German Grand Prix 2013, Nürburgring - Race 9/19

FrankJH · 9 Jul 2013 at 07:53

this_is_gav said:
What I don't get was them allowing Webber to catch up to the train, as previously they haven't bothered when it was just a 'minor team'. They could happily have brought the safety car in on the lap Webber unlapped himself, as that happened at the start of the lap... it's almost as if there's one rule fo.......

to be fair Lewis did this in Silverstone too - but few seemed to complain about that.......

No way he would have scored that many points without the safety cars coming into play

Irish_Tom · 9 Jul 2013 at 08:39

FrankJH said:
to be fair Lewis did this in Silverstone too - but few seemed to complain about that.......

No way he would have scored that many points without the safety cars coming into play

Was Hamilton lapped and was he allowed to overtake the entire grid to unlap himself at Silverstone?

While I agree that he wouldn't have scored any points without the safety car, it is slightly different if all of the drivers are on the lead lap because the advantage is equal across the grid.

leaskovski · 9 Jul 2013 at 09:05

Duke said:
Mercedes blame the lack of tyre swapping for their performance - http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/108668

Pffft, they should blame their design team.

MooMoo444 · 9 Jul 2013 at 09:16

I dont understand why putting the left rear on the right rear and vice versa gives so much performance?

pingwing · 9 Jul 2013 at 09:28

MooMoo444 said:
I dont understand why putting the left rear on the right rear and vice versa gives so much performance?

Wear rates, all tracks one side will wear faster than the other (because there will be more one direction corners than the other direction) so what everyone was doing was running them one way in qualiy to use one side of the tyre then swapping them to get the most life out of it wearing the other way.

Perelli have pointed out they make the wheels left and right so they are only designed to rotate one direction and the failures at silverstone are quite likely to be attributed to running the rear tyres backwards at some point over the weekend to get the most laps out of the rubber.

It's a practice developed out of a need to push the are of tyres as that's the only part of the car they can cheaply get some performance out of but the way they are treating Pirelli over it is disgusting as they are just pointing the finger at them constantly when the teams aren't using the tyres as specified.

Zuban · 9 Jul 2013 at 09:49

Dont forget its pirelli engineers that were mounting the tyres the wrong way round for them, so now being told you cant do it is a bit like having the rug pulled out from underneath you.

Mr Jack · 9 Jul 2013 at 09:51

Is there no penalty for Red Bull? I'm astonished. The need to start handing out race bans to teams who let their cars out of the pits without attaching the wheels properly.

deuse · 9 Jul 2013 at 09:54

leaskovski said:
Pffft, they should blame their design team.

Not really. They fixed the car for 2013 and kept with in the rules, the rules change and now they are worst off.

Same as the double defuser if that would have got banned then JB would not have won the WDC.
In my view if Pirelli had made a stronger tire(sidewalls) then we wouldn't be talking about it.

Unless the new tire is any good I can't see Merc getting further then 4-5th in any race. Now RB has won it all again

MooMoo444 · 9 Jul 2013 at 09:57

Mr Jack said:
Is there no penalty for Red Bull? I'm astonished. The need to start handing out race bans to teams who let their cars out of the pits without attaching the wheels properly.

They got a penalty..albeit very very lenient considering they almost killed someone.

FrankJH · 9 Jul 2013 at 10:13

Irish_Tom said:
Was Hamilton lapped and was he allowed to overtake the entire grid to unlap himself at Silverstone?

While I agree that he wouldn't have scored any points without the safety car, it is slightly different if all of the drivers are on the lead lap because the advantage is equal across the grid.

of course the advantage isn't the same - you can gain 30 seconds , or .2 of a second, the grid gets compressed under a safety car.

They are all equalized across the grid (ie 1/2 second between the cars or whatever), yes, the advantage isn't the same at all though.

I don't agree with it at all but that's the way the mop flops

pingwing said:
Wear rates, all tracks one side will wear faster than the other (because there will be more one direction corners than the other direction) so what everyone was doing was running them one way in qualiy to use one side of the tyre then swapping them to get the most life out of it wearing the other way.
.

I don't believe everyone was doing it - just from what Paul Hembry said in the last couple of weekends ("some teams" I could have sworn was mentioned a number of times in regards to PSI levels and swapping of the tyres)

Zuban said:
Dont forget its pirelli engineers that were mounting the tyres the wrong way round for them, so now being told you cant do it is a bit like having the rug pulled out from underneath you.

Its pit lane crews for each team surely - not Pirelli engineers?

Mr Jack · 9 Jul 2013 at 10:19

MooMoo444 said:
They got a penalty..albeit very very lenient considering they almost killed someone.

Did they? I couldn't find anything about it so assumed they hadn't. What did they get?

Edit: found it. £26k? What a frickin' joke.

Irish_Tom · 9 Jul 2013 at 11:13

FrankJH said:
of course the advantage isn't the same - you can gain 30 seconds , or .2 of a second, the grid gets compressed under a safety car.

