German Grand Prix 2012, Hockenheim - Race 10/20

I was just looking at the championship table and comparing points totals of various team-mates.

In general the gap between the leading points scorer vs his team-mate, seems to be around the 50% mark (except for the RBR drivers who are evenly matched). The drivers for McLaren, Evil Lotus, Williams, Merc all adhere to the 50% rule. The 1 HUGE difference is Alonso. The difference between himself and Massa is about 550%!

Now I'm not an F1 driver, but if I were being out-performed by that sort of margin, my confidence would be completely shot. Massa needs to get out of Ferrari, asap, if he wants to save what little confidence he has. If he continues to the end of the season, by the end, he may have to leave F1 altogether.

I am wondering why Ferrari are allowing this situation to continue.
 
I guess it depends whether it is all Massa or whether they have engineered it that way to give Alonso the best possible advantage? At the moment I am reluctant to jump on the "Massa is completely useless" bandwagon.

If it was all down to Massa, at this point he would be costing them the WCC - surely they would have replaced him already?
 
It is possible that Ferrari could "engineer" the result.
However, why would they do it by 550%?
This is a humungous performance deficit.
I think the last time I saw this sort of a points difference was when MSc was at his peak and used to lap his team-mates.
 
sunama said:
It is possible that Ferrari could "engineer" the result.
However, why would they do it by 550%?
This is a humungous performance deficit.
I think the last time I saw this sort of a points difference was when MSc was at his peak and used to lap his team-mates.
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It just looks to me like they are putting everything into Alonso's car in the hope to clinch the WDC. Massa seems to have been forgotten. Combined with the fact that the cars are all so close this year (and that imo Massa isn't a very good driver), then I can completely understand the deficit. That is pretty darn huge though.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
I guess it depends whether it is all Massa or whether they have engineered it that way to give Alonso the best possible advantage? At the moment I am reluctant to jump on the "Massa is completely useless" bandwagon.

If it was all down to Massa, at this point he would be costing them the WCC - surely they would have replaced him already?
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I think everyone knows that Ferrari is focused around Alonso, and while the WCC is nice I think most accept that the WDC is the main aim at the start of any season, both titles are nice, and just winning the WCC without the WDC seems like a consolation prize.

I think Massa is out end of season no matter what happens now, he has had a good run with Ferrari so can have no complaint's really, a career up against Schumacher, Raikkonen and Alonso not many drivers would survive that :D
 
I think Alonso got a lot more out of the car when it wasn't at its best early in the season.

And the close field has just exaggerated any difference. Wasn't there a race earlier in the season where Massa was only 0.5 seconds off Alonso, but about 15 places back in Qualifying?
 
Ferrari still have a job to give Alonso the best car possible, right now he is in the 3rd fastest car leading the Championship, if ferrari give him a quicker car no doubt the title is his.
 
How can people still say the Ferrari isn't the best all around car at the moment with any sense of authority :/
It's pure speculation.
 
I dunno, its a difficult one to nail down.

But both McLarens have won, and both RBRs have won, yet Massa hasn't been on the podium. Does that say more about the car or the drivers?
 
ps3ud0 said:
Id probably say its the least compromised when it comes to differing track conditions...

ps3ud0 :cool:
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Yeah think they now have a all round very decent car that works well when it comes to race day, don't think it's the outright fastest.

Great job Ferrari have done to turn it around from pre-season and Australia.
 
Mr Men said:
Yeah think they now have a all round very decent car that works well when it comes to race day, don't think it's the outright fastest.

Great job Ferrari have done to turn it around from pre-season and Australia.
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Agreed, didn't believe the whole "they just need to understand the car" comment (have heard it many times before). Fair play though, the car seems to handle most conditions well come race day.
 
Ferrari - best all round car?
I would say the best all round car is RBR.

I think 3 races ago, Vettel was leading the race and broke down. He was leading comfortably and had he been pushed, probably would've gone even faster. Alonso - as we have seen in Canada and even in the race which Webber won - is just below the limit at all times. I cant see how anybody could say that Ferrari have the best car when a driver of Webber's calibre beat Alonso (on merit).

If someone else were driving the Ferrari car, I do not believe for 1 second, that that driver would be in 1st or even 2nd place.
That RBR car is fantastic.

