Tag: Abu Dhabi

RUBINA’S RADAR | MAX VERSTAPPEN WINS THE F1 ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX 2023 FOUR TIMES IN A ROW

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NOVEMBER 27, 2023

The Abu Dhabi racing weekend came to a close on November 26th, 2023 with Max Verstappen winning the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Formula 1 Grand Prix 2023 at the Yas Island circuit in Abu Dhabi, UAE. This is a record win for Verstappen who won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2023 for the fourth year in a row (2020, 2021, 2022) and he also became the first driver in history to surpass 1,000 laps led in a single season. This was Verstappen’s 54th career win, wherein he surpassed Sebastian Vettel for third on the all-time win list, behind Michael Schumacher’s 91 and Lewis Hamilton’s 103. Verstappen’s 1,003 laps led this season equals the total led by McLaren in their 1988 season with Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna.

Race winner Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (1) Oracle Red Bull Racing RB19 performs donuts on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi at Yas Marina Circuit on November 26, 2023 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

After a stupendous final lap, donuts on the track make for some of the best victory shots in Formula 1 with the car in fumes and flames, and the winning Verstappen did not disappoint. The son of former Formula 1 driver, Jos Verstappen and former go-kart racer Sophie Kumpen, this was Verstappen’s 19th win out of 22 races of the season this year. Charles Leclerc, a Monégasque racing driver for Scuderia Ferrari, finished second and British driver George Russell for Mercedes, took third place in last evening’s race at the Yas Marina circuit.

Race winner Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing celebrates on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi at Yas Marina Circuit on November 26, 2023.

Verstappen is of Belgian and Dutch descent and competes under the Dutch flag in Formula 1 for the Red Bull racing team. Verstappen is a Formula 1 world champion of 2021, 2022, and 2023, having sealed his title in Qatar this year. He is at the top of his game this year, breaking and making many records with his wins, but he will officially be World Champion when he receives the trophy during the FIA’s annual prize-giving ceremony in the first week of December in Azerbaijan this year. In world sport like Super Bowl, the World Cup and NASCAR, the trophies are awarded immediately to winning champions as is the norm worldwide, but in the FIA, champions have to wait till the ceremony to be given their well-earned trophies.

Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (1) Oracle Red Bull Racing RB19 on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi at the Yas Marina Circuit on November 26, 2023.

Race winner Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing looks on in parc ferme during the F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi at Yas Marina Circuit on November 26, 2023.

Race winner Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing celebrates on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi at Yas Marina Circuit on November 26, 2023.

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is a Formula 1 motor racing event which takes place over 58 laps of the 5.281-kilometre Yas Marina Circuit on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The first race took place at the Hermann Tilke-designed Yas Marina Circuit on Yas Island on November 1st 2009. Yas Island is a 2,550 hectares (25.5 km) island on the east coast of Abu Dhabi and the 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was the first major event to take place on the circuit. British Formula 1 driver and seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton has had the most wins on the Yas Marina circuit so far, winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2011, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2019, driving for Mercedes AMG Petronas.

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©Rubina A Khan 2023

RUBINA’S REVIEW: TIGER ZINDA HAI

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It’s been half a decade since Salman “Tiger” Khan’s romantic action thriller Ek Tha Tiger hit theatres on Independence Day in 2012 to a resounding ka-ching at the box office, that Yash Raj Films is all too familiar with. The film ended with India’s most indispensable RAW agent Avinash Rathore aka Tiger vamoosing off to Havana, Cuba to live a life of quiet anonymity (hah!) with his Pakistani ISI agent love, Zoya (Katrina Kaif).

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The sequel’s title says it all – he’s alive and kicking up powder in Austria with his son, Junior, fighting off packs of wolves (without killing them) unarmed with bare hands, skiing down the slopes, without taking off his winter jacket even once in the sequence. It cannot get any more real than that in Bollywood. And when he’s not busy playing dad or a spy in voluntary retirement, he spray-paints his love for wife Zoya on snow-capped mountain slopes to Atif Aslam’s Dil Diya Gallan in big-eyed wonderment. Nothing much has changed for Khan and his indomitable cinematic appeal since Ek Tha Tiger, though the same cannot be said for Kaif, despite her enviable pilates lean body. This Tiger is burning brighter than ever and Khan wings the film with indefatigable ease, never mind a couple of awkward supporting cast members and an askew, inconsistent pace of the film which could have been sharper and faster.

