German Grand Prix 2013, Nürburgring - Race 9/19

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

yup teams supply the rims, pirelli fit up the tyres for them, pirelli engineers are there all the time keeping an eye on things they would have known all year the tyres were being swapped to the wrong side.

I'm not sure they swap the side of the car as such, taking the left wheel and putting it on the right side of the car, well the outside shoulder would still be on the ouside, i think they are reversing them on the rims, so the outside shoulder, becomes the inside and vice versa, I think this was a contributing factor to the failures, because the steel band is angled slightly to deal with stresses correctly, so when you swap it the band is angled the wrong way. As this doesnt exist on the kevlar banded tyres then I can see why merc would be pee'd about not being able to swap the tyres as there is arguably now no technical reason not too.
 
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You have raised a point there actually, when they said the wrong way I assumed they mean rotationally not wrong with respect to the steel band.

Edit: Reading a few articles they only mention swapping them but not how they swapped them, anyone got a link confirming which one?
 
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it could be they are just swapping the rim to the other side of the car, i've read a couple of conflicting articles on it tbh one suggesting what i just said and the other what you just said lol

http://www.gptoday.com/full_story/view/456934/Technically_Speaking_Tyre_Swapping/

this has photo's showing the right tyre on the left side so i guess they are doing that, maybe the article I had read got it wrong.
 
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I'm not sure they swap the side of the car as such, taking the left wheel and putting it on the right side of the car, well the outside shoulder would still be on the ouside, i think they are reversing them on the rims, so the outside shoulder, becomes the inside and vice versa, I think this was a contributing factor to the failures, because the steel band is angled slightly to deal with stresses correctly, so when you swap it the band is angled the wrong way.

No, you've got that wrong. They're just swapping whole wheels over so the direction of rotation is reversed. This is a problem because the wheels are directional in design.
 
No, you've got that wrong. They're just swapping whole wheels over so the direction of rotation is reversed. This is a problem because the wheels are directional in design.

yeah i already said wherever i read that was wrong, not being 100% convinced myself its why i opened with "i'm not sure", its just swapping the rims from side to side. Had read something about the shoulder business which i cant find now, which makes me think the article might have been corrected and updated aswell! Its deffo pirelli that fit the tyres, but contrary to what i said before they obviously arent fitting them the wrong way round, but they were aware the teams were running them on the wrong side, pirelli engineers are present when the cars are running and would have been well aware of the tyre swapping.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/108545

this article explains it the best, and shows pirelli have been letting them do it. My question is if this was something specific to the steel banded tyres, if were back on the kevlar ones do they need to ban it.
 
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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.

Wow obsessed much ?

You are a laughing stock on here.
 
Wow obsessed much ?

You are a laughing stock on here.
I know everyone is going to have a driver they prefer, and sports like this can bring out lots of emotion, but damn there is a lot of blind fanboyism on here.

I make no secret that I am a Lewis/merc fan, but I dont find myself analysing the data to make myself feel better about a poor result.

In formula 1 there are no ifs or buts, this is racing, what happens on the day is just that, there is no sense in trying to make up excuses for drivers/teams, that is the job of the teams and drivers that are payed great amounts to do so .
 
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.

Back markers are part of racing. Button did a bad job of negotiating them and lost out, Lewis did a better job and lost out less. It's no more "unfair" than any of the other incidents that shape a race.
 
Back markers are part of racing. Button did a bad job of negotiating them and lost out, Lewis did a better job and lost out less. It's no more "unfair" than any of the other incidents that shape a race.

This is true, however some back marker teams do seem to leap out of the way of some point scoring teams and dont bother with others which doesnt help
 
Back markers are part of racing. Button did a bad job of negotiating them and lost out, Lewis did a better job and lost out less. It's no more "unfair" than any of the other incidents that shape a race.

It's difficult to believe that when you see only a race or two ago Sutil held up Hamilton and he lost a bunch of time, just because they're not on so good terms.
 
