Why the particular, ongoing, hatred for Hamilton but not Rosberg?

Iz it cos he's black?

Something like that

Ha, it's true, he does seem to be incredibly unlucky or targeted... I guess it's just people don't like it when people are arrogant and then back it up.

Of course Ferrari are cleaner than clean

is pirelli getting pulled up for this?

Yeah I bet he just wishes he could get through a year with out being called to the international court etc.

Still a lot of it has been his own fault and the test is no different. The teams split running at tests between drivers as there is a benefit to the driver from the running. Still I bet alonso might have been just smart enough to let massa do the running. Have a swore back and protect his WDC chances.

Could be another drivers championship thrown away by Hamilton. Even if he won it now it would be called invalid by most with a test during the season when all the other drivers respected the testing ban.

Yes they are called to the tribunal to. Suppose all they can get is a fine. It's also looking unlikely they will get their contract back. Not sure what that would mean. If pirreli are made to look bad for the tyres, penalised and the dismissed who would want to take their place.

I hope this sort of political consideration doesn't get Mercedes or their drivers off the hook.

I dont think Pirelli have broken any rules. So if the are at the tribunal it will be to give evidence.

I imagine it would only be called invalid by bitter fans of rival teams and drivers...

I'm amazed how you can pin this on Hamilton, I doubt many drivers (probably Schumacher did) know all the rules regarding this... his team told him to go and test and he did; end of discussion.

Another twist in the tail of the Mercgate scandal. Rosberg has come out and said he knew what tyres he was testing. This contradicts what Pirelli said earlier. Pirelli claimed, only they knew what tyres were on the cars.

Not sure why Rosberg would say that, as it worsens Mercs case. He should have just kept quite.

Got a link to what he actually said?

I mean, I can imagine that a driver (who, we should remember, has just raced at that circuit) would recognise the performance of a given tyre and be able to make an educated guess at what each one was but if they're actually being told it's a bit iffy.

Course, if Pirelli chose to rock-up to the test with their standard colour-coded tyres, rather than marking them with some obscure development code, you can hardly blame the driver for noticing which tyres were being fitted.

Hamilton says merc called to the fia tribunal is the first he has heard of mercgate.

That's got to be a lie right?

Here is the article I got it from.

I know when the story initally broke, Pirelli did say that they removed the colour code, and had a number (or alphanumeric) code on the tyres - which only they knew the meaning of.

I think he would know there is no testing and say isn't there no testing its been like that for a couple of years now.

But if you believe Hamilton its amazing what he can not know.

Predictions for this weekend?

I'm going with Ferrari on the podium at least... if not a win... purely based on the fact my mate is working this weekend and every other weekend he's worked they've either won or come 3rd...

It maybe a wet race, if it is that will mix things up a bit.

I will go for Vettel, Kimi and Alonso, on the podium.

Hmmm, be interesting to see how that turns out.

I mean, I dunno if he was carefully choosing his words but when he says stuff like "Of course, I was aware of..." it's a bit ambiguous.

I doubt any driver worth his pay would try and suggest he didn't know if he was on a hard, soft or supersoft tyre so it'd be silly for them to deny that they had some idea.

I honestly don't mean to sound like I'm defending Merc' and trying to pin the blame on Pirelli but I guess it might depend on how the test was conducted.

I mean, if Pirelli showed up with a small selection of tyres it's gonna be easy for a driver to figure out which is which AND decide if they were better or worse than the tyres he used in the race a couple of days before.
And that, in turn, would allow the team to gain useful information too.
If Pirelli showed up with one or two prototype soft tyres, for example, and they still only lasted a handful of laps (even though Pirelli might subsequently decide they're happier with the way the tyre is holding together etc) then the Merc' engineers will think "Crikey! They're not making the tyres more durable so we need to fix the tyre wear issues pronto!" or, conversely, if the grippiest of the prototypes managed to last 20-odd laps they will think "Hmmm, looks like they're moving to more durable tyres so we can probably leave our suspension set-up as it is".

What Pirelli should have done (and one would hope they did) was bring half a dozen slightly different compounds of each type of tyre to the test, let Merc' run them all and then go away and decide which ones to put into production.
That way, Merc' wouldn't have a clue what was gonna happen next.

I can see Merc' doing well in Montreal which will, no doubt, add to the current controversy.

Montreal is a fairly straightforward speed circuit so I think it'll be business as usual for the big players.
Maybe McLaren will do better than usual because the circuit won't really punish the flaws in their new car and the Merc' engine is certainly strong.

I wouldn't rule out Hamilton. He has won three out of the last five races at Giles Villeneuve; starting with his first ever win (in only his sixth race in Formula One) in this series.

I see Pirelli aren't doing any press conferences in Montreal.

Merc' are though.

The teams are going to get two sets of the new tyres during practice so it will be easy for Mercedes tto identify which tyre was tyre A. The other teams will have to evaluate these tyres but mercedes have already done this so thats one advantage they have.

With so much of 2013 being about tyre management an extra 1000km on the tyres is a massive advantage to hamilton and his team mate. Even if the tyres are just similar having the time outside a gp weekend to feel them degrading and testing how much you can push is all useful experience. Potentialy some of this additional running denied to all the other drivers is on the identical tyres to be used for the rest of this year. More so some of this running is potentialy on tge 2014 spec tyre.

These clear advantages will not go away just because people deny them.

Wasn't one from an illegal pole and another time Jenson trounced him?

Well it's mostly been bad luck recently so I hope your mate is good mogo.

I think F1 has really gone to the dogs!

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/...59_634x537.jpg

Flippin' 'eck...you need to drink some milk with those sour grapes.

Good ol' Roscoe.

From Monaco?