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Lotus F1 launched the new E21 on the 28th of January. And perhaps Kimi's only hope of winning his second WDC title. James Allison, technical head of Lotus F1, who is perhaps even better than Adrian Newey, states that the E21 is an evolution of the E20, as the 2013 rules are similar to the 2012 ones, so it's not a major change. Which is good for Lotus, as the E20 was a fundamentally quick car and managed it's tyres well. With Pirelli claiming their new 2013 tyres will suffer even more degradation, this could be Lotus's year. If the E21 is anywhere near quick relatively as the E20, then they will definitely be winning races, and challenging for the championship, both drivers, and constructors. With Kimi back upto 100% race fit, 2013 looks good for Lotus. Actually, now that Kimi has become older and wiser, not only is the fastest driver on track, but also one the smarter ones. Aiming for consistent podium finishes has also become one his priorities, apart from winning, so he will definitely be in the contention for the championship. Lest we forget, James Allison and his team are geniuses as well, rocking up in 2012 with a ride height control system not seen in Formula 1 since the Williams of 1993. But Newey started crying so it wasn't allowed. This year, James has come up something but he hasn't disclosed what it is yet. Their DDRS system is not banned by the current regulation unlike Mercedes's and Red Bull's so they have that advantage as well.

I drew and painted a bougainvillea using watercolours, and I decided to see what I could do to it.

Here is what I drew, and I transferred it to my Mac using a Nikon 5100. My scanner wasn't big enough, so I had to use a DSLR.

Original Image

The latest version of Pixelmator with it's very convenient new Effect menu(command-3), it is extremely simple to apply filters.

Image in pixelmator

Before applying any filters, try to enhance the image first, and make it look natural. I increased the exposure so that it was slightly brighter than what I had taken a picture of initially.

I started applying a variety of effects, and sometimes also combining a few of them. But as you'll notice, your drawing and painting skills do play a large role in applying the various filters. A DSLR will pick out even the most minute details and every shade will be visible. So, a well painted drawing will be a better candidate to apply the filters on.

Monza is one the most exciting track on the calendar. Fast and deceptively tricky, it is quite a challenge to put in a nice clean lap and break your previous record.

This is the track,


First of all, the setup is very important. This is a low downforce track, and it is very important to maximise your corner exit speed to exploit the low downforce setup on the straights. The yellow dot on the track, just before Turn 1, is the maximum speed the car will reach. If you hit around 340km/hr+, then you're set for a good lap.

The gearing is also very important. As the top speed is very important for qualifying and overtaking, higher gear ratios are better, but they will hurt you on the slower corners. but as Monza only has 1 slow corner, the chicane of Turn 1 and Turn 2, so it won't affect the lap.

So low downforce and high gearing.

Now the track itself.

This is my new home.

This is what happened when I got my copy of F1 2012.


Day 1: Finished downloading from Mac App Store by midnight. Took quite a lot of time. Spent all day long watching clips of the real season and ridiculing drivers. Of course I can drive better than them. It's a piece of cake. Pftt.

Day 2: (continued from Day 1 midnight) Fired up the game, and straight into Young Drivers Test. Turns out it's quite hard to drive a Formula 1 car with a keyboard. No wonder real drivers use a steering wheel. Did well in the Test, and got job with Force India. Got bored of career, and went online. Got pwned in every race. Then became extremely angry and smashed into race leader while getting lapped. That b****** recovered and finished the race in P1. I get DNF. Went to sleep with angry and disturbing thoughts of disappointment.

Most of them are terribly unfunny...

Here are a few of the less well know Formula 1 quotes,


Sebastian Vettel

"Never lift. Never stop believing"

"We keep on working, we do our thing, we are who we are"

"Like on normal roads, you have some idiots driving around. It seems there is also one driving here."

Sebastian Vettel after a collision with Narain Karthikeyan denied him the chance to finish fourth at the Malaysian GP.

This is what happened when BMW launched the M5.

"Aston Martin Rapide S. The most powerful and most luxurious four-door Aston Martin ever produced."

Sebastian Vettel is team player. In fact, he worships his team. He's even got helmets with his mechanics faces and names on them. Mark Webber, senior driver, and who's been at Red Bull for two years before Vettel, hasn't won a single championship. And he doesn't worship his team as publicly as Vettel does.

Result? Vettel, triple world drivers champion. Webber? Handful of wins.

Of course, the Red Bull is a car designed specifically for Vettel's driving style. But why hasn't the car been designed for Webber?

Apply opposite lock and accelerate.

Colin McRae Rally Mac is the equivalent of Colin McRae Rally 2005 by Codemasters and has been ported over to the Mac by Feral Interactive. Even though this game is now quite old, Feral Interactive knowingly, or mistakenly ported one of the best rally games of all time.

Paying homage to the Colin McRae, the game menu is subtle and stylish, and you can choose any one of the different game modes. Career, single rally events, or just rally stages, the choice is yours. Once you choose your car and stage, the player can make car setup changes, and you do have to be smart, as the setup can win you the rally, or trash your car.

There are many, many sites out there with the best racing games listed out there on the internet. I however, have played and bought every game on this list. So even though you might not find the most popular games here, there's a good reason why. Because most of them are terrible. Porting games to from Windows to a Mac doesn't always work out well.
The list of the best racing games for Mac(not in any specific order) are,

ToCA Race Driver 3

Feral Interactive ported F1 2012 to Mac about a month ago, which is great, just that the game is already pretty old by now and F1 2013 is coming in April 2013. Anyhow I downloaded my copy of F1 2012 a week ago, and I was immensely excited to finally play it on my Mac, and not having to boot up Windows 7 via Bootcamp to play it. And as I don't like booting to Windows, I barely played F1 2012 on it anyway. The game is superb, and my Mac easily runs it on max graphics setting, and the visuals are amazing. Surprisingly the Windows version cannot run the game on max graphics without frame skip or lag. I'm using OS X Mountain Lion just by the way.

However when I started playing F1 2012, immediately there was a problem. It's simply impossible to play the game with keyboard controls. You just cannot match the pace of the amateur level AI, let alone hardened veterans online who have a proper gaming setup. Now I did not have a wheel, or a console controller of any sort. But I do have my trusty million year old PSP. So I revived my PSP(which had F1 '09 on it surprisingly), and hooked it up to my Mac.

Next, I downloaded FusaGamePad for the PSP. Now, FusaGamePad only works for rooted PSP's, like mine was. To root your PSP, look for instructions online. It's easy and plenty of tutorials are available.

Here's the link: FusaGamePad

Now connect your PSP to the Mac, goto PSP>GAME and drag the folder named FusaGamePad from the PSP>GAME from the downloaded file.

Drag the folder to PSP>GAME

Don't disconnect your PSP from your Mac. Press the Eject button on the Mac, exit USB Mode on the PSP and open FusaGamePad on the PSP. Your PSP is now a controller, just like any other joystick.

Now, open F1 2012, and go to options and edit the controls and modify the controls to the buttons on the PSP, and you're set.

My settings with the PSP for F1 2012 are as follows:

Steering Saturation: 70%
Steering Deadzone: 70%
Steering Linearity: 100%

Carbon fibre galore

Earlier this year, in the Belgian Formula 1 Grand Prix, there was a catastrophic first corner pile up, and Grosjean, Hamilton, Alonso, and Perez were caught out in the whirlwind of carbon fibre. The blame was promptly put on Grosjean for being too aggressive at the start, and to some extent that is true. But looking at the race footage, I don't think Grosjean was the sole perpetrator. I downloaded the race edit, and saw the video frame by frame, and I think some of the blame can be put on Hamilton's shoulders as well.