Hungary Grand Prix 2011, Hungaroring Circuit - Race 11/19

sunama · 29 Jul 2011 at 16:38

Mad_Jay said:
I suppose this now gives him time to work on the Olympics next year.

It does fit in rather nicely with his schedule.

Although, isnt the Silverstone GP being held during the Olympics...I'm not sure.

Emlyn_Dewar · 29 Jul 2011 at 17:05

Just realised that I hadn't looked at the actual practise results from today, or at any other F1 news... :|
(Was out today so couldn't watch the sessions)

Hopefully can see Alonso and Hamilton keep the pace up all weekend, would like to see them both beating the Red Bulls again. (Obviously wanting an Alonso victory

)

Really hoping to see massive backlash and hugely negative twitter rubbish being sent in to Jake's comedy ipad.

arknor · 29 Jul 2011 at 17:06

mmj_uk said:
How have you come to this conclusion when he is consistently slower than Rosberg? if anyone is overdriving the car it's Rosberg in qualifying. The trouble Schumacher is having is he is unable to put the car where it belongs in qualifying (7th/8th) and as such has to repeatedly fight his way through the slower field.

This is true, however if the Mercedes had a decent race pace then Rosberg would have had several podiums by now and not just at a track where it rained heavily and the 2 top drivers retired.

Glaucus · 29 Jul 2011 at 17:08

Edit - sorry wrong thread

drunkenmaster · 30 Jul 2011 at 00:33

mmj_uk said:
This is true, however if the Mercedes had a decent race pace then Rosberg would have had several podiums by now and not just at a track where it rained heavily and the 2 top drivers retired.

If the car had decent race pace its Schumy who would have had a bunch more podiums, he already moves up the grid and finishes ahead of Rossberg frequently, if they both got a bump of a second's race pace each, they'd simply both move forward, with Schumy getting podiums, Rossberg isn't really close to getting podiums.

sunama said:
But the fact is that MSc is probably the most intelligent driver on the grid (when it comes to F1 strategies) and he knows that F1 is about scoring points...not about driving aggressively and getting beaten by your team-mate.

No, its not, at all, F1 is not about being a pansy assed ***** and trying to scrape via points via dull races to be slightly ahead. If he was in with a shout at the title he might, when you've got no shot, its all about entertainment. They are 7th and 10th, they aren't getting higher than 7th, just not going to happen, what they hell does a world champion car about finishing 7th or 10th, he cares about winning and racing, nothing more, nothing less, pottling around a track to pick up a pay cheque like Kovo, does Schumy really strike you as that kind of guy? I'm literally 100% certain he'd take a single win and 17 DNF's than 7th in the standings.

As Arknor has said, on race pace Schumy is almost always way ahead on Rossberg who consistantly finishes lower than he qualifies by some distance, while Schumy consistantly does the opposite.

People are making assumptions that Schumy is in it for the chance at another title, I'm not sure of that at all, I think he's in it for the car developement, testing and probably wanting to move up in terms of team management type jobs eventually. AS said he's had different parts on cars, provably different and a lot of teams test different parts on different cars. Maybe they handle quite differently, maybe Rossberg's likes to set up his car for a single hot qualy lap and sucks balls in races because he has an uber low drag setup while Schumy sets up his car for race pace.

The downside is again where I see him like Hamilton, he's got a car, he can race better than 80% of the grid even in a crap car, but that means while people are passing Rossberg (usually when his tyres are bad and he's sliding off the track) theres not a whole lot of collisions while Schumy is bumping his way up the grid leading to more wings being broken. He's also IIRC just gotten fairly unlucky compared to Rossberg in terms of being on the receiving end of damage, sometimes his own fault, sometimes not.

You can't just flat out assume that he has an identical car to Rossberg, maybe due to the way racing is, with seemingly endless collisions for people trying to move up the field, with also seemingly 90% of penalties going towards the person overtaking even if its a truly epically ridiculous blocking move(Maldanado on Hamilton is probably the most ridiculous this year) then defending drivers are more likely to block people off, back/side of car is safer and they can damage a front wing which will ruins someones race, and more often than not the other guy gets a penalty?

