Malaysian Grand Prix 2015, Kuala Lumpur - Race 2/19

Shimmy said:
Lewis with Martin at the Skypad, nice insight.

http://www1.skysports.com/watch/video/9779201/lewis-at-the-skypad
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Yeah, that was interesting. Amazing how Lewis, and no doubt all the drivers, have a real technological perspective beyond just their driving. I mean, Lewis knew when his wheels would 'under rotate' (even Brundle wasn't sure what he meant), and when his wheels would be hot enough that he should avoid certain racing lines. Those are the sort of fine details that help make champions I guess.
 
Millwall.FC said:
Rumour has it Rosberg has asked if it is possible for another seat to be added to his car so he has some one to advise him on how to drive and read out his RPM etc.
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Effectively foe me the very best drivers can go out there and find the grip or find the best line, others are much less good at that, or finding the best set up and they effectively copy others.

Rosberg often looks slower then watches Hamilton asks his guys where Hamilton is fast and comes back at Hamilton, he is effectively using Hamilton as a training tool. In races where conditions change, the car changes as fuel is burned off and different tires feel a little different in race conditions Hamilton owns Rosberg, even further is since the rule change and no coaching in race Rosberg seems even further behind in races.

Is it a coincidence that Hamilton ran less in practice in both races than most practices last year and the driver can't get as much coaching during qualifying and Rosberg has been further behind.... I'm not convinced it is a coincidence.

I personally think Hamilton will be more cautious in terms of hooking up full laps in practice and showing his pace consistently. I think he'll hold more back and try and hide where he's fastest throughout practice and nail Rosberg more often this year.

Dimi said:
That was a quite a good qualifying session, Ferrari pretty much confirmed now that they're back to being relevant. Unlucky for Kimi and a good effort from Vettel.

Race should be fun if Vettel gets ahead of Hamilton into turn 1, the Ferrari looked good on Friday in the long runs. Same with Kimi, provided he avoids a collision on the first lap considering he's sandwiched between drivers who are notorious for being a bit clumsy..

Am I the only one who's not impressed with Rosberg? He's being shown up for what he is, a 2nd rate driver. Getting beat by inferior machinery should be classed a sin especially in that car.. Rain or no rain! :p
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It's far far too early to say Ferrari are back to being great because... something people seem to have missed is. Last years top 3 in qualifying for Malaysia was..

1 44 Lewis Hamilton 1:59.431 1
2 1 Sebastian Vettel 1:59.486 2
3 6 Nico Rosberg 2:00.050 3

(no idea what formatting will do to that)

Either way, Rosberg was actually further behind Hamilton than last year and Vettel was actually closer to Hamilton last year, only 0.055 behind rather than 0.074 this time around.


Rain throws everything off in general can close everything up, also drivers have good and bad tracks, tracks they are better or worse in the rain. Vettel is good here in the rain, Hamilton is king here in the rain. I think Hamilton and Vettel were effectively on the tire limit for their car, with the Merc faster due to better downforce for the race. Had Hamilton not been compromised on his first lap at the end he'd likely have been a decent portion out. As Hamilton was explaining on the skypad talk about his lap, they harvest on the in lap, the out lap then go into full power usage mode. Hamilton would have used a lot of power out of the last corner for the start finish straight and through the first third of the lap, then in these conditions likely harder to harvest as much power and with 2/3rd's of a lap to harvest rather than 2 full laps.

Either way, with the engine token change the engines aren't where they were early last year, Renault instead of 3 tests on that engine before Australia effectively took a new untested engine to Australia. They'll come back as engine mapping improves. Next race could be Mercs then Williams, then RBR's then Ferrari on the fourth row again. The most important thing is their race pace has improved, though again RBR could come back past them as their engine comes back to them.
 
Merlin5 said:
Yeah, that was interesting. Amazing how Lewis, and no doubt all the drivers, have a real technological perspective beyond just their driving. I mean, Lewis knew when his wheels would 'under rotate' (even Brundle wasn't sure what he meant), and when his wheels would be hot enough that he should avoid certain racing lines. Those are the sort of fine details that help make champions I guess.
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As much as I quite dislike Brundle, it's likely that was more presenter mode style question to get an explanation for the viewer. It's not great form to say "Lewis, for the dumbass viewers who don't know the difference can you just explain that a bit better for them", :p A little question that gets the driver to explain the difference is actually fairly good interviewing practice.

But one of the issues with Rosberg is, he should know what Hamilton was saying, not least because Hamilton has spoken about going off line in the wet to find grip in multiple interviews(maybe not in quite as much detail). More problematic for Rosberg is that even Verstappen had the same explanation when talked to by the guys. He was saying karting experience and karting lines helped, going off line and staying off the rubber in the right corners helped him a lot. This should be fairly common knowledge for top drivers yet Rosberg is asking his engineer during a Q3 when he should have learned that is Hamilton's style in the wet most of the time. Very strange.
 