Hamilton by contrast managed to set his fastest lap of the race when lapping the Marussia driver


So what you're really saying is that Lewis can overtake and Button is crap at it . I agree ;)

What team car was button stuck behind in Monaco once lmfao
 
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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

This is mostly because Lewis's issue at Silverstone was both from a winning position and not his fault, while Webber being over a lap down was entirely his teams fault(though not his) and Hamilton didn't have the race essentially on pause for several laps just to give him a chance. Completely different situations. Hamilton had a little luck go his way after some dreadful luck, RBR made a shocking mistake, they got very lucky and basically completely got away with a potentially deadly mistake.

This is true, however some back marker teams do seem to leap out of the way of some point scoring teams and dont bother with others which doesnt help

I think in this case what is being overlooked is simply his tyres, the data doesn't hold up in Button's favour, but not because he's a poor driver. From just before the lap he got "held up" his tyres were just hitting that cliff. He was, along with Hamilton, basically on Vettel's pace. Then he hit the wall and his tyres dropped off massively, Hamilton maintained give or take Vettel's pace, he didn't speed up, but Button slowed for EACH and every lap not just the laps with backmarkers there was only a small amount of extra time lost to hamilton and it wasn't the fault of the back markers.

We saw multiple times all race, great traction out of the final corner, chance to over take, poor traction out of the final corner and DRS wasn't helping. His tyres were shot, he had no traction out of corners, couldn't hit top speed on the straights, didn't have the grip to go faster around a corner. his tyres and nothing else is what prevented him easily passing back markers. They aren't required to see someone within 2 seconds and just stop, when the car can pass they let them, nothing more. Because of crap tyres with no grip Button was taking an age to get in a position to over take.

Hamilton was quicker through the back markers precisely because his tyres didn't drop off. Ultimately backmarkers in the final stint of the race hurt many drivers EVERY race, and doing a long run on soft tyres at the end was Button's choice and that is one of the consequences. THe back markers didn't cost him anything. If he'd have been on softs earlier he'd likely have simply been behind Hamilton by that stage of the race already.
 
This is mostly because Lewis's issue at Silverstone was both from a winning position and not his fault, while Webber being over a lap down was entirely his teams fault(though not his) and Hamilton didn't have

Completely wrong

Hamilton would not have got any points if it wasnt for TWO safety car periods. So yes he did get a lot of luck


From just before the lap he got "held up" his tyres were just hitting that cliff. He was, along with Hamilton, basically on Vettel's pace. Then he hit the wall and his tyres dropped off massively, Hamilton maintained give or take Vettel's pace, he didn't speed up, but Button slowed for EACH and every lap not just the laps with backmarkers there was only a small amount of extra time lost to hamilton and it wasn't the fault of the back markers..

He hadnt been on the tyres THAT long, so I very much doubt he had found the cliff that quickly.

Watch the video, JB was clearly held up by a several seconds by the pair of them, he (relatively) shot off infront once he got past. Not as quickly as LH obviously or a RBR would have (for instance) but it was pretty obvious they wrecked his final position
 
Completely wrong

Hamilton would not have got any points if it wasnt for TWO safety car periods. So yes he did get a lot of luck




He hadnt been on the tyres THAT long, so I very much doubt he had found the cliff that quickly.

Watch the video, JB was clearly held up by a several seconds by the pair of them, he (relatively) shot off infront once he got past. Not as quickly as LH obviously or a RBR would have (for instance) but it was pretty obvious they wrecked his final position

Wow, what an over the top and completely expected reply full of utter nonsense.

Look at what you quoted, now tell me where I said Hamilton didn't have luck and wouldn't have gotten points without the safety cars... go on, I dare you, wait I specifically said he DID get lucky. I specifically said it because people didn't mind that he got a slice of luck because his tyre blowing was incredibly bad luck. For Webber, his team screwed up, it wasn't outside forces, it was their fault, they made a mistake, could have killed a cameraman(or plenty of other people in the pit lane) and then got luck.

Please try and read.

As for tyres Button started at 94.2 for his first fast lap after pitting, then from lap 56 didn't get below a 95.98.

Its also worth pointing out that Button's "bad" lap 58 he was 1.3 seconds slower than the lap before, Hamilton was 1.1 seconds slower than the lap before, he gained precisely 2/10ths over the back markers, with better tyres and more traction in the tyres he did a 95.28 vs Buttons 97.14. But the amount he lost ONLY over backmarkers was tiny, he had slowed, he was slowing with 6 laps to go and he lost VERY little extra over Hamilton due to the back markers, with worse tyres, less traction that isn't even slightly surprising is it.

