Korean Grand Prix 2012, Yeongam - Race 16/20

Well done Grosjean a lap without taking anyone out!

lol, love the Kimi talk

"Kimi, you've not raced here before, have you run it in the simulator",

"no"

"will you ride or drive around it "

"no".

Kimi's awesome, you get a car, go out, bang it in. Kimi might have a bit more time coming to him then, or he's awesome enough to just bang in the best the car can do straight away.

Hamilton and Button seemed to have a Kers issue with all the mechanics wearing their "touch the car and don't die" gloves, spent a long time getting them back out as well.

Hamilton has gone straight out though and put in a quick lap, noticeably quicker than Button, both doing short runs though, Alonso has been out for a while and was ahead of Hamilton's time. Alonso deffo has at least a decent amount of fuel, it is possible the Mclarens had to come back in for kers again, or they were just doing a few quick laps... in which case Ferrari look pretty strong in comparison.


EDIT:- lol, Maldonado held up by a Merc, went off track, then proceeded to go past then go stupidly slow infront of the Merc to vent his anger :p
 
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Old tyres and Hamilton breaks Alonso's time on a long stint, broke it twice after they said 20 laps but I'm not sure about that at all, think its more like 10-15 max. Still doing well compared to everyone else and that is with a couple lock ups, one in one of those faster laps as well.

Also, lol, Webber owning Vettel, catching him, trying to pass and almost a crash between them :p Not sure how much it was Vettel cutting him off, or Webber trying something stupid.
 
Practice Results



FP1

Code:
[b]Pos  Driver               Car                   Time       Gap       Laps[/b]
 1.  Lewis Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes      1m39.148s            23
 2.  Fernando Alonso      Ferrari               1m39.450s  + 0.302s  21
 3.  Mark Webber          Red Bull-Renault      1m39.575s  + 0.427s  21
 4.  Felipe Massa         Ferrari               1m39.854s  + 0.706s  23
 5.  Sebastian Vettel     Red Bull-Renault      1m40.088s  + 0.940s  21
 6.  Michael Schumacher   Mercedes              1m40.221s  + 1.073s  21
 7.  Nico Rosberg         Mercedes              1m40.396s  + 1.248s  24
 8.  Romain Grosjean      Lotus-Renault         1m40.422s  + 1.274s  22
 9.  Paul di Resta        Force India-Mercedes  1m40.440s  + 1.292s  19
10.  Jenson Button        McLaren-Mercedes      1m40.480s  + 1.332s  21
11.  Kimi Raikkonen       Lotus-Renault         1m40.929s  + 1.781s  14
12.  Pastor Maldonado     Williams-Renault      1m41.048s  + 1.900s  25
13.  Jules Bianchi        Force India-Mercedes  1m41.140s  + 1.992s  21
14.  Kamui Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari        1m41.220s  + 2.072s  19
15.  Sergio Perez         Sauber-Ferrari        1m41.514s  + 2.366s  20
16.  Daniel Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m41.596s  + 2.448s  23
17.  Jean-Eric Vergne     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m42.021s  + 2.873s  25
18.  Valtteri Bottas      Williams-Renault      1m42.027s  + 2.879s  23
19.  Heikki Kovalainen    Caterham-Renault      1m42.104s  + 2.956s  24
20.  Timo Glock           Marussia-Cosworth     1m42.175s  + 3.027s  13
21.  Charles Pic          Marussia-Cosworth     1m42.706s  + 3.558s  22
22.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham-Renault      1m42.820s  + 3.672s  19
23.  Pedro de la Rosa     HRT-Cosworth          1m44.517s  + 5.369s  23
24.  Dani Clos            HRT-Cosworth          1m45.735s  + 6.587s  22


