British Grand Prix 2013, Silverstone - Race 8/19

Those last laps were great, wish we had 10 more to go. Is it me or are the races just better when Vettel isn't in the mix? Seeing them actually push, not tyre saving or fuel saving was how I feel it should always be, Loved the Lewis and Di resta battle.

Oh and tyres... lol.
 
ZG002 said:
Is it me or are the races just better when Vettel isn't in the mix? Seeing
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What amused me was how much more friendly and non-awkward the pre-podium room was without Vettel in it. Rosberg, Alonso and Webber all getting on nicely. Whenever Vettel is in there, the atmosphere just looks/feels frosty and awkward. :D
 
Doohickey said:
Well yes but we're talking about safety. Without wanting to sound boring, these drivers' lives are at risk here. As spectacular as it is, the last thing anyone watching wants to see is a blow out at 200mph...
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If it was 1970 I'm sure it would have been stopped. Modern F1 cars are so safe and we have become so confident in getting nothing more serious than a broken leg unless it's a complete freak accident like Massa's spring it's hard to think of drivers getting hurt anymore.

It's extremely unlikely a driver in these tubs would get killed for a tyre letting go. The run off's are much better and the cars are so well built. A secondary impact with another car is the only way I could think it might happen one day.

F1 has become so safe f1 drivers have become accustomed to cut off other drivers, it was refreshing to see Webber race with some class and leave a car's width when others would run the other driver out of road.
 
Yeah, those saying it wasn't predictable when we've had multiple very similar delaminations(but with tyres with seemingly a metal band that isn't in the current tyres that held them together MUCH better) is a pretty silly thing to say, Pirelli and other drivers wanted the tyres changed because they are failing too often. It was predicted, and changes proposed to stop it which were basically veto'd. Why Lotus and co were allowed to influence a decision that should have been made purely on safety I don't know, ridiculous.

In terms of safety, I think they all got incredibly lucky, there wasn't any reason someone couldn't have been in Massa's slip stream and smashed into the back of him, leaving a couple cars spinning across a corner which 5 other cars pile into. That they happened when and where they did was luck, nothing else. Someones tyre could have gone at the speed limit down the pit lane and smashed into a pit crew, it could have happened right down the first straight at the front on a restart with the entire grid piling in with no where to avoid multiple cars across the track.

Driving is hugely safer than it was, but by no means safe, many of the drivers expressed their worry about bits of kevlar and heavy chunks of rubber smacking them in the helmet at 300kph, and quite rightly.
 
JonnyT said:
Slight problem with Gary Anderson's 'analysis' that it was the edge of the kerb that was causing the cuts in the tyres was that he was at turn 4, which is a right-hander, which the drivers would have been cutting by riding over with their right-front and right-rear tyres. The failures on Massa, Perez and Hamilton's cars were all on the left rear...
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turn 4 is a left hander.

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But the tyres were supposedly being damaged by kerbs, not necessarily sliced (as evidenced by Vettel's, Alonso's and Rosberg's tyres being on the point of failing as they pitted), so immediate failures probably weren't guaranteed. Even if they were failing instantly, the kerb at Chapel has always been particularly nasty - I seem to remember someone losing a front wing or suspension on that kerb in the past few years.


tummelv said:
turn 4 is a left hander.

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Anderson was at turn 5 anyway, which for some reason the BBC kept on referring to as turn 4 throughout the broadcast. But in principle I think he's probably right - those kerbs are quite sharp on the inside edge and I can fully imagine a tyre spinning up would be damaged on the shoulder.

A mate on another forum pointed out another quirk. Hamilton's, Massa's and Vergne's punctures all came after the first lap with bits of carbon fibre liberally sprinkled across the track. After Gutierrez's failure (which may or may not have been connected, being the only front failure) destroyed his front wing and scattered debris all over the track, they deployed the safety car and went cleaning up the track. After that there were no other failures until cars started bashing into each other again. Perhaps it was just coincidence, but the timing does have some merit.
 
Purdy said:
A lot of the tyre explosions seemed to come on hangar straight as well though
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Not trying to defend the tyres as I've disliked them for a good while now.

But that doesn't really prove anything, it just means some were cut deeper than others and blew earlier, look at Vettel he made it back into the pits for a new set, but clearly had a lot of damage to the tyre.

It will be a game of cat and mouse now, Pirelli will be going all out to blame the track and Silverstone will be defending it's track. But it's fairly obvious now that the tyres need to change as this has been a problem all season. Can't be doing Pirelli any good in PR tbh.
 
this_is_gav said:
A mate on another forum pointed out another quirk. Hamilton's, Massa's and Vergne's punctures all came after the first lap with bits of carbon fibre liberally sprinkled across the track. After Gutierrez's failure (which may or may not have been connected, being the only front failure) destroyed his front wing and scattered debris all over the track, they deployed the safety car and went cleaning up the track. After that there were no other failures until cars started bashing into each other again. Perhaps it was just coincidence, but the timing does have some merit.
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Not sure if I'm reading that right? Are you saying the first 3 punctures came after Gutierrez failure?
 
Doohickey said:
Well yes but we're talking about safety. Without wanting to sound boring, these drivers' lives are at risk here. As spectacular as it is, the last thing anyone watching wants to see is a blow out at 200mph...
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Quite. It turned out to be a great race but I think they should have red-flagged it. I can only assume they thought that changing the tyre pressures and instructing drivers to limit their usage of kerbs was sufficient to manage tyre failure (which, to be fair, it did largely do).
 
Jono8 said:
What amused me was how much more friendly and non-awkward the pre-podium room was without Vettel in it. Rosberg, Alonso and Webber all getting on nicely. Whenever Vettel is in there, the atmosphere just looks/feels frosty and awkward. :D
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It really does feel like most of the grid just hates him sometimes.

The fans all booing him when he got out of his car and walked back kinda summed it up.
 
Mr Jack said:
Quite. It turned out to be a great race but I think they should have red-flagged it. I can only assume they thought that changing the tyre pressures and instructing drivers to limit their usage of kerbs was sufficient to manage tyre failure (which, to be fair, it did largely do).
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Apart from the drivers completely ignored the instruction to lay off the kerbs :D

Which, to be fair, I didn't expect them to listen to anyway. They are there to race and there is a racing line, which involves using kerbs, no one is going to compromise their race because their tyre 'might' explode if they take the fastest line.

As for the risk/safety, meh, if you were that worried about risk, you wouldn't be a racing driver in the first place.
 
Freakbro said:
Apart from the drivers completely ignored the instruction to lay off the kerbs :D

Which, to be fair, I didn't expect them to listen to anyway. They are there to race and there is a racing line, which involves using kerbs, no one is going to compromise their race because their tyre 'might' explode if they take the fastest line.

As for the risk/safety, meh, if you were that worried about risk, you wouldn't be a racing driver in the first place.
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There is a certain element of "Volenti non fit injuria" involved e.g. you know and accept the risks, although I'd say tyres randomly exploding as they did at Silverstone pushes that a bit :p
 
Mr Jack said:
There's a difference between normal racing risks and Surprise! Your tyre exploded! or, indeed Surprise! The car in front disintegrated!

We saw how dangerous flying debris can be in the awful Massa crash a few years back.
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Oh yea, I meant more the risk of running over the kerbs being bad for your tyres and why the drivers ignored the instruction, because the balance of risk of tyre exploding/injury to compromising their race....thankfully their race performance is more important to them! :)
 
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