He was 2-3 seconds a lap slower in the last 6 laps of that stint than the first 6 laps..... I was also defending Button, it wasn't his fault, you will take longer to gain on people, longer to pass and have less passing points(as it becomes more difficult to take around corners).

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2013/07/07/2013-german-grand-prix-lap-times-and-fastest-laps/

You can compare the two drivers laps without anyone elses, it shows a clear trend of Button's laps both going up in times and a noticeable increase, you can also clearly show that Hamilton had slower laps when he was held up by the same traffic.

You can also look at others times, like you can have a look at the Lotus's and their quite disgustingly consistent lap times over their stints on softs(awesome tyre wear).

In fact if you look at other drivers, Hulk and Rosberg on the final stint with essentially the same stint as Button, neither went out and did a 94.2 on the first lap and neither showed such a ramp up of lap times and both finished doing faster laps in the last 4-5 laps. You could potentially infer that Button came out, did a WAY too fast lap and hurt the tyres while others, including Hamilton did some easier laps and kept their lap times much better.. so maybe we can blame Button.

What is clear is, Button wasn't held up significantly more than Hamilton, on both drivers worse traffic lap Button lost 2/10ths more than Button, which is no less than expected(infact for me, much lower) considering his tyres were going. If anyone wants to suggest that Button losing 1.3 seconds over backmarkers and Hamilton losing 1.1 seconds was the reason he gained over 9 seconds and took his place... go ahead, whoever does will sound demented though.

We can also CLEARLY see from the lap times that at no time did Button lose "several seconds" because he never went more than 1.3seconds slower than the previous lap time in that period.
 
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The Caterhams were holding Jenson up, by the time Lewis got on their gearbox they'd woken up. That's all there is to it. If they hadn't been oblivious in the first place Jenson would've finished 5th and yes, it is worth obsessing about. Look at Marrusia last season in Brazil - Glock lost a drive with them because they missed out on 10th place in the Constructors, which goes to epitomise how important constructor points are to Formula 1 teams, regardless of whether you are Marussia or Red Bull.
 
FIA have released a statement about the forthcoming young driver's test. Might go along on the Friday :)

The announcement follows a meeting of F1’s Sporting Committee on Wednesday, July 3 at the Nürburgring, prior the German Grand Prix.

The conditions set out are in accordance with Article 22.4(h)(i) of the F1 Sporting Regulations, as recently amended by the World Motor Sport Council, and are as follows:

The Young Driver Training Test will remain a three-day test, from July 17-19.

Only the 2012 construction will be used for the test but with the hard, medium and soft 2013 compounds.

The test will now allow teams to field drivers who have competed in more than two F1 World Championship events provided that the purpose of them doing this is to test tyres for Pirelli.

In order to meet this requirement, all teams shall ensure that any changes made to a car at these times are exclusively related to the tyre tests set out in the run plan provided by Pirelli.

An FIA observer will be appointed to ensure the regulations are being followed.
 
I do wonder how closely the FIA observer "observes" the team.

Whenever they've shown clips of the FIA delegates in the pitlane they're just strolling around or casually glancing in garages. I bet it is very tempting for teams to tweak a setting here, crank a wing there :o
 
I do wonder how closely the FIA observer "observes" the team.

Whenever they've shown clips of the FIA delegates in the pitlane they're just strolling around or casually glancing in garages. I bet it is very tempting for teams to tweak a setting here, crank a wing there :o

I was thinking the same thing.
 
I do wonder how closely the FIA observer "observes" the team.

Whenever they've shown clips of the FIA delegates in the pitlane they're just strolling around or casually glancing in garages. I bet it is very tempting for teams to tweak a setting here, crank a wing there :o

Something I've always wondered too, just how qualified are the observers and scrutineers?

Surely they can't be that familiar with the real intricacies of a F1 car, especially a something bleeding edge like a Red Bull with whatever tricks that has on it, otherwise with that knowledge they would be employed by a team :p
 
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