I agree with Ron.
About to win you need the engine manufacture behind you fully.
When's the last time the non engine team won?
And they have to go through this for future performance.
Still it's a massive step forward over last race, despite still being last,
 
Moses said:
I got from it that he wasn't going, 'derp, what line do you choose in the wet?', as though he doesn't know about people going offline and getting more grip... instead it was asking which line of the two the best driver had picked - so essentially if it was dry enough to go with the racing line, or if it was damp enough that the offline line was best.
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Oh I agree on that, but more I was just pointing out that Hamilton 99/100 times feels the track conditions bang on and makes that choice himself and does great but also a 17 yr old kid who has never raced a F1 car in the rain also managed to make this decision for himself.... but Rosberg needs to ask his team to tell him what decision other drivers were making. He's not young, he's not inexperienced, he's certainly not a 17 yr old kid in his second F1 race and first in the rain. If he doesn't know that for himself, if he can't feel that from the track and just get on with it, it's something he'll never learn at this point.

It's just another sign in which he is very much lacking compared to other drivers. ALl the best drivers can feel the track and adjust on the fly, bad drivers can neither do that on the fly themselves NOR learn from others and just suck. Rosberg is in between, he can follow and copy great drivers and do a pretty damn good job, but he can't do it himself.


Also looking like there is a pretty fundamental problem on the Mclaren car. THough not entirely confirmed Ted was saying one of the Honda engines had a catastrophic failure in the MGU-H which demolished the engine. I'm going ahead and presuming that was Mag's car in the last race. So if the shaft has a major failure it will take the turbo, compressor with it and also took out the ICE. They are saying it needs a complete redesign and probably moving. Considering again we are back to split turbo and rushing designs. It took Merc 2 years to crack that design and get on top of the vibration along a long shaft rotating that damn fast. Ferrari tried and failed, Renault didn't but sounds like they have tried since and haven't as yet cracked it. Could well be the issue Mclaren are facing.

The real question is how long to redesign, will the redesigned part be fixed first time, obviously it could also not work as intended, but also if this part is so bad that it needs a redesign, it's an existing flaw in every engine they currently use... so how many engines will fail directly as a result of that before they manage to fix it.

I do suspect we'll be seeing Mclarens improving speed one race to the next but with a lot of engines blowing up in race. Maybe even worse again is if the mgu-h fails and takes the turbo with it and throws sharp crap all over the track, it could be effecting other drivers as well.
 
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Nico will have some good races this year, no doubt about it.. But Lewis winning last year seems to have had a fairly large effect on it all. Lewis of course seems on top of the world and full of confidence while Nico seems lost.

Great qually by Lewis though, going to enjoy the Vettle/Nico fight.. Lewis will pull away and manage the gap I feel.
 
ZG002 said:
Nico will have some good races this year, no doubt about it.. But Lewis winning last year seems to have had a fairly large effect on it all. Lewis of course seems on top of the world and full of confidence while Nico seems lost.

Great qually by Lewis though, going to enjoy the Vettle/Nico fight.. Lewis will pull away and manage the gap I feel.
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The tighter rules on communications seem to have had an affect as well. Although it might just be they aren't broadcasting all the other drivers asking for help.


Vestrappen, also sensibly. watched the previous races, to see who took what line in various conditions. Showing a mature and sensible head. He was as well prepared as he could be and it showed.
 
Rosberg has lost his marbles at this point. Story going around though I can't find video yet, that Rosberg pretended to be a reporter and then asked Hamilton a question in a press conference.

Rosberg "There’s a lot of comments on Twitter saying Nico blocked you, is that true he blocked you on your second timed lap?"

Hamilton replied: "I think you should probably ask him. I think he’ll have a good opinion on that."

Rosberg apparently replied "that's not funny".

How is Rosberg getting himself into so many cringe worthy moments. After the last race the whole asking Vettel if he really wanted his team mate doing well, then getting pretty much embarrassed by Seb's response, then getting awkward and inviting him to the press conference... which was a bad joke, then when everyone mocked him for it he tried to pretend it was a serious invitation. He's becoming a joke.

When he was asked the same question by a legitimate reporter the response was

'You best ask Lewis about that, he said. 'No, it is not even a relevant discussion because we were both on slow-down laps at that point in time. And that was very, very clear.'

Informed Hamilton had set a personal best in the first sector, Rosberg said: 'Yeah, but if you bail out of a lap it turns into a slow-down lap, doesn't it?'

It was then suggested to Rosberg that Hamilton only slowed as he came upon the German, to which he said: 'That is not true. He backed off way before coming up on me.'
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It was clear that he set a fantastic first sector then came across him in the second sector at which point he was forced to slow down. He was on such a slow down lap that he caught Rosberg, over took him off line, took the wrong line into the corner and slowed down.... sure Rosberg, sure.

Last year he kept giving cringe worthy responses to everything, when he lost he would frequently say "clearly I had the pace" or "I was the fastest but it just didn't happen", along those lines. It was rarely he was better than me it was always he was better but miraculously didn't win. His responses over hitting Hamilton, going over the limit in terms of trying to fight wheel to wheel, the amount of times he cut corners or pushed Hamilton off the track, Monaco. He's been a bit of a dirty git and very weird in interviews/press conferences for all of last season, it's just as he's gotten more extreme and the incidents stack up people aren't giving him any benefit of the doubt any more.