FP2
Code:
[b]Pos  Driver               Car                   Time       Gap       Laps[/b]
 1.  Sebastian Vettel     Red Bull-Renault      1m38.832s            33
 2.  Mark Webber          Red Bull-Renault      1m38.864s  + 0.032s  33
 3.  Fernando Alonso      Ferrari               1m39.160s  + 0.328s  28
 4.  Jenson Button        McLaren-Mercedes      1m39.219s  + 0.387s  29
 5.  Michael Schumacher   Mercedes              1m39.330s  + 0.498s  31
 6.  Felipe Massa         Ferrari               1m39.422s  + 0.590s  30
 7.  Nico Rosberg         Mercedes              1m39.584s  + 0.752s  36
 8.  Lewis Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes      1m39.717s  + 0.885s  25
 9.  Nico Hulkenberg      Force India-Mercedes  1m39.739s  + 0.907s  33
10.  Kimi Raikkonen       Lotus-Renault         1m39.839s  + 1.007s  26
11.  Romain Grosjean      Lotus-Renault         1m39.957s  + 1.125s  28
12.  Bruno Senna          Williams-Renault      1m40.089s  + 1.257s  32
13.  Paul di Resta        Force India-Mercedes  1m40.112s  + 1.280s  34
14.  Kamui Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari        1m40.445s  + 1.613s  28
15.  Sergio Perez         Sauber-Ferrari        1m40.745s  + 1.913s  11
16.  Jean-Eric Vergne     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m40.789s  + 1.957s  31
17.  Daniel Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m40.997s  + 2.165s  32
18.  Pastor Maldonado     Williams-Renault      1m41.200s  + 2.368s  33
19.  Heikki Kovalainen    Caterham-Renault      1m41.602s  + 2.770s  23
20.  Timo Glock           Marussia-Cosworth     1m42.596s  + 3.764s  28
21.  Vitaly Petrov        Caterham-Renault      1m43.067s  + 4.235s  21
23.  Charles Pic          Marussia-Cosworth     1m43.636s  + 4.804s  22
22.  Narain Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth          1m43.869s  + 5.037s  36
24.  Pedro de la Rosa     HRT-Cosworth          1m44.533s  + 5.701s  24
 
Not watched the practice yet to see this, but this comment was quite interesting -

Lewis Hamilton has been giving off a lot of negative vibes so far this weekend, especially in P2 this morning. I might be reading into this too much but I get the impression that Hamilton is trying to assert his influence with car setup more than usual since he announced his departure to Mercedes next season, and because it doesn’t appear to be working out, he’s getting agitated. Either that or the two sides of the Mclaren garage are no longer openly sharing setup data.

At Suzuka it was announced that based on Hamilton’s suggestions, his side of the garage went down a different setup path. They got it wrong and Hamilton struggled from P2 onwards for the rest of the weekend.
This morning Ant Davidson informed us that the two Mclaren drivers were starting to diverge on setup direction heading into P2 according to what Button had told him over lunch. From then onwards Hamilton’s negativity became more and more obvious whilst Button seems to be going from strength to strength. Quite the opposite of P1 where towards the end it was Hamilton showing impressive pace and consistency on the soft tyres, so why has his mood turned so quickly?

First he was throwing his hand out the cockpit in dismay at front locking, lacking the pace of Button on both compound tyres during low fuel runs, unable to improve his lap time on the Supersoft tyre and on several occasions he could be seen nodding his head sitting in his car in the garage whilst Button was out there reeling off laps. Then to top it all off, towards the end of the session he badly locks up a new set of soft tyres heading into turn 1 declaring that they are ruined and he needs to box the same lap.

I can’t help but think it’s not just coincidence that Hamilton and Button have taken such different approaches to setup ever since Hamilton announced his imminent departure from the team.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2012/10/12/2012-korean-grand-prix-practice-result-fp2/
 
lol, love the Kimi talk

"Kimi, you've not raced here before, have you run it in the simulator",

"no"

"will you ride or drive around it "

"no".

Kimi's awesome, you get a car, go out, bang it in. Kimi might have a bit more time coming to him then, or he's awesome enough to just bang in the best the car can do straight away.

Others would say that he is just lazy. If he was blowing away the competition week in week out, like Loeb has done for 10 years, then he could afford to do it. However when you are fighting for the WDC and on the backfoot why make things harder by not preparing correctly?
 
Others would say that he is just lazy. If he was blowing away the competition week in week out, like Loeb has done for 10 years, then he could afford to do it. However when you are fighting for the WDC and on the backfoot why make things harder by not preparing correctly?

I think his performances this year have been over stated. I look at the car with Roman and Kimi and think that a better driver might actually have had a real chance of leading the title.

He's kept his nose clean in races and managed to keep grabbing reasonable points but he's doing badly to an average team mate in qualifying. With a better driver able to qualify better, would they have managed to score even more points?

I think so. I think his team mates performances on Sunday with points lost to crashes have flattered Kimi. That car should at least have taken one win this year. Of course it's his first year back and lets see what happens next year but I'm not sure he will ever work hard enough to get a drive at a title winning team again.
 
Just watching some of P1 now. I just can't get excited about this track. Its 3 straights and then a mass of pointless single file corners in a field in the middle of nowhere with nobody watching it. And even in its 3rd year it looks unfinished with bare concrete and dust and walls that look more like temporary central reservations on motorways.
 
