I actually enjoyed the race yesterday, was not the best but as first races go, it was quite entertaining. Good to see Kimi win again and also felt sorry for Massa!!

Mark Webber is such a bad starter, how many times has he been on the front row of the grid only to start bad.

Good start to the season. A decent race, with a fair bit happening during the race.

Great win for Kimi, managed the tyres well, and didnt look to be in trouble during the race. Made it look fairly straightforward. Grosjean finished a lowly 10th, however he didnt get all the new parts for his car until very late, I think it was 1st Qualy. Kimi had them during the practice sessions as well. Glad to see Grosjean managed to stay out of trouble, hopefully he has learnt from his mistakes last year.

I think the RBs are fast, just not in cold climates (yet). I got a feeling Malaysia will be very different. Horner has had a swipe at McLaren, blaming Webbers poor start on the ECU unit (made by McLaren). Webber got a poor start, and from then never looked like he did anything. Just drove a steady race, and finished 6th. Vettel wont be overly disappointed with 3rd.

Hamilton did well in the first outing in a Mercedes. Again I think this is a bit of a false position. Mercedes tend to do well in coldish climates. Will be interesting to see how they do in a hot Malaysia.

McLaren, they are in trouble. From what Martin is saying they dont seem to be able to sort the problems for a few races yet. They will do, however when they do, it may well be to late for the WDC and the constructors titles. I still think they will manage 3 or 4th in the constructors. Which by their standards is not very good.

Sutil did look very good during the race. Pity Force India screwed up by pitting about 4 laps too soon. I had a thought during the race, if Sutils garage was before the finish line, he could have pitted for tyres on the last lap, and then continue and finish the race down the pit lane. Either way as Martin alluded to during commentary, you would think they would have pitted with only a couple of laps to go.

A great race by Massa, pity Ferrari favour Alonso. I think he could have finished ahead of Alonso in this race given a fair crack.

McLaren have not won the constructors for over 14 years now, last one in 1998, that is very very poor for a team like McLaren.

I fear this year, yet again by the time they get a good car, they will be to far behind. So it will be another year without a constructors title. Big changes are needed there

Apparently it's true that there's something iffy about the ECU.

It's been designed ready for next year and incorporates all the electronic gubbins for use with the turbo engines and several teams have struggled to get it to talk to their gearboxes properly.

Course, it's one of those things which is something that can hinder all the teams equally so I don't see how it can really be used as an excuse.
I suppose there might be something about it which is designed to optimise the way a Mercedes engine talks to the gearbox but, then again, Mercedes, itself, is supposed to be one of the teams that were having problems with the ECU.

My money would be on some teams (like RBR) trying to do especially clever things to try and take advantage of features of the ECU and that it's not working out well for them at the moment.

True they havent won the constructors in ages, however they do always finish in the top 3 (in the last decade at least, apart from 2004). They are regarded as one of the top 3 teams, in terms of performance (and budget). A team that challenged for both titles at the start of the season. Whilst I agree that changes are required, I am not sure big changes are.



Interesting to see if there is a problem with the ECU. What happens. Whitmarsh denied any problems in the report I read this morning - but he did say he would investigate.

If RBR were trying to do something clever, would it not effect both drivers? Webber has a history of poor starts, this may well be another poor start from him. I do agree that RBR do push boundaries, so if a team was going to have problems it would RBR.

I was wondering about the tyres and how things will change once they get to circuits with higher temps.

Ferrari should be a lot better this year in terms of quali pace seeing as open use of DRS has been banned. As I understood it, their poor quali performance last year was down to problems with air flow after their DRS disengages so with it only in use for the DRS zones during qualifying as well they have pretty much been handed the resolution to their problem. Their race pace still looks very good, though maybe not as good as Kimi's.