What I loved about Tiger Zinda Hai:

  1. Sheer girl power in the film. Where in Bollywood films does a wife rescue her husband in a war-struck country and drive him around without him switching to the wheel mid-save? The said wife, Katrina, is a bad-ass Bhabhi from her current location in Austria who swivels guns better than rolling pins in Ikrit, Iraq.
  2. Salman Khan skiing on the Innsbruck slopes, fully clothed.
  3. What’s better than a shirtless Salman? A bloodied warrior Salman toting double guns saving 39 Indian and Pakistani nurses!
  4. I loved Iranian born and UAE resident, Sajjad Delafrooz’s consummate performance as the antagonist Abu Usman, but for a verbose sermon he had to give Tiger at the tail end of the film. Restrained and confident acting on his part.
  5. Horses in the action sequences remind you why fast cars and bikes use horse power units of measurement in the first place and with Salman riding one, it’s a cinema freeze frame for life.
  6. Not using divisive political tactics in the film’s narrative, but humanitarian ones.
  7. The White House representative with an uncanny Sarah Huckabee accent, sans any Trumpa Loompa.
  8. The film only has two songs picturized on the lead cast of Khan and Kaif – Dil Diya Gallan in the beginning and the second, Swag Se Swagat at the end.
  9. What Khan’s presence in the Liwa Desert does for Abu Dhabi tourism is incomparable to anything they could have envisaged for themselves. And Khan wasn’t just another mirage!
  10. I had fun watching Tiger Zinda Hai and wanted to clap in all of Katrina’s bad-ass Bhabhi scenes, and most of the cool sequences.

©Rubina A Khan 2017

RUBINA’S RADAR | JUSTIN BIEBER LANDS IN MUMBAI FOR ONLY 30 HOURS #PURPOSETOUR #INDIA

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RUBINA’S RADAR 

After three days of what seemed like an eternity waiting for Justin Bieber to fly into Mumbai, the pop star finally landed in his private jet at the Mumbai international airport at 1AM with the rest of his security detail in tow. There was a blitzkrieg of flashbulbs as he exited the VIP Gate No 8 of the Mumbai airport at 1.20AM wearing a pink hoodie and board shorts. The waiting photographers that had staked out the airport all day in anticipation of his arrival in the scorching sun with no respite from the heat, got the “money shot” of the star past midnight, much to their relief.

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Justin Bieber exiting Mumbai International Airport at 1.20am May 10th 2017

Bieber left the airport in a white Mercedes SUV AMG G63 2017 followed by his security, all in Mercedes’, but varying models. The Grammy award winning singer went straight to the St Regis Mumbai where he entered the hotel around 2am, and will be in residence in the Presidential Suite for the next 30 hours, after which he is flying off to South Africa leg of his Purpose World Tour to perform at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg.

Bieber will be flying to the venue, DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, where he is performing at 8PM tonight, in a helicopter. When you’re the biggest pop star in the world, you really don’t want to waste time stuck in Mumbai’s snarling traffic jams.

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Photo: Rubina A Khan | Getty Images

As far as the parties go, it is highly unlikely that either Salman Khan, who is filming for Tiger Zinda Hai in Abu Dhabi till May 22nd or Shah Rukh Khan, who is shooting for Dubai Tourism till May 12th will host the Canadian musician in Mumbai. After the show, Bieber intends to party backstage at the stadium with a pop-up bar, replete with skateboards and his favourite tour things, a dossier of which was unethically leaked to the press prior to his arrival in Mumbai. But not before he takes a dip in the jacuzzi specially hauled out for him at the stadium and a massage by a special masseuse flown in from Kerala.

UPDATE: Bieber went out in the wee hours of the morning to see the Gateway of India and Haji Ali and even took a ride in a Victoria, which is a horse-drawn carriage from the Victorian times. He is now on his way to the Helipad in Mahalaxmi to take a chopper to the stadium in Navi Mumbai for his show later on tonight.

For more details on Bieber at the show and after the show, check in here later!

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©Rubina A Khan 2017

 

 

RUBINA’S RADAR | WHERE’S JUSTIN BIEBER SLEEPING IN MUMBAI TONIGHT? #BIEBERFEVER #BIEBERINMUMBAI

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RUBINA’S RADAR

Justin Bieber’s hit track, Where Are You Now is the endless refrain of Beliebers in India who just can’t wait to see him perform live for the very first time in Mumbai tomorrow. The Grammy award winning artiste is scheduled to land in Mumbai today for his Purpose Tour show tomorrow evening, May 10th, at the DY Patil Stadium. He was slated to fly in on May 7th but the singer is still in Dubai, partying at Cavalli Club at the Fairmont Dubai, soaking up the sun with pool parties at Zero Gravity (with his security detail in the pool with him!) rounds of football at the Habtoor Grand hotel, dune bashing in the desert and shopping jaunts at the newly opened Apple store in the Dubai Mall. Earlier this morning Bieber tweeted “Dubai is incredible, India you’re next” from Dubai. Bieber is definitely doing Dubai right!
535290970He’s booked in two hotels in the city – the St Regis Mumbai in midtown Mumbai (where his team and tour manager have been staying in since May 7th) and The Oberoi hotel in Nariman Point. Now, it remains to be seen where, (not with whom!) Bieber will be sleeping tonight in Mumbai! But first, can he land in the city already?

Disclaimer: Any part of the content on the rubinaakhan.com website cannot be reproduced without prior permission and crediting the website and the author.

©Rubina A Khan 2017