Japanese Grand Prix 2012, Suzuka - Race 15/20

Result


Code: 
[b]Pos  Driver        Team                       Time[/b]
 1.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           1h28:56.242
 2.  Massa         Ferrari                    +    20.639
 3.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +    24.538
 4.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +    25.098
 5.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           +    46.490
 6.  Raikkonen     Lotus-Renault              +    50.424
 7.  Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes       +    51.159
 8.  Maldonado     Williams-Renault           +    52.364
 9.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +    54.675
10.  Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +  1:06.919
11.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +  1:07.769
12.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +  1:23.400
13.  Vergne        Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +  1:28.600
14.  Senna         Williams-Renault           +  1:28.700
15.  Grosjean      Lotus-Renault              +     1 lap
16.  Kovalainen    Caterham-Renault           +     1 lap
17.  Glock         Marussia-Cosworth          +     1 lap
18.  Petrov        Caterham-Renault           +     1 lap
19.  De la Rosa    HRT-Cosworth               +     1 lap

Fastest lap: Vettel, 1:35.774

Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                         On lap
Pic           Marussia-Cosworth            39
Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth                 34
Perez         Sauber-Ferrari               19
Alonso        Ferrari                      1
Rosberg       Mercedes                     1



World Championship standings, round 15:

Code: 
[b]Drivers:                    Constructors:             [/b]
 1.  Alonso       194        1.  Red Bull-Renault          325
 2.  Vettel       190        2.  McLaren-Mercedes          283
 3.  Raikkonen    157        3.  Ferrari                   263
 4.  Hamilton     152        4.  Lotus-Renault             239
 5.  Webber       135        5.  Mercedes                  136
 6.  Button       131        6.  Sauber-Ferrari            115
 7.  Rosberg       93        7.  Force India-Mercedes       81
 8.  Grosjean      82        8.  Williams-Renault           58
 9.  Massa         69        9.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari         15
10.  Perez         65       
11.  Kobayashi     50       
12.  Di Resta      44       
13.  Schumacher    43       
14.  Hulkenberg    37       
15.  Maldonado     33       
16.  Senna         25       
17.  Vergne         8       
18.  Ricciardo      7
 
Feel for Alonso today, his title is all but over with the pace they have. Vettel surely has to think about whether he wants to drive for titles or ferrari. They have not gone forward on that car at all. It's still not fast enough in the dry where Red Bull rapidly recovered from having to alter Ecu maps and ride height altering.

I do like the same people that said it was Alonsos to lose are now predicting it's all Vettels. ;)

Alonso was never fast enough in the dry. Shame he got the puncture though because he might have been able to do some damage limitation. I just cannot see where the win will come from if it's dry.
 
Grosjean is as big a problem as Maldonado now, both need to be out if you ask me. How on earth Grosjean only got a 1 race ban is beyond me, to drive home the point, as he's clearly learnt nothing, he needed a 3 race ban at least. Today was ridiculous, he just powered up the inside, going into the corner he just didn't slow down enough, he's completely reckless.

Though in saying that Alonso seemingly did almost what Grosjean did, he moved way across right into Kimi then, just did that slight extra movement over to cause contact, he completely deserved to go out and is VERY lucky he didn't take out even more cars than Grosjean did, if his car had slid down into the pack and taken out half the grid... would his decision/crash/mistake have been any worse than Grosjean's, only a little. Grosjeans was worse as he was powered up the inside, had more space than Alonso and he was going up the inside into a tight right turn. Alonso did it on the outside of a much faster turn but still completely stupid. Kimi was there, not knowing he was there isn't an excuse, moving him off the track is VERY bad driving.

Vettel, like Valencia the car just completely unmatched on the grid. Hamilton, I still feel there is something wrong with the car, in 5 years how many times has he failed to set up a car, how many times has Button. Even so Mclaren absolutely and utterly failed him, he did great in the first stint, saved tyres, for me moved out the way of Perez to drive at his pace rather than defend against a faster car, and that tyre saving worked very well. Almost the last of the top drivers to pit, 3-5 laps later than most of the people within 3-4 places of him. Then to save a split second and gain track position on Kimi, the worst car on his tyres.... they pitted him WAY early. God damned ridiculous, his tyres had a small bad spell but came back, he was safely ahead of Hulk, he was gaining on those ahead, he had the freshest tyres and could again have stopped 3-4 laps later than everyone else. If he'd done that, 3-4 laps later, then onto soft tyres and boom... 10-12 lap super fast stint.

Instead they threw away 7-8 laps for track position on Kimi who was struggling. I think it was the wrong move, being weak at the end rather than strong, but pitting early when his pace wasn't bad was a big mistake.

Almost every race those who can go longer, do a short final stint on fast tyres have almost always gained, those who throw away a tyre advantage for track position tend to do really badly in the dying laps.

Looking at their current pace Red Bull look really stupidly strong, Mclaren certainly didn't seem to have Red Bull's pace and coming up to the end of the season you wonder how much development will happen.
 
utajoker said:
he has lost it imo, no chance for him now.
Click to expand...

lol

because Mclaren have done so well for the past 4-5 races we've heard nothing but Alonso will win without the best car, Mclaren easily the best car this year, Hamilton has no chance, Alonso doesn't make mistakes and is by far the best driver, etc, etc.