I find the best way to measure driver's ability/form is to compare him against his team-mate. The last time I held a driver in such high regard as Alonso, was MSc in 1995, when he was lapping his team-mates and making Williams/D.Hill look very slow.

At present, for me, Alonso is comfortably the daddy of F1, with Vettel in 2nd and the rest of the field lower down.

...and now for some MSc loving. There are some people who never had a chance to see MSc in his first career. Believe me, this guy was fantastic. Some of his wet weather driving was mesmeric. MSc brought a whole new meaning the definition of "a complete driver". His 1st career and his 2nd career performances bear almost no relation.
 
Red Bull and Seb with his fancy engine maps giving him traction control? Wonder if he will fall behind Webber again now it's gone.....
 
I think the rule 'clarification' will hurt RBR more than people think, and it would be a shame to be honest.

RBR have always pushed the rules to the limit, the EBD and flexy front wing were examples of this, but the new engine maps were a step too far - especially when they know that these rules were written in order to stop it. They got away with cheating on a technicality(and I know that's all it takes).
 
seems Red Bull are a bit upset :D

Dr Helmut Marko is critical not only of the moves to change the engine mapping rules mid-season, but also of rival teams who lobbied the FIA and then refused to own up at a meeting earlier this week.

In the wake of the Hockenheim controversy about Red Bull's reportedly legal traction control and engine exhaust blowing settings, F1's governing body on Wednesday issued a rule clarification that means the team must revert to a more conventional setup in Hungary this weekend and beyond.

The move follows the FIA revealing its concern about the Red Bull solution at Hockenheim, but admitting the wording of the existing rules made it powerless to stop it.

Wednesday's clarification closes the loophole.

"We were not cleared (at Hockenheim) because we falsified the evidence, but because we were within the regulations," Austrian Marko, Red Bull's motor racing consultant, told Servus TV.

He railed against overnight rule changes.

"If something is green, you can't then make it blue," said Marko.

"Nowhere does it say that we can't use the regulations in our favour."

He also criticised the behaviour of Red Bull's rivals, who according to speculation lobbied the FIA for the change but were then silent in Monday's technical meeting in London.

"Again and again, there are people who do such a thing. I'm talking of the other teams," said Marko.

"Then on Monday, when we could have addressed it professionally and objectively, it is not even addressed."

Red Bull is also still annoyed about Sebastian Vettel's demotion from second to fifth at Hockenheim for his illegal pass on Jenson Button.

Marko has already referred to a "double standard" sometimes employed by the FIA when it comes to penalties, and now team boss Christian Horner says he has reviewed footage of Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso's pole lap at Hockenheim.

"On the last corner he was off the circuit with all four wheels," the Briton is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport, intimating that the Spaniard also broke the rules for advantage but was not penalised.
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On the Alonso point, well his previous lap was still good enough for pole, and did Seb not use all 4 wheels off the track countless times in the race? :D
 
ps3ud0 said:
Ive highlighted a keyword ;)

ps3ud0 :cool:
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Thats what I mean though. If the Ferrari is the best car, shouldn't that mean Massa should have got a podium? Or has Massa not got a podium because he himself isn't good enough?

You usually look at the whole teams performance to place the performance of a car, but can we do that with Massa? Is Alonso vastly outperforming the car while Massa is driving it at its true pace? Or is Alonso driving the car at its true pace while Massa is massively under performing? Or is is somewhere in the middle?

I genuinly don't know, and I think its very difficult to place where the Ferrari is right now because of it.
 
Skeeter said:
Thats what I mean though. If the Ferrari is the best car, shouldn't that mean Massa should have got a podium? Or has Massa not got a podium because he himself isn't good enough?

You usually look at the whole teams performance to place the performance of a car, but can we do that with Massa? Is Alonso vastly outperforming the car while Massa is driving it at its true pace? Or is Alonso driving the car at its true pace while Massa is massively under performing? Or is is somewhere in the middle?

I genuinly don't know, and I think its very difficult to place where the Ferrari is right now because of it.
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Think of it more that the quality of the car is between Alonsos and Massas performances, one dragging it up, the other is just dead weight to cover FIA regulations

Id be amazed if anyone here really think Massa shows Ferraris true pace, or conversely that Alonsos does...

c.f. McLaren when they had Hamilton and Kova there

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
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