The way F1 is this year its really in your interests to try and knock off someones front wing.

ANyway, pretty much every race Schumy's not had bad luck, he's been 30+ seconds ahead of Rossberg, coming from miles behind to finish miles ahead and several places.

Does that mean that if they both set up for quali and not race they'd qualify closer and both be crap in the race, maybe, we don't know.

drunkenmaster · 30 Jul 2011 at 00:45

Mr Jack said:
Hamilton on top in FP2 too, and with a warmer track than in FP1. It's looking good for the McLarens this weekend.

There seems to have been this idea lately that Mclarens are only good on cool weekends, because they apparently(according to that story on the BBC) sucked at Silverstone, despite you know, Hamilton being awesome on pace till the team said, "btw, we forgot to fuel you properly".

I'm not seeing it, the only race Mclaren have looked slow in quali or practice was Canada where in practice they looked miles off the pace.

Monaco Hamilton had a mare in qualy but Button was 2nd, race wise Hamilton finished 6th after a mare of contact in the race but awesome pace. They've been up in the top 4 qualifying in most races and in the top 3-4 at worst in practice in most recent races.

This , they sucked at Silverstone and finally won a race last week in the cold, so they must be great in the cold, is ridiculous. Mclaren have been pretty damn competitive since Monaco but have had a couple DNF's each and one ridiculous team inflicted race at Silverstone, where Hamilton still finished 4th, within 30 seconds, despite saving fuel for half the race. Isn't that a testiment to just how fast they would have been that day. THe build up to the race at Silverstone was ridiculous, but their actual pace in the race was brilliant.

Mclarens are just fast, when the team doesn't utterly screw the strategy, pit stops and fueling, they are doing great.

arknor · 30 Jul 2011 at 01:02

As Arknor has said, on race pace Schumy is almost always way ahead on Rossberg who consistantly finishes lower than he qualifies by some distance, while Schumy consistantly does the opposite.

just watched practice 1 on iplayer because i missed it this morning and even one of those i think davidson? i dont know the voices

was saying how schumacher was faster in silverstone and faster in the last race and how if schumacher could have kept out of trouble he would have comfortably beat rosberg.

i wouldnt waste your time with sunama though hes always very anti schumacher, i suspect he goes by the handle "frans" over at the autosport forums

sunama · 30 Jul 2011 at 08:15

IMO, MSc is the most complete driver (by a considerable margin), to have ever driven an F1 car.

If I were anti-Schumacher, why on Earth would I say the above?

sunama · 30 Jul 2011 at 08:20

drunkenmaster said:
No, its not, at all, F1 is not about being a pansy assed ***** and trying to scrape via points via dull races to be slightly ahead. If he was in with a shout at the title he might, when you've got no shot, its all about entertainment.

It's not about entertainment for a driver who is trying to carve out a (2nd) career for himself. It's about showing that you have still got "it". In general, this means winning races. If you can't win races (due to machinery), your next best method to show you have still got "it" is to beat your team-mate.

As Martin Brundle continually says...the first thing a driver must do is beat his team-mate. In some cases, beating your team-mate becomes such an obsession for some drivers, they end up falling out. This generally happens when you have 2 top drivers in the same team: Senna/Prost, Mansell/Prost, Hamilton/Alonso.

Winning is fine, but for the title race (and that is ultimately what counts), you want to outscore your team-mate and as many other drivers on the grid. This is why the likes of Prost, Button, MSc, Alonso et all, are so highly valued - because they know how to score big points totals, over the course of the season.

If you can't outscore your team-mate, how can you ever call yourself a top line driver? You can't.

utajoker · 30 Jul 2011 at 09:50

Fp3 anytime now

Hastarius · 30 Jul 2011 at 09:55

FP3 has just started.

dannyjo22 · 30 Jul 2011 at 11:01

drunkenmaster said:
As Arknor has said, on race pace Schumy is almost always way ahead on Rossberg who consistantly finishes lower than he qualifies by some distance, while Schumy consistantly does the opposite.