ONE race and suddenly proclaiming Alonso the master who doesn't make mistakes seems.... stupid, proclaiming Mclaren as easily the best car looks, stupid, proclaiming the title Alonso's or Hamilton completely out of it, looks stupid, etc, etc, etc.

Can anyone around here learn that nothing is over till the fat lady sings. Vettel can still make mistakes, someone else could take Vettel off, or the RBR can have failures, luck goes around, Alonso's had it all year, he lost it today(though was lucky not to get piled into by half the grid, so maybe he still had it a bit :p ). Vettel's had the best car at some races, a not so great car at other races. a 42 point gap would be unrecoverable at this point... a decade ago with 10 points a race, at 25 points a win, its not.

Red bull, Mclaren, Ferrari have all traded places as the best car all year, the first two most often being best, with Ferrari just with consistency of not having poor races while the first two have had more bad races than Ferrari.

If Red bull keep the best car till the end of the year, its Vettel's, but then just last race people were saying if Mclaren have the best car from now till the end of the season.... etc, etc.
 
Overall good race. I really wanted a double DNF, so basically Alonso AND Vettel both DNF to put other people back into contention. Unfortunately Alonso going out and Vettel winning = championship to Vettel now imo. Momentum with Vettel and Alonso was really punching above the cars performance all season. I think Vettel will walk it now sadly. I don't hate Vettel, I just think his one finger'd ness is annoying. Why do we need to know he came first all the time?

But way to go Kobayashi and Massa!!!!!
 
drunkenmaster said:
lol


Red bull, Mclaren, Ferrari have all traded places as the best car all year, the first two most often being best, with Ferrari just with consistency of not having poor races while the first two have had more bad races than Ferrari..
Click to expand...

You have the consistency of a Mclaren pitstop, from this very thread not 2 or 3 days ago...

drunkenmaster said:
Ferrari for me is probably the best race car this year, though in the past 4 races Mclaren have probably edged ahead. Qualifying is one thing, race pace is another, Ferrari have the best car on a Sunday, Mclaren by far the best car on a Saturday.
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So in one post Ferrari have the best car on a sunday and in the other it's Red Bull and Mclaren. Talk about covering all the bases.
 
drunkenmaster said:
snip!
Click to expand...


I actually agree with DM (:o)

I may have been a little hasty with my doom and gloom following Hamilton's poor weekend but upon reflection, I don't think a lot has changed now that this race is over.

We said before Japan that Hamilton needed to score an average of 10 points per race more than Alonso for the final six races and he did exactly that today.

The only real difference is the gap between Vettel and Alonso has closed.

Hamilton now has to average nine points more than Alonso and eight points more than Vettel each race to secure the WDC.

The only difficulty is that as the number of remaining races dwindles, this task becomes harder, especially if RBR maintain the pace they've shown here.

It seems odd that the McLaren could go from being so well paced to dog slow from one weekend to the next but I'm sure there are reasons for that. Just have to hope it swings back in their favour next weekend.

The real test will be these rumoured upgrades for RBR and whether they go back go 2011 levels of domination.
 
dannyjo22 said:
Feel for Alonso today, his title is all but over with the pace they have. Vettel surely has to think about whether he wants to drive for titles or ferrari. They have not gone forward on that car at all. It's still not fast enough in the dry where Red Bull rapidly recovered from having to alter Ecu maps and ride height altering.

I do like the same people that said it was Alonsos to lose are now predicting it's all Vettels. ;)

Alonso was never fast enough in the dry. Shame he got the puncture though because he might have been able to do some damage limitation. I just cannot see where the win will come from if it's dry.
Click to expand...

Surely the fact that Massa managed to drag that Ferrari onto the podium, even accounting for a bit of luck regarding who may have dropped out/back, would imply that the Ferrari has speed still.

If Massa can claim a podium with it, Alonso still has some fight left I reckon.
 
Kenai said:
Surely the fact that Massa managed to drag that Ferrari onto the podium, even accounting for a bit of luck regarding who may have dropped out/back, would imply that the Ferrari has speed still.

If Massa can claim a podium with it, Alonso still has some fight left I reckon.
Click to expand...

They don't have the pace on any given race weekend to beat both Vettel and Mclaren. I said Alonso would have atleast 2 DNF's when people said it was all over and he had won the title. Luckily for him Vettel had a DNF the following race.

Clearly they cannot compete with the dry pace of the Red Bull. Without DNF's I can't see how Alonso can hold off the Red Bull charge. I said Red Bull would come back hard in the 2nd half and score more points than Ferrari and they will.

Alonso finishing today would have been damage limitation but the end result is inevitable. Vettel will be 3 time world champion. Especially if they can get Webber taking points from Alonso too.

Alonso will battle til the end but Red Bull have turned that car around now and getting super fast at just the right time to turn the screw.
 
dannyjo22 said:
Alonso will battle til the end but Red Bull have turned that car around now and getting super fast at just the right time to turn the screw.
Click to expand...

Or, much like we've seen with everyone else this season, some tracks have just suited some cars better than others and the expected results completely flip flop for the next race.

Maybe Red Bull were just well suited here but come next race are back off the pace again?

I think you're being just as premature completely writing off the Ferrari and saying Red Bull will annihilate everyone in all the remaining races as anyone else was a week ago saying McLaren had the quick car and could mount a challenge.
 
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