I seem to remember Martin Brundle during one of those pre-race segments last year had a hand in making a 2013 ECU at McLaren HQ, maybe they sent that one to Red Bull

I'll be honest and say that I've not kept up with developments over the inter in terms of which teams have developed brand new cars for this season and which have just continued to develop last season's car given that not much has changed. I know RBR have rwally only moved last season's car on and I had heard Mclaren have made significant changes which must explain their issues in the first race. I guess they feel that over 19 races a new car will ultimately be better than developing last season's car which was 2nd best to the RB anyway.

What about Ferrari & Lotus, though? Are they merely development of 2012 or new cars?

Hmm, that would be a fair comment, if it weren't nonsense. At the first pit, Massa was given the choice of pit as lead driver. Ferrari could have given this to Alonso but didn't. Alonso chose to pit earlier than expected to try to leapfrog Massa and Vettel. It worked, and if Massa would have first asked to do this, they would have let him. If Ferrari would have just favored Fernando, they would have given him prime stops all stops, which would have probably won him the race.

Y'know, I've been reading all these rumours about how McLaren might "ditch" this years car entirely and go back to last years car and it occurs to me that they might actually be doing something slippery here.

I mean, AFAIK, a chassis has to be signed-off by the FIA before the season starts so a team can't do something dodgy like design a car for the following year and start to test it by entering it in races during the current year.

However, McLaren currently have got last year's car which is certified for racing and they've now got what is, effectively, next year's car certified too.

The rules state (again, AFAIK) that a team is only allowed to bring two cars to each event so they can't run the new car in FP1 and then race last year's car but they could choose to give Button whichever car they think is more likely to win races while, at the same time, getting Perez to run the new car in order to develop it for next year.

Now, given that we're talking about a team that's struggled to change 4 wheels reliably during pitstops over the last few years, that's certainly a rather ambitious plan but I don't think there's anything to stop them doing it as long as they could manage all the logistics of servicing two entirely different cars during each race.

Is there anything in the rules which states that both of the cars in a team must be of the same design?

Then maybe you would care to explain Massa comment to the team (heard over the team radio), "what are you doing with me?" (or something along those lines). Brundle commented, that maybe they were going to run Massa on a longer second stint. Instead they brought him after 3 or 4 laps. Which was a strange decision, since they didnt really run him long enough, nor the right amount to pit and stay were he was. Instead they pitted Alonso thus giving me 3 or so laps on new tyres to leap frog Massa.

Uhuh,

For the first stop they gave Massa the choice as he was th lead car and obviously Massa, Alonso and the rest of us realised that the trick was to pit as early as possible while, at the same time, not pitting so early that you'd create a need for additional stops.

Seems that, rather than waiting to be asked 2nd-time-around, Alonso asked for the earliest possible 2nd stop and Massa was unaware it'd happen until it did.

Kind of ironic considering THIS but, then again, given the apparent lack of enthusiasm Alonso had for Massa's quali' pace, it's not really surprising.
Again though, Alonso's a bit like Schuey IMO. At his best he's a world-class driver but at his worst he demonstrates some rather unpleasant characteristics which are, undoubtedly, always present if not always on display.

Funnily enough, while Massa survived a poor season at Ferrari last year, it'd be a shame if a strong season this year is what eventually sees him getting sacked if he gets pissed-off about not being allowed to challenge for wins.

Still, it's a long season and if, like Webber, his big problem is a lack of consistancy, maybe it won't be a problem by mid-season?

We regard to Massa/Alonso.

For the record I like both drivers, but end of the day for me Alonso is the much better driver and has a much better racing brain than Massa and that is why he will outshine Massa in the races.

How many times have we heard Rob Smedley over the radio sometimes basically telling Massa how to drive! Alonso is world class and has proven time and time again even with a bad car he can keep up with Vettel.

Massa is a great guy and I have a lot respect for him, but he is not and will never be in Alonso's league.

That being the case, isn't it just a tiny bit pathetic that Ferrari are favouring him even in the first race of the season?

I think the problem with Ferrari is that they're way too set on Alonso winning a championship for them.
You kinda get the impression that if Massa was leading a race and Alonso was in 11th place Ferrari would ask Massa to slow down and drop back through the field so that Alonso could pick up a single point rather than allowing Massa to take a win.