But seriously, block him, pretend to be a reporter, ask him about something dodgy you did, get uppity at a funny response then talk rubbish again when asked about it?

It's possible he is the ultimate troll, but I suspect he's just a slightly weird bloke who isn't coping with being beaten at all well.
 
I feel sorry for Alonso (well not much). He has a long season ahead of him and I wouldn't put it past him to consider early retirement.
 
deuse said:
You've took all that out of context.
"At the Mercedes press conference, Rosberg put his hand up"
"'Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG Petronas,' he started, imitating a journalist"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...probably-ask-F1-rivals-Malaysian-GP-spat.html

I think that Nico was trying to have a laugh but it back fired.
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I'm not sure how I took that out of context, that is what I said happened. He tried to be funny, pretended to be a reporter, then asked if Rosberg blocked Hamilton, Hamilton had a funny reply and Rosberg didn't like that response. THat is what I thought happened and what I said happened. It's still Rosberg randomly attempting a joke but on a subject that makes himself look like a ****, and done in such a cringe worthy fashion that he just ends up looking worse.

Same as the Vettel stuff after the last race, he was trying to be funny but on a subject that was ill advised (battle between team mates) and got made to look foolish by the response.

There are ways to make jokes and there are ways to be funny, choosing the subject of blocking his team mate when everyone believes (and could obviously see) he did block his team mate... bringing it up and expecting anything else as a response is ridiculous. No one else on earth would bring up the topics he does in the situations he does. The pretending to be a reporter, we've seen drivers do that before, it can be funny, but ask Hamilton about his dog, or about some funny incident that happened in practice, qualifying or the race, not something dodgy you've just done.

Effectively I think he expected Vettel to say along the lines of "no I don't really want Kimi close, I want to beat him at all costs", to vindicate Rosberg's position over the past year. Likewise I think he expected Hamilton to just say "no I was clearly not going fast and he in no way blocked me".... but he was going fast and was blocked and came VERY close to losing pole because of it. The outcome doesn't matter, he may have ruined his best lap and ended up 3rd/4th, even lower, that is what Rosberg intended, expecting his team mate to make a joke of it to let him off the hook is ridiculous.

With the way the cars are, if someone has started their fast lap they won't have enough time to harvest full energy for another fast lap straight afterwards. Hamilton will have been down on power on the next lap and may have done poorly as a result. No other driver I can think of would make a joke about that and expect the person you screwed to make you look good over it.
 
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Moses said:
He's earning ridiculous money and it's not really harming his reputation, given everyone knows the car is miles behind the frontrunners. I can see why he'd stick it out, rather than retiring!
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Quite.

It's like Villeneuve in '99 - he was in a crap car built by a team made up of hopeless optimists, did his best and came out the other end smelling of roses. What he needs to do now is what Villeneuve couldn't/wouldn't do - rally the team, get them focused on what needs to be done, actually get it done, then reap the rewards.

If he doesn't, then it'll be a criminal waste of the talent that he's alleged to have. And also, I can take Hamilton winning a few more championships but there's no way I can take the reaction of his fanclub. Not without sedatives.
 
Glaucus said:
I agree with Ron.
About to win you need the engine manufacture behind you fully.
When's the last time the non engine team won?,
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2009, 2010 and 2011. Honda also got schooled by mugen honda and Jordan.

I do agree though it's obviously better to be the works team. Although it's much easier than it used to be in the 90's when you got last years engine!
 
JRS said:
Quite.

It's like Villeneuve in '99 - he was in a crap car built by a team made up of hopeless optimists, did his best and came out the other end smelling of roses. What he needs to do now is what Villeneuve couldn't/wouldn't do - rally the team, get them focused on what needs to be done, actually get it done, then reap the rewards.

If he doesn't, then it'll be a criminal waste of the talent that he's alleged to have. And also, I can take Hamilton winning a few more championships but there's no way I can take the reaction of his fanclub. Not without sedatives.
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There's a massive difference between BAR and Mclaren though. Honda was laughable too when they joined BAR. I don't think Mclaren would put up with the Honda BAR had to put up with. Rallying Mclaren should be easier than rallying a bunch of people with no idea how to win in F1. Personally I think 2000 he did his best job, even better than the title year or 99.

Alonso could still retire tomorrow and for a large period of time I still think he's by far the best driver I have seen since senna. In equal machinery with no shenanigans I can't think of a driver I have ever seen who is so consistently fast. Neither have I seen someone win a title where I didn't think if he was in the sister car would have stopped him taking it.
 
Lmao @ Rosberg and I thought he was meant to be the technical racer. More like a second rate driver in my book, but he fills number 2 driver well I guess bringing in constructor points.
 
dannyjo22 said:
2009, 2010 and 2011. Honda also got schooled by mugen honda and Jordan.

I do agree though it's obviously better to be the works team. Although it's much easier than it used to be in the 90's when you got last years engine!
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It could be said that Red bull was the de facto Works Renault team for all those years though?

Also no coincidence that Williams woes started when BMW left them.
 
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