Almost always? I'd like to see that broken down race by race since the start of last year. It's only recently MS has started to look better. He's improved on last year but to suggest 'almost always' is a joke.

Rosberg was losing places because he was putting his car in the mix with cars that had a better race pace than him. Where as MS was 'almost always' not even making Q3 until recently.

It's good that he's made some improvement but had he been another driver he would have been replaced months ago.

DBT85 · 30 Jul 2011 at 11:06

Missed FP3 too. Seems Hamilton is 1.5 seconds off of Vettels fastest but Button is only 0.5 seconds off. Do we assume then that Hamilton was doing some high fuel running?

petriodet · 30 Jul 2011 at 11:31

Todge said:
Missed FP3 too. Seems Hamilton is 1.5 seconds off of Vettels fastest but Button is only 0.5 seconds off. Do we assume then that Hamilton was doing some high fuel running?

i think we can assume hamilton has got more time in his pocket as in fp2 he set 1:21:018 which is the fastest time of anybody.

sunama · 30 Jul 2011 at 11:52

dannyjo22 said:
It's good that he's made some improvement but had he been another driver he would have been replaced months ago.

I have to agree on this.

Mercedes see themselves as an ambitious team with ideas of for going for race wins. I can't imagine them holding onto a driver who is consistently under performing, in comparison to his team-mate (points wise). Yet, they continue to hang-on to MSc.

They want to win the WDC and get some race wins. This was the reason why they allegedly brought in MSc. The problem is that it hasn't exactly worked out. The MSc of old, is gone. No longer is he capable of lapping his own team-mate, - something which he used to do when he was at the peak of his powers.

Really, what they need to do is either create a car which is light years ahead of the competition (very difficult) and/or bring in Hamilton/Alonso. IMO, even Vettel would struggle at Mercedes, unless they have a car which is light years ahead of the rest (remember Vettel is super fast when in clean air, but when he is having to overtake...he is ineffective). Alonso/Hamilton will be able to extract the maximum out of the car and if it is capable of winning races/title, then Alonso/Hamilton will do it.

The problem for Mercedes is that they want to create an all-German outfit and at present, they would struggle to persuade Alonso/Hamilton to join their cause, in any case.

Also, for whatever reason, they don't want to sack MSc.

Given these circumstances they are basically stuck with the current driver pairing with Rosberg outscoring MSc and MSc battling through the field and in the process being involved in many incidents.

It's very interesting that people think that MSc is doing a decent job. These are the stats:

2010: (Rosberg scored 97% more points)
Rosberg: 142
MSc: 72

2011: (Rosberg scored 44% more points)
Rosberg: 46
MSc: 32

Given his stature, I'm surprised that MSc is finding the above situation acceptable.

I would actually fancy giving Sutil a chance. He is German and though not super quick, he is good at building up a decent points total. Last year he comprehensively outscored his team-mate and is doing the same this year (even though his team-mate is super quick).

utajoker · 30 Jul 2011 at 11:54

Todge said:
Missed FP3 too. Seems Hamilton is 1.5 seconds off of Vettels fastest but Button is only 0.5 seconds off. Do we assume then that Hamilton was doing some high fuel running?

vettel was on super softs and low fuel hamilton set his time on softs not on a low fuel run.

hamilton messed his super softs lap, had a problem stopping in the first corner, think he said the breaks didnt work properly or something.

the weather man on bbc HD just said it will be dry for quali today but rain for the race tomorrow!

SoliD · 30 Jul 2011 at 12:11

Don't know if anyone has posted this but RBR broke the curfew for the first time this year, so that is one of their four allowed.

utajoker · 30 Jul 2011 at 12:21

lol that woman trying to get hamiltons attention just then.

Psycho Ned · 30 Jul 2011 at 12:23

Sad to see Turkey go, about the best of the Tilke circuits had some good races there.

Shame no one went to watch it!

Kenai · 30 Jul 2011 at 12:24

Nice calender there, Canada in June in the middle of two Euro races, US between Bahrain and Brazil.

Sensible.