British Grand Prix 2011, Silverstone Circuit - Race 9/19

[deuse]

Well done to Alonso he had a great race. Lewis was the driver of the race for me and if it was not for Mcalrens two mistakes they would have had a 2-3 in the end.

I feel sorry for Webber now he knows he can never pass vettel.
vettel cracked under pressure again and rb had to fix the race so he would win and not cry to horner.

 

[arknor]

^ I agree. Any car that needs to save fuel should be investigated after the race and appropriate team penalties applied. It's not good for the show.

blame the tyres then people cant go flat out until the end of the race so theres no point in giving them the fuel to

 

[Borrish]

Well done to Alonso he had a great race. Lewis was the driver of the race for me and if it was not for Mcalrens two mistakes they would have had a 2-3 in the end.

I feel sorry for Webber now he knows he can never pass vettel.
vettel cracked under pressure again and rb had to fix the race so he would win and not cry to horner.

Of course RB wanted Vettel to finished ahead of Webber. They would be stupid not to. It would make no sense at all to have Webber finish one place ahead. Vettel is their hope of winning the drivers and they get the same points for the constructors either way. If Webber doesn't like it he should move to a different team. He's a good driver but he's always going to be second driver at RB.

 

[JRS]

and if it was not for Mcalrens two mistakes they would have had a 2-3 in the end.

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades....McLaren botched this race weekend.

While JB did look happier on the dry tyre than the intermediate, he never really looked like he had 'easy podium' pace in the car. I wonder if he was in fuel conservation mode long before Lewis was, to be honest. Looking back over the lap chart, if that wheel had been nailed on and if he'd been able to maintain a reasonable pace for the remainder of the Grand Prix then he may have gotten 3rd. But thanks to that demonstration of how not to do a fast pitstop (newsflash, boys at McLaren - you can't just leave the wheelnuts off to save time, you do have to put them on!) we'll never know if he'd have had to slow down the way Lewis did or not.

Of course RB wanted Vettel to finished ahead of Webber. They would be stupid not to. It would make no sense at all to have Webber finish one place ahead. Vettel is their hope of winning the drivers and they get the same points for the constructors either way. If Webber doesn't like it he should move to a different team. He's a good driver but he's always going to be second driver at RB.

Oh, absolutely! I mean, if he'd been passed by Webber then the championship would look completely different! Instead of having 204 points to Webber's 124, he'd only have 201 and Webber would have 127! A disastrous result....

Or, you know, maybe not all that disastrous.

*shrug*

 

[Dave M]

^ I agree. Any car that needs to save fuel should be investigated after the race and appropriate team penalties applied. It's not good for the show.

Drivers manage fuel, tyres and brakes right through the race, every race, that is racing also.

I doubt you'd be so upset if it was the red bulls dropping back like a stone to save fuel handing Hamilton a podium.

 

[Glaucus]

Drivers manage fuel, tyres and brakes right through the race, every race, that is racing also.

I doubt you'd be so upset if it was the red bulls dropping back like a stone to save fuel handing Hamilton a podium.

This and it's not the first or last time that drivers don't have enough fuel. It's not just F1 but all motorsports. There's been plenty of ***** ups with people running out of fuel on track.

 

[Skeeter]

Im sorry for this statement, but motorsport is never about saving fuel.

Hi

Ever heard of endurance racing?



Running out of fuel was an oversight on McLarens part. F1 has always been about completing the race with the minimal amount of fuel possible, as fuel is weight. Its a very fine line between getting it spot on and finishing with bang on the minimum fuel, and getting it wrong and running out. McLaren made a mistake.

F1 is not a 20 lap sprint, nor is it a 4 hour endurance, its a middle ground. It has elements of raw speed combined with elements of reliability and car (fuel, brakes, tyres, engine, etc) management. This is what F1 has always been about.

 

[godinman]

This was actually a brilliant race, it's just a shame that both of the top UK drivers were buggered by their own teams, but hey ho, still a good un.

Worst part by far was schumys penalty, utterly ridiculous, the marshal people need to realise that this is a race and that sometimes **** like that happens and ruining someones race because of it will eventually stop anyone doing good overtakes.

Two high points were from LH, that fantastic overtake and that fantastic bit of defensive driving, woooo!!!!

 

[MooMoo444]

Have to agree with michaels penalty, difficult conditions, wrong tyres at parts, racing incident in my eyes

I dont understand why he gets a stop/go for that, and Hamilton gets nothing for ramming massa, but c'est la vie

 

[Skeeter]

I think the Schumacher penalty is skewed by the Stop/Go. A drive through the pits at Silverstone only cost you up to 15 seconds, as opposed to 25 seconds at other tracks, due to cutting out the final corner. Therefore a stop/go was used to replicate what would be a drive through at other tracks.

However, I do think the penalty's are getting stupid. Anyone touching now gets investigated.

 

[Glaucus]

Any penalty was very harsh though. It should have just been another race incident.

 

[Dr Who]

The Investigations and Penalties have to be seen to be consistent, so it has been all investigated.

Schumacher didn't take adequate care when he hit careful Kobayashi, he slid out of control into the corner, so fair enough for the penalty really.

As for the fuel situation, fuel is always an issue in motor racing, you never put more onboard than you need as it is moving weight which potentially upsets balance as well as extra weight. If you miscalculate you are either slower than you should be, or walking back to the pits (Senna/Mansell?)

If you think Hailton was fuel saving for any reason other than the teams own miscalculation you are mad

 

[Glaucus]

So you are saying there should be no over taking in damp/wet conditions as you might get understeer/lockups.

It was a stupid penalty as we have seen many times and does nothing for the sport or the racing.

 

[JHeaton]

Schumacher didn't take adequate care when he hit careful Kobayashi, he slid out of control into the corner, so fair enough for the penalty really.

