Oh yeah – a classic, classic lap. Brilliant stuff. And I’ve finally found a copy without the annoying American voiceover that plagues most copies of this lap.
Those familiar with Suzuka will notice how insanely late he brakes into Spoon and how hard he attacks the chicane (old configuration, and all done one-handed because of the manual gearboxes used back then). This lap put Senna on pole by about half an hour; there was just daylight back to second.
Step through the chicane frame by frame. You’ll notice there’s a moment just in the middle of the right-left transition where the car is perfectly stable and pointing directly ahead. The advertising signs you’re looking at are perfectly still and focused. Very, very rare, and the mark of a truly great driver. Most drivers would fling the car from right to left; there wouldn’t be that small moment of stabilisation and balance in between. Total, total control.
The race victory is recorded as belonging to Gerhard Berger, but that doesn’t tell the real story. Senna completely dominated the race, then handed victory to Berger on the last lap. Second place was all he needed to secure the world championship, and handing Berger the win was a thank-you for on-track “tactical” help throughout the year.
Recovering well, but miserable.
I’ve been laid low all holiday weekend by a pretty severe hit of gastro. I’m almost certain I got it from some of the food I ate at the ITIL course I did last week, because someone else from Siemens did the same course and they too had a weekend that revolved around the smallest room in the house.
Sunday was pure hell; I spent the whole day lying on the couch totally unable to move. Monday was better, and today I’m starting to feel half reasonable. Given that I’ll be contagious for 24-48 hours after symptoms disappear I don’t really see myself heading into work this week at all.
At least I’m doing better than Nephew Adam. He’s in intensive care in Box Hill hospital after getting some food stuck in his throat a few days ago, and then ending up with a small perforation in his throat as a result. He’ll recover just fine; the doctors say they don’t think they’ll need to intervene any further, and that the perforation will repair itself just fine. Right now though Adam obviously can’t eat or drink, so he’s full of tubes keeping up fluids and nutrition.
Oh, and the final sickie news is that we picked Jess up from the vet today; he’s a bit miserable but the operation went just fine. We just have to put up with a 12 year old windy dog for the next 4 weeks of close confinement. Nice.
Jessie has ruptured his left cruciate ligament. He did the right one in August 2004, and after many dollars and weeks of recovery he was fine.
He was running from the pen into the back yard a few days ago, and suddenly pulled up lame. I took him to the vet and he confirmed what we thought. We’ll find out tomorrow or Tuesday when he’ll be operated on.
I suggested to the vet that Jess will be an indoor dog from now on (he is over 12, after all, and that’s early 70s translated to human years) but he said that there is no reason he needs to be. As he said; “He’s now done both cruciate ligaments, so he can’t do any more!“.
He’s in excellent condition for a dog his age. No reason he can’t go back to playing outside once this has been fixed, but I think we’ll keep him indoors anyway.
If you haven’t already seen them, check out the Cassini photos on the NASA website. Fantastic.
I have been incredibly busy at work this week, so nothing exciting has happened at all.
Who said what?