No they wouldn't.

I don't understand how people are complaining about team orders after a race which had none. Alonso was behind Massa and tried to overtake, Massa was allowed to defend and there was no voice on the radio tellinjg him Fernando was faster. At the first set of stops Massa pitted first which suggests that the leading car got first choice. Later, Alonso went for the undercut on Massa and Vettel, which I assume was his desicion. I don't see any team orders there.

You also dug up a link to Alonso saying he'd support Massa if the situation arose. I think what he was referring to is a situation like last year, if they swapped places and Massa had a shot at the title and Alonso didn't, that Alonso would help Massa if he could (allowing him to pass, taking a penalty etc.). Why that is used as a stick to beat him with I do not understand.

I agree with everything you say. However in the last race, Massa was keeping Alonso behind him up until Alonso pitted for the second time.

Massa was certainly of the boil during the first 2/3rds of last season, but the last 1/3 he was very good. Maybe Massa thought, since its the first race of the season, they wouldnt not favour Alonso, or try anything. With Alonso being the better driver I am fairly sure, that he would have overtaken Massa at some stage during the race.

There may not have been team orders for this race, but they did kind of screw Massa over, to get Alonso ahead of him.

I dont have a problem with teams orders per se. Take the sceanrio at last years US GP. Where they deliberately broke the seal on Massas gearbox to get him a 5 place drop, so Alonso could move over to the right-hand side of the grid. No problem with that, as Massa was not in contention for the WDC. Alonso was, so you do everything legally to help Alonso.

Team orders at the first race of the season, when both drivers are on a equal number of points, that for me is harder to take - but that is my problem. Maybe its because I am not a fan of Alonso, he is a very dodgy character. Look at some of the biggest controversies over the last few years, and hes at the centre of them.

I am not a fan of Alonsos, but do recognise he is the best driver on the grid.

I hope we see the return of the old Massa this season as he is a great driver when he is in the right frame of mind!

I think we are in for a very good season this year. Hopefully McLaren can sort out their issues sooner rather than later as the more cars that can compete at the top the better for me.

I think everybody here accepts that team orders are a legitimate aspect of F1 but that doesn't mean people can't be critical of the way they're used.

I guess that, having lost the championship by a single point last year, Ferrari are acutely aware of the value of every single point and, TBH, I can see Massa getting royally shafted at every opportunity this year.

If that's how Ferrari choose to operate, good luck to them but I doubt that many fans will consider it an honourable course of action and, more importantly, I don't think it'll do their brand image much good either.

Hopefully Alonso will be able to stay ahead of Massa on merit for the majority of the season and this won't be an issue but fans can only comment on what they see and hear and last weekend we saw and heard Massa being rather upset that they pitted Alonso before him.
If Massa deliberately planned to stay out longer than Alonso that shouldn't have happened so the only conclusion people can draw is that, somewhere along the line, somebody's told Massa that his earliest available pit window was after Alonso pitted.

On that note, I like playing around with statistics and will be looking at how McLaren compared with RBR both last year and this year.

It's early days yet but, suffice to say, this time last year McLaren were slightly faster than RBR for the first 3 races, whereupon RBR took the advantage, whereas this year they're more than 2 seconds behind.

It'll be interesting to see if they can claw back the advantage but, TBH, it kinda seems like they've decided to throw away this year in preference of spending the season perfecting a car which will be competetive next year and hoping that nobody else produces an especially good car next year.

It kind of reminds me of the end of the turbo era in the 1980s.
I recall that the year before turbo's were banned most teams elected to run a non-turbo engine so they'd get an extra year to develop their cars.
McLaren retained a turbo engine and, as a result, decimated the opposition.
People took comfort in the idea that although McLaren were strong that year, they wouldn't do well the following year due to the lack of experience with non-turbo engines.
The reality, of course, was that McLaren had no problems adapting to non-turbo engines and, as a result, they won the championship the following year too.

