com/teaminfo.asp

The new F1 2009 season begins tomorrow at Melbourne!

The Australian Grand Prix begins at Melbourne tomorrow with a whole new set of rules/regulations/car aerodynamics with a much shorter rear wing and broader front wing and the KERS system for cars.

This is one heck of an exciting season with the erstwhile honda F1 (now Brawn GP) showing tremendous promise and McLaren Mercedes Benz for once not having its season opening charge. Ferrari is still somewhere at the top. The field is wide open now for almost 4-6 teams to compete for the top spot.

This is going to be an enthralling season – something tells me so! I have high hopes from Force India – our very own team India of sorts run by the liquor Baron Vijay Mallya (VJM) with the shades of the Indian tricolor on the car and as usual with the KingFisher branding heavy on the car!

The Tata Nano launched in multiple variants

http://ecofin.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/the-tatas-1-lac-car-the-nano-officially-lauched/

I saw this launch on television yesterday. It was really a proud moment for Ratan Tata and his dream project to take shape. I had blogged about this in January 2008 as well. The base variant is still priced at about Rs. 1 lacs so Mr. Tata has kept his promise. They will initially have a lottery system for the first 1 lac Nano cars that Tata Motors will sell. The customers are expected to pay 70% of the cost of the car upfront. The Tata Motors Sanand plant in Gujarat is due to be on stream and operational only in 2010 so it is still about 9 months.

I would wait to see real on-road tests of this Tata Nano to see how it performs before I get to think of buying it next year!

A typical Google search causes 7g of CO2 emission/is this argument justified?

I read this on the Internet today (Source: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5489134.ece)

While I had an urge to put this to every person to spare a thought for the environment and think of the fact that I needed to curtail my Google searches and use them judiciously as I am a heavy user of Google search on my PC, Macbook and on my Blackberry (almost 12/24 hours a day), I realized, I was doing something fundamentally incorrect.

Wrapped up reading the Snowball – biography of Warren Buffett

I did 900 pages of straight  reading in 5 full days to wrap it up – review will follow by virtue of  learnings. Scintillating book!