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Official Formula 1 Thread (Part 7) |
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#501 |
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Join Date: Jun 2005
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Great win for Fernando and also a great result for Perez.
Nice to see Kimi has got right back into the racing after returning to the sport, and thought Vergne also put in a good performance. |
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#502 |
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Join Date: Jul 2011
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He was really struggling in the wet and then bungled a pass on a backmarker and wrecked his front wing and then failed to really make any kind of comeback.
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#503 |
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Join Date: Jul 2010
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Backmarker? Weren't Button and Karthikeyan racing for position, so Button had no entitlement to assume the position was his (by making a clumsy move when he thought the door was open) as it wasn't a blue flag situation?
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#504 |
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Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Mid Kent
Posts: 1,535
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how many times are mclaren gonna do this to hamilton?
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Exactly
It kind of reminds me of those ferrari days where all the team blunders would plague barrichelo whereas schuey's pit stops would be flawless. So pit blunders only happen to Hamilton, do they? |
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#505 |
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Scotland
Posts: 2,764
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Just a minute. Cast your mind back to the British GP last year. Button pulls away from pit stop and then wheel fell off. Jenson out of race.
So pit blunders only happen to Hamilton, do they?
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#506 |
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 2,659
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Amazing fantastic race from Alonso today. Went forward in the first part of the race then drove well after the restart stopping for inters at the right time, passing for the lead and then driving with consistent pace to win the GP.
Very surprise by the underperformance of Red Bull and McLaren today. I was full expecting them to charge us down once the track started to dry. Even before the track was ready for slick the cars with better dry pace should have had an advantage but the driver performances were far below WDC standards. Jenson had an idiot crash. He was racing an HRT and had all day to get an easy passing opportunity but just crashed in to it at the first corner they came to. Lack of pace from Lewis was mystifying. Appeared to have killed the inters driving without his brain as usual. He still had the car to win the GP once everybody changed to slicks but could not even catch Perez who is stuck behind a slower car and running off the track. Lewis just drifts away and is slow. McLaren must be angry with him. For Ferrari this is all great. Now the good results on track much better than expected mean that the car improvements can be deceived by the factory and we are still in a sporting position to make good use of it. |
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#507 |
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Join Date: Oct 2010
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Just a minute. Cast your mind back to the British GP last year. Button pulls away from pit stop and then wheel fell off. Jenson out of race.
So pit blunders only happen to Hamilton, do they? But any suggestion that there is anything else going on with regards to Hamilton's treatment as against Button I think is fantasy land. |
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#508 |
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Join Date: Jan 2007
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Lack of pace from Lewis was mystifying. Appeared to have killed the inters driving without his brain as usual. He still had the car to win the GP once everybody changed to slicks but could not even catch Perez who is stuck behind a slower car and running off the track. Lewis just drifts away and is slow. McLaren must be angry with him.
Seems more likely, to me, that the McLaren simply couldn't heat the tyres enough to allow them to work properly. The fact that Button twice managed to set a fastest lap on a set of inter's that had just come out of the blankets and then went slower on subsequent laps suggests this was the case. Must say, Buttons first pitstop after the restart confused me a bit. He pitted right after the restart and got back out on the inter's and, theoretically, went faster than drivers completing another lap on the wets. Hamilton came in on the next lap, followed by Alonso and Massa and, upon his emergence from the pit-lane, Alonso was, somehow, ahead of Button. Didn't see anything about Button being blocked on his out-lap or in the pits, themselves, but I assume he must have been. Can't help wondering if Ferrari deliberately brought both cars in at the same time in the knowledge that Massa would stop Hamilton being released, but that might just be a mixture of cynicism and paranoia. |
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#509 |
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Join Date: Jul 2011
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Lack of pace from Lewis was mystifying. Appeared to have killed the inters driving without his brain as usual. He still had the car to win the GP once everybody changed to slicks but could not even catch Perez who is stuck behind a slower car and running off the track. Lewis just drifts away and is slow. McLaren must be angry with him.
For Ferrari this is all great. Now the good results on track much better than expected mean that the car improvements can be deceived by the factory and we are still in a sporting position to make good use of it. |
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#510 |
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Join Date: Nov 2007
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Not too sure about that. Hamilton made one set of inter's last as long as any other driver out there and his times improved just as other drivers' did, but at slightly slower lap times.
The tyres could have mangled because they where cold but McLaren have had no other tyre heat up problems. Jenson complained about tyre temp but wouldn’t it be strange for McLaren to be the only team to have a tyre warm up problem but only when they are on inters on a track right for inters. Jenson may have had cold tyres for some reason but I think Lewis just chewed his in his normal manner. |
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#511 |
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He did lack pace but he did hold a steady 3rd place and it almost seems like he's driving too conservatively at the moment, but that's no bad thing - just trying to amass as many points as he can without taking too many risks. The mystifying thing is that Hamilton was quite quick before they stopped the race so I wonder if there were any changes made to the car like a front wing adjustment.