Seems like what we're seeing here is a sort of mirror-image of that, where they're hoping this year will allow them to be strong next year but that'll only work if none of the other teams manage to pull it out of the bag.

I kind of agree with that, in the sense that Massa was put on the wrong strategy at the second round of pitstops but I don't think that was to get Alonso past at all. That is the part I don't understand. As I said, if Ferrari were going to use team orders they could have done so much earlier in the race. Instead, I just think Alonso gambled and Ferrari cocked up Massa's strategy. Could be worse, Mclaren managed to muck up three drivers' races...


I certainly agree that team orders at the first race wouldn't feel right. I just don't think there were any. Oh and I'm not an Alonso fan just to be clear. For starters he reminds me of Dick Dastardly and as you say he has been involved in a lot of controversies in recent years. I also agree he is probably the best.


Correct me if I am wrong but Massa's radio message was after Alonso, Vettel and Sutil had all pitted, so he was confused as to why he was alone on track. Alonso took a gamble and went for the undercut. There is no reason to suggest that the decision to pit Alonso came from Ferrari in order to undercut Massa and logically it doesn't make sense that they would either.

And yes I assume it was before his pit window, same as I assume it was before Alonso's. Alonso did just 11 laps on that stint, much shorter than Vettel and Massa did and much shorter than the stints later on.

Thinking more about it, the decision not to pit Massa does have a certain amount of logic. Alonso had the undercut, which was sufficient to jump Vettel and Sutil in just one lap (well one lap and a corner in Sutil's case). Vettel and Sutil both pitted the lap after, so had Massa done the same he would have come out just behind them in 5th (I think that was where Kimi jumped them). Instead he waited a few laps to see if he could produce some good laps on a clean track, pitted and came out just behind them in 5th but with slightly fresher tyres. The moment Alonso made the decision to try and jump the lot of them there wasn't much any of the drivers or teams could do. It was a clever move by Alonso.

As for the bit in bold, I just want to emphasise again that it makes no sense. If Ferrari were so worried Massa would get in the way of Alonso they would have told him before the race not to fight, or told him on lap 2 to let Alonso through, or pitted Alonso on lap 8 instead of Massa.

Now here is where I have a problem. The thing about Alonso, is that he creates his own strategy. Just like Kimi, and Jenson. They make the call to pit, or not. It usually works, but even if it doesn't, it is their call. Ferrari didn't call Fernando to pit, he did. Earlier in the race, he had no choice to call, as Massa called the pit and as the lead driver, he was given priority. Fernando gave the call to pit early, as that was the best chance he had of leapfrogging Vettel and Massa. It might have worked out badly, but it didn't. Massa, Webber, Hamilton, and Vettel wait for the call. Fernando, Button and Kimi make the call. This is why the latter win or lose on strategy, whereas the former only win on car pace.

To be fair to Lewis, he is more likely to be in the latter of recent days.

You seem to be refusing to consider that the pitstops were engineered to allow Alonso to pass Massa and then saying "If Ferrari wanted Alonso to pass Massa they could have organised something to make it happen".

Seems like that's exactly what they did do.

But why then, and why like that? If they were that desperate to have Alonso get past Massa then they would have got on the radio and told Massa to let him through. If they wanted to be covert for some unknown reason (even when team orders were banned they were open about it) then they could have switched them at the first pit-stop. That's why I disagree with your first point, I have considered that idea. I then decided that it didn't seem to follow logically but the idea that Alonso decided to go for the undercut did make sense.

Why would you choose to have either Massa slow down or risk Alonso having to fight for position on track when, as we saw, it would be possible to engineer the pitstops so that the required change was made?

Given that every man and his dog could probably see that pitting as early as possible was the smart move, all it'd take for this to happen would be for Massa to radio and ask when was the earliest he could make his 2nd stop and be told lap 22 was the earliest.

And, given his reaction when he saw Alonso pitting on lap 20, it seems likely that's what happened.