They are all equalized across the grid (ie 1/2 second between the cars or whatever), yes, the advantage isn't the same at all though.

I don't agree with it at all but that's the way the mop flops

Yes, that's what I meant (poor semantics on my part).

What I was trying to get at is that there's a difference between being at the back on the same lap and being at the back plus a lap.

That's the key difference between Hamilton at Silverstone and Webber at The Nürburgring.

MooMoo444 · 9 Jul 2013 at 11:30

Mr Jack said:
Did they? I couldn't find anything about it so assumed they hadn't. What did they get?

Edit: found it. £26k? What a frickin' joke.

I know right. Horner could pay that himself with the change in his cars center console..

smr · 9 Jul 2013 at 11:44

Ridiculous, if that was Lotus or anyone else they'd have got points deducted or a heftier fine.

smr · 9 Jul 2013 at 12:04

And proof that Jenson would have finished higher than Lewis if not for the Caterhams:

There is no doubt that Lewis Hamilton was lapping quicker than Jenson Button when he caught and passed him on the final lap, but was his former team-mate right to blame Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde for allowing the Mercedes driver to close on him?

When the pair crossed the line on lap 55 to start the final five laps, they were separated by 7.068 seconds. That gap was cut by 1.595 seconds the next time around as the McLaren man lapped Max Chilton's Marussia - Button dropped eight tenths of a second on his previous lap time.

Hamilton by contrast managed to set his fastest lap of the race when lapping the Marussia driver - his time on lap 57 was 1:34.156. Button by contrast had now caught the Caterhams and lapped the Nurburgring in 1:35.857.

Button's time was slower by a further 1.154 seconds on lap 58 as he fought his way past Pic and van der Garde, allowing Hamilton to cut the gap to 1.922 - the Mercedes driver 1.853 seconds faster.

Thus negating the time lost behind lapped cars, it would appear that Hamilton was consistently between seven and eight tenths of a second quicker than Button in the closing stages. That would not have been enough to close the seven second gap in the final five laps without the outside intervention of the Caterhams.

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So Jenson would have had two 5th place finishes this year in a dog of a car if not for a pit crew brainfade and a Caterham brainfade. It's about time the back markers got penalised for holding up the front runners.

Jono8 · 9 Jul 2013 at 12:10

smr said:
And proof that Jenson would have finished higher than Lewis if not for the Caterhams:

There is no doubt that Lewis Hamilton was lapping quicker than Jenson Button when he caught and passed him on the final lap, but was his former team-mate right to blame Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde for allowing the Mercedes driver to close on him?

When the pair crossed the line on lap 55 to start the final five laps, they were separated by 7.068 seconds. That gap was cut by 1.595 seconds the next time around as the McLaren man lapped Max Chilton's Marussia - Button dropped eight tenths of a second on his previous lap time.

Hamilton by contrast managed to set his fastest lap of the race when lapping the Marussia driver - his time on lap 57 was 1:34.156. Button by contrast had now caught the Caterhams and lapped the Nurburgring in 1:35.857.

Button's time was slower by a further 1.154 seconds on lap 58 as he fought his way past Pic and van der Garde, allowing Hamilton to cut the gap to 1.922 - the Mercedes driver 1.853 seconds faster.

Thus negating the time lost behind lapped cars, it would appear that Hamilton was consistently between seven and eight tenths of a second quicker than Button in the closing stages. That would not have been enough to close the seven second gap in the final five laps without the outside intervention of the Caterhams.

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So Jenson would have had two 5th place finishes this year in a dog of a car if not for a pit crew brainfade and a Caterham brainfade. It's about time the back markers got penalised for holding up the front runners.

You crack me up. I thought it was only points that mattered?

smr · 9 Jul 2013 at 12:12

Jono8 said:
You crack me up. I thought it was only points that mattered?

Tis.

pingwing · 9 Jul 2013 at 12:18

FrankJH said:
I don't believe everyone was doing it - just from what Paul Hembry said in the last couple of weekends ("some teams" I could have sworn was mentioned a number of times in regards to PSI levels and swapping of the tyres)

Yeah bit of an over simplification on my part, it was something everyone knew about as a solution to the tyre wear problems/getting the most out of a limited number of sets, but different teams have been doing a variety of combinations (from nothing at all to low psi in backwards tyres) which isn't really helping diagnosing the problems.

JoeF1 · 9 Jul 2013 at 12:21

Zuban said:
Dont forget its pirelli engineers that were mounting the tyres the wrong way round for them, so now being told you cant do it is a bit like having the rug pulled out from underneath you.

What? This is the first i knew. Pirelli enginners change the tyres?

Greboth · 9 Jul 2013 at 12:31

It wouldn't suprise me that Pirelli fit the tyres initially due to some reason or another (safety that tyre manufacturer fits them, make sure no cheating etc). Why would they need Pirelli to take the tyres off though, as far as I know the tyres are unidirectional but the wheels aren't so even if Pirelli do fit the tyres the teams could just put them on the wrong side of the car.