I'm more of the opinion that penalties should be applied for dirty driving and blatant rule breaches, not making a mistake. These guys are still only human and penalties for errors, especially in difficult conditions, do spoil the racing for the fans as well as the teams and drivers. There's a huge difference between driving in to someone to affect the championship (Jerez '97) and just driving in to a guy because there was less grip than you expected.

 

[pcoltrane]

Im sorry for this statement, but motorsport is never about saving fuel.

<Remainder of rant cut>

Nonsense! Teams have always run as little fuel in their cars as they can possibly get away with, right from the very first races 100 years ago!
More fuel = more weight and therefore less performance. It's totally in their interest to run as little as possible.

Back in say the 50s and 60s, if you even had a fuel gauge - it wasn't particularly accurate. Plenty of teams got it wrong and the drivers run out of fuel before the end.

In the Turbo era, drivers were constantly managing fuel consumption. They could turn up the turbos and run faster, but if they did that for too long they'd run out of fuel. They spent the whole race managing their fuel. Again - if they didn't, they ran out short of the finish.

With refuelling, it was less of an issue because the stints were shorter, but I can assure you that the drivers would still be managing their fuel to eek out an extra lap to jump their rival in a pitstop.

Mclaren and Hamilton didn't manage their fuel as well as they could. Perhaps they took a gamble on the track staying wet longer than it did. They would have benefited massively from the lower fuel load at the start (not just the weight, but the car would be easier on the tyres). Had they run Lewis with more fuel he may well have been well behind before they even got to the stage where he needed to save fuel. Equally it may have been a stoke of genius had to worked out, and the extra performance he gained by carrying less fuel could have brought him the win.

I don't understand why you'd want to take element away from the sport. It would make things even more static as the teams would have no opportunties to gain an advantage over their rivals. Simply the faster cars would drive away gradually into the distance. Instead as it is currently, we see different performance levels at different stages of the race as different approaches play themselves out.

Everything about motorsport is about compromise - but compromise that gives you the ultimate performance. Fuel is one part of that. The drivers are still pushing the boundaries of what they have at their disposal - and that includes still lapping as quickly as humanly possible while managing their fuel. It's part of the skill required to be a racing driver.

I think on this matter you may only be seeing the trees

 

[Skeeter]

I have issue with penalty's being applied to a driver who has already suffered. If you crash, loose your front wing, have to do half a lap without one and then make an unscheduled stop, you have already been punished for your driving. You don't need a drive through too.

Perhaps there should be a strikes/cards system? Cause an accident, get a warning, cause another one, get a drive through. Obviously if its a stupid accident or deliberate, then jump straight to the 'red card' of a drive through?

Just an idea?

 

[Dr Who]

So you are saying there should be no over taking in damp/wet conditions as you might get understeer/lockups.

It was a stupid penalty as we have seen many times and does nothing for the sport or the racing.

OFC not, Schumacher wasn't in a position to overtake there he was too far back and an idiot could see Kobayashi was taking his line after a slide.

A drive through penalty would not have been consistent due to the way the pitlane works, so stop go it was.

I agree many penalties are rubbish, but that is the way they have chosen to be consistent, and Schumacher was wrong, he even admitted such. Kobayashi got the same and that was his teams fault, Button could have had the same had he not had to stop anyway.

It is easy for you to sit back and say it isn't fair on MSC, but in what way was it fair to Kobayashi to be spun out? Drivers need to learn to be less rash, and MSC is far from the driver he once was.

I have been in tons of races where people have slammed into me and had no penalties leaving me with huge repair bills for no other reason than they made stupid rash moves which cost me a race, drivers need to know that if they make stupid rash moves they will be penalised in some way.

There is a big difference between that incident and the Hamilton Massa incident where Hamilton held his line and Massa tried to bully back, that was a racing incident.

PS. Barelling into a corner sliding in the wet is no more excusable than in the dry, both are a driving failure, and MSC had driven that corner before and knew how slippery or not it was. They lockup/slide in both conditions.

 

[Borrish]

I'm more of the opinion that penalties should be applied for dirty driving and blatant rule breaches, not making a mistake. These guys are still only human and penalties for errors, especially in difficult conditions, do spoil the racing for the fans as well as the teams and drivers. There's a huge difference between driving in to someone to affect the championship (Jerez '97) and just driving in to a guy because there was less grip than you expected.

True but they set the standard when they gave Hamilton penalties for similar incidents. Must be strange from Schumacher's point of view to get a penalty for it though since he's done far worse before and get away with it.

Oh, absolutely! I mean, if he'd been passed by Webber then the championship would look completely different! Instead of having 204 points to Webber's 124, he'd only have 201 and Webber would have 127! A disastrous result....

Or, you know, maybe not all that disastrous.

*shrug*

In all probability you're right but from RB's point of view you never know what's going to happen. If the car turns out to be a disaster late season or he has to miss a few races a few points could make a difference.

 

[Dr Who]

I'm more of the opinion that penalties should be applied for dirty driving and blatant rule breaches, not making a mistake. These guys are still only human and penalties for errors, especially in difficult conditions, do spoil the racing for the fans as well as the teams and drivers. There's a huge difference between driving in to someone to affect the championship (Jerez '97) and just driving in to a guy because there was less grip than you expected.

Would you think like that if you were mid corner and some driver spun you out?

My bet is you would want his head on a spike at the end of the pitlane

 

[JRS]

In all probability you're right but from RB's point of view you never know what's going to happen. If the car turns out to be a disaster late season or he has to miss a few races a few points could make a difference.

If he does lose this year by the margin we're talking about, I'll hold my hands up and say that you were right. But if he carries on and wins it at a canter, or collapses completely and loses it by miles, I reserve the right to point back to this with open derision