Others would say that he is just lazy. If he was blowing away the competition week in week out, like Loeb has done for 10 years, then he could afford to do it. However when you are fighting for the WDC and on the backfoot why make things harder by not preparing correctly?

My thoughts exactly.
He is undoubtedly super talented (his performances this year prove this), but I would argue that he has and is, wasting his talent.

Imagine if he applied himself in the same way that MSc did...the results would be phenomenal.

He also has no idea how to speak to people. It amazes me how he has managed to get into F1 and attract so many sponsors. Can you imagine how the meetings with sponsors would've gone, when he was trying to make it in F1, in his early year?

At this stage, I think Button and MSc are the best at selling themselves (and their teams) and talking to people.

How he managed to find a woman and get married - I will never know?
 
FP2 replay just started on Sky Sports F1 now.


They were talking about engine sounds and mapping.. Ted says that some teams run just 4 cylinders mid corner, didn't know that. I know they dropped to 4 (well at least Mclaren did, think the others do now) when in the pits or behind safety car to save fuel and keep temps down.
 
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Isn't it pretty well acknowledged that Kimi is really quite laid back and fun to chat with when he isn't being interview on TV and having to do all the sponsorship stuff? Where he can just be himself.

Compare how he was on TopGear to how he is in F1 interviews. He's a different person!
 
Not watched the practice yet to see this, but this comment was quite interesting -

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2012/10/12/2012-korean-grand-prix-practice-result-fp2/

That would make sense, if Hamilton's setup hadn't been different to Button's all season long, with Button having to go with Hamilton's setup for several races during Button's "I can't find any balance"... errm, half a season. So they've diverged in setups almost every race this year, but making a big deal out of it because in ONE race Hamilton wasn't happy with the car. Bad weekend, possible, even something as simple as doing set up on a bad set of tyres can have you go the wrong way, and drivers make mistakes. Button failed to get the right setup for race, after race, after race, Vettel has had a visibly worse car than Webber at times, and likely for the same reason.

Everyone gets car setup wrong, what its more important is afaik(didn't watch FP2) Hamilton didn't actually set a time on the supersofts, and from the quick video highlights he had a huge huge lock up and screwed a tyre(for those that want to say that is proof of anything, Alonso did exactly the same in FP1) so I'm assuming that he ruined the set of supersofts, didn't want to use another so ended up 8 tenths behind Vettel and only 4 tenths behind Button, but on the slower of the two tyres vs everyone else on the faster tyre. The only odd part is Hamilton saying he felt the car was slow, sandbagging it, possibly. What I hate about freepractice reporting/timing on screen is, there needs to be, like timing in the race with interval and overall time behind, switch between fastest lap and current lap times, and actually show them. So that when everyone is doing a long run fuel wise we can compare the times.

Others would say that he is just lazy. If he was blowing away the competition week in week out, like Loeb has done for 10 years, then he could afford to do it. However when you are fighting for the WDC and on the backfoot why make things harder by not preparing correctly?

He isn't lazy, he just doesn't care that much, could he qualify better, maybe, maybe not. Fact is he isn't winning the title this year, the car isn't there, the main thing is he's really fast when the car is working and its a job. He could put every last second of his life into F1, and still end up not a single point higher. I simply like his attitude, I LIKE that he comes across as lazy, I like that he doesn't waste effort trying to pretend to be someone completely different on camera to make people like him. I hate people that DO put the effort into having an amiable loveable on air personality purely to try and make more money.

He's a driver, give him a car and he drives and enjoys it, going and sitting in a simulator isn't the same and he can't be bothered with it.

My thoughts exactly.
He is undoubtedly super talented (his performances this year prove this), but I would argue that he has and is, wasting his talent.

Imagine if he applied himself in the same way that MSc did...the results would be phenomenal.

He also has no idea how to speak to people. It amazes me how he has managed to get into F1 and attract so many sponsors. Can you imagine how the meetings with sponsors would've gone, when he was trying to make it in F1, in his early year?

He does know how to speak to people, he doesn't care about being "Mr nice guy" for reporters, simple as that. I think half of his interviews are just not caring and the other half are actively coming up with lines to send reporters scurrying incase he says something worse, he's the anti "media whore", and I can't stand media whores.

As for results if he applied himself, they'd be the same. If the Ferrari wasn't competitive in race pace Alonso wouldn't be leading the title, if the Red Bull wasn't awesome for well over half the races so far this year, he'd be nowhere. Lotus isn't capable of being higher than it is, he's doing as well as the car can. You could spend 10million hours in a simulator, its not going to make the car any faster.
 
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