Lewis was third only 15s off P1 and in the fastest car of weekend but was content to just stay where he was. That beggars belief and let’s bring attention to the fact that P2 man did have a problem and run off but Lewis is to far back to capitalise. Pole to P3 two GP’s in a row is not something Lewis should be happy with. Being beaten by slower cars is not the drive of a champion. |
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#512 |
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I think you need to remember how far out of position Alonso was given the pace of his car. There should have been six cars able to swallow him up once the track neared anything like a normal condition.
Lewis was third only 15s off P1 and in the fastest car of weekend but was content to just stay where he was. That beggars belief and let’s bring attention to the fact that P2 man did have a problem and run off but Lewis is to far back to capitalise. Pole to P3 two GP’s in a row is not something Lewis should be happy with. Being beaten by slower cars is not the drive of a champion. |
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#513 |
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I think you need to remember how far out of position Alonso was given the pace of his car. There should have been six cars able to swallow him up once the track neared anything like a normal condition.
Lewis was third only 15s off P1 and in the fastest car of weekend but was content to just stay where he was. That beggars belief and let’s bring attention to the fact that P2 man did have a problem and run off but Lewis is to far back to capitalise. Pole to P3 two GP’s in a row is not something Lewis should be happy with. Being beaten by slower cars is not the drive of a champion. Must admit, the one thing I did think was a bit unfortunate was bunging Hamilton on options with about, IIRC, 15 laps to go. As a result, he was left with the usual dilemma of whether to push to catch the car in front and then risk having to nurse the car home on knackered tyres that were only expected to last as little as 10 laps. Seems like it would have given him more freedom to push if they'd fitted the prime tyre, which other teams managed to use with no problems. Course, Hamilton might have simply accepted the 3rd place and just driven the car home and it DOES worry me a bit that this is how Hamilton plans to play it this year. |
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#514 |
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Join Date: Dec 2010
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Yep, Hamilton knows the score. He threw away a shed load of points last year, he won't be doing the same this year.
He knows his McLaren is probably the fastest car in dry conditions and the race wins will materialise - his points haul at the moment is fine. |
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#515 |
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Join Date: Oct 2007
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Can someone please tell what the strange message from Red Bull to Vettel were all about it seemed like that they did not what to do was bit odd to me
![]() And well done to Perez what a great drive for 2nd spot
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#516 |
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Join Date: Jan 2007
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Can someone please tell what the strange message from Red Bull to Vettel were all about it seemed like that they did not what to do was bit odd to me
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#517 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Buckingham
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I was more interested in the comment that retiring the car would earn the team a free gearbox change. Really?
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#518 |
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I was more interested in the comment that retiring the car would earn the team a free gearbox change. Really?
![]() I didn't hear that message. Perhaps the telemetry WAS showing low hydraulic pressure in the gearbox or summat and they thought retiring would be smart but then realised there was some other reason for it? While I'm at it, anybody else see the video of Vettel getting SERIOUSLY stroppy while trying to pass De La Rosa (I think) ? He was shaking his fist, flipping him the bird and generally acting rather arsey about it.
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#519 |
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Join Date: Oct 2010
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Yes, it seems they were maybe trying to take advantage of some gearbox and / or other change advantages that cars that don't finiish theoretically have.
But I'm thinking the fact that Vettel was lying 11th and in with a very slight chance of a point had them in a bit of an arguement. It was quite funny coming from such a professional team as RBR : stop the car, stop the car, stay out, say out, stop the car, stop the car now, emergency and he finished
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#520 |
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Solihull
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Excellent result as far as neutrals are concenrned. This is shaping up to be one of the most competative seasons for a long time. Farrari can't be complacent, though. They won through the dogged determination of their No1 driver, the weather and the inexperience of the fastest driver on the track and despite still having a bad car and there being plenty of other faster cars out there. The win papers over the cracks, nothing more.
No idea where Mclaren's race pace went. Hamilton is very lucky that despite having two bad races he's still managed two podiums and to be a close 2nd in the DC. That's the kind of luck you need to with the championship. However he needs to get his race head together quickly. Button race was a weird one. Very silly mistake then no pace at all. Personally if I were Perez I'd be bitterly dissappointed not to have got the win. You don't make it as a top F1 driver by settling for 2nd. I wonder quite what motivated the team to issue the 'look after the 18pts' message when they did. It sounded like at the end RB had forgotten you can't retire a car without good reason. I suspect they saw some early indications of trouble and wanted to play it safe but didn't have the evidence they would have needed so decided to tell Vettel to stay out after all. A bit embarrassing, really. Oh, and I'm pissed off Maldonado retired as I had him as my 10th place prediction. Grrrr. |
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#521 |
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Join Date: Feb 2009
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That wasn't a bad race for Hamilton unlike Australia. The two drivers that finished ahead of him are not contenders for the championship and Button and Vettel were pointless.
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#522 |
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Join Date: Jan 2007
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Excellent result as far as neutrals are concenrned. This is shaping up to be one of the most competative seasons for a long time. Farrari can't be complacent, though. They won through the dogged determination of their No1 driver, the weather and the inexperience of the fastest driver on the track and despite still having a bad car and there being plenty of other faster cars out there. The win papers over the cracks, nothing more.
No idea where Mclaren's race pace went. Hamilton is very lucky that despite having two bad races he's still managed two podiums and to be a close 2nd in the DC. That's the kind of luck you need to with the championship. However he needs to get his race head together quickly. Button race was a weird one. Very silly mistake then no pace at all. Despite all his cheering in the car and on the podium, in the interview afterwards he was VERY downbeat, saying stuff like "This changes nothing. We still have a lot of work to do and we cannot be complacent" etc. I suppose it's also worth pointing out that, for those who said Hamilton was a "miserable sod" after his 3rd in Melbourne, Alonso was even more miserable after his win in Sepang. I think he has a right to be though cos he knows his car is hard work to drive and it's probably going to eat tyres in warmer weather if it stays as it is. I don't think Hamilton was "lucky". Quite the opposite in fact. He seems to be driving very much "within himself" at the moment and under-achieving somewhat. It really is as if he's made a conscious decision to always take the "bird in the hand" rather than go after the "bird in the bush" and I suppose I can see why, after last year, but it's not the sort of driving that earned him his fans. In general, I do kinda worry that F1 cars are becoming too specialised. I first thought this with the Brawn car back in 2009. It was like they deliberately built a car that was designed to go well at, say, 9 out of 16 races and they just knew it would suck at the other 7 races but they figured that winning more than half the races would be enough to grab the championship. This worries me because it creates the possibility that teams will end up deliberately choosing to build cars designed to win at a subset of races and, as a result, you'll rarely see drivers really able to battle with each other. It shouldn't be a big problem because, in theory, all teams will want to build a car that can win at the majority of circuits but a team might decide, for example, to build a car that only works well in cold weather (as Ferrari seem to have accidentally done tis year) and then hope that the other teams will take points off each other in hot races. |
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#523 |
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I think Alonso is well aware of this, even if nobody else is.
Despite all his cheering in the car and on the podium, in the interview afterwards he was VERY downbeat, saying stuff like "This changes nothing. We still have a lot of work to do and we cannot be complacent" etc. I suppose it's also worth pointing out that, for those who said Hamilton was a "miserable sod" after his 3rd in Melbourne, Alonso was even more miserable after his win in Sepang. I think he has a right to be though cos he knows his car is hard work to drive and it's probably going to eat tyres in warmer weather if it stays as it is. I don't think Hamilton was "lucky". Quite the opposite in fact. He seems to be driving very much "within himself" at the moment and under-achieving somewhat. It really is as if he's made a conscious decision to always take the "bird in the hand" rather than go after the "bird in the bush" and I suppose I can see why, after last year, but it's not the sort of driving that earned him his fans. In general, I do kinda worry that F1 cars are becoming too specialised. I first thought this with the Brawn car back in 2009. It was like they deliberately built a car that was designed to go well at, say, 9 out of 16 races and they just knew it would suck at the other 7 races but they figured that winning more than half the races would be enough to grab the championship.. Regarding Brawn the reason they struggled after is because they didnt have the budget to come up with updates as the season progressed. They were actively seeking sponsors through the season, they didnt get worse. They just didnt improve at the same rate as the other teams. Suggesting that cars are becoming 'specialised' to circuits is nonsense, when as we saw today the weather can change everything. |
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#524 |
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I was more interested in the comment that retiring the car would earn the team a free gearbox change. Really?
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#525 |
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Join Date: Sep 2003
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A bizarre race very few would have predicted and a very good drive from Alonso and Perez. Hamilton's pit stops cost him a lot of time but the McLaren didn't seem very quick in the wet.
We saw ano side to Vettel who made me laugh blaming Kartikeyan who he referred to as an idiot, it seemed to me Vettel cut back in far too soon and it was an incident he could have easily avoided. Interesting contrast to Button who admitted his coming together with him was his fault. |
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