Singapore Grand Prix 2014, Singapore - Race 14/19

El_Watcher said:
Has anything more been said about the water bottles being so ****?

I know in previous years we have had the odd driver report them not working, but for several drivers to report that their water was too hot to drink sounds pretty dangerous to me.

If the drivers are running under weight to keep the car light, then driving for two hours without water could potentially cause an accident through loss of concentration.
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You could see them messing with Kyvat's on the grid before the race started. Looking at the design of them 'bottle' is a bit kind, it was an aluminium bladder sat on the floor of the car. It looked quite flimsy (no doubt to save weight) and was sat underneath the seat against the batteries. No doubt its to save weight and improve weight distribution, but its getting pretty extreme when already skinny drivers cant have a drink without it burning their mouths in a 2 hour race in 30C heat!
 
Notice who it was complaining about the water bottles though... it was the young drivers who have never been to Singapore before. It sounds as though the teams need to step up their pre race training for the long hot races like this.
 
dannyjo22 said:
I know, never in a season on here have I heard so many people obsessed with 1 driver being a DNF or two behind. Yet for some on here it seems to be the main focus of the races. No one cares that Kimi had worse reliability in one season to his title rival and so on. I think maybe people are exaggerating it because they are team mates. No one cares about it a year or so down the line. No one says Damon didn't deserve his F1 title because he had more luck that Jacques over the season and Jacques was a rookie.

As you say it's nothing new, no one calls Alonso the real champion against Vettel because he had worse car luck. It's just the nature of a the sport. A sport where far too much emphasis is on the drivers title and too little on the constructors.
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No one complained in the year Hill had 4 DNF's vs Jacques 4 DNF's(one was however classified as 11th due to amount completed), in which Hill won 8 races and Jacques won 4?

What a phenomenal comparison, it almost entirely sums it up.

By comparison Rosberg has had 2 dnf's vs Hamilton's 3 dnf's, and Hamilton has won 7 races to Rosbergs 4.............. oh wait, that is the difference. Rosberg was leading the title race having won less races. It's almost exactly the same....... except entirely wrong. Hill had no reliability advantage and won double the number of races. Hamilton had more dnf's and won more but was losing in the title race and that is precisely the reason people are "obsessed" with it, because we were facing the very real possibility of the driver who won less races winning the title on reliability only.

Of those DNF's some were driver error, at Brazil Villeneuve spun off in the rain under pressure and wasn't close to Hill. Japan he messed up the start and ended up way back and then had some issue.

If Hamilton had spun off or hit other cars, that would be one thing, the failures were out of his hands completely. one of them was purely down to Rosberg hitting him which only escalated the situation because again the entire issue is the possibility of the clearly worse driver, who wins less races winning the title over the better driver who has won more races. The only reason Rosberg has been ahead has been car failures and Rosberg cheating. Without those things happening, if things were equal Hamilton would have a commanding lead and Rosberg might even be under pressure from Riccy for 2nd place.
 
MooMoo444 said:
Hot environment in Singapore is no excuse for suffering burns and having water that's too hot to drink.
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Yup, not sure why people think it's some standard thing, suffering burns is not good. It has happened before to drivers but it's due to faults/problems rather than standard issues.

It could be down to, like how the front wing sometimes gets clogged by rubber, a few slots meant not for aero but to get some air into and around the driver to keep them cool getting blocked by rubber. That would cause a big problem with cooling. If you're meant to have some kind of airflow underneath/around the back of the seat but a small vent to allow the air in got blocked you'd have a constant heat build up.

I don't believe that simply higher temps in Singapore mean that area simply gets hotter than anywhere else, it will be a failure in cooling or something overheating. It's perhaps more likely to happen somewhere hot but there will be something overheating or some area where the cooling has stopped that causes the heat to build up.
 
dannyjo22 said:
I didn't think it was a great drive tbh, it was just one you expect from a top 1-5 driver in the best car by a country mile. Had this been vettel over the last 4 years everyone would be saying that. This car has the biggest advantage since 93, all Hamilton had to do was manage a gap which is what he was doing nicely and saving the car. If they actually went for it I dread to think how far in front that car could finish. The race for Hamilton was over when Rosberg broke, even then all he would have had to do was manage the gap if there was no problems Rosberg wouldn't have troubled him.

Hard to see any way back for rosberg now, I don't see him building up a lead any time soon without a disasterous run of luck by hamilton side of the garage.
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I see it differently. Yes, the Mercedes has a huge advantage - of that there's no doubt. The way I see it was in the context of this particular weekend.

Drivers this weekend had to cope with far less information than they're used to receiving from their engineers. Less about the car, less about what to do, and less about the other drivers. Yes, they're experienced racing drivers and we are 3/4 of the way through the season, but these cars are still relatively new and complex.

Mercedes also lost a car straight away. That immediately halved the amount of data they were able to use during the race. Then, given the need to make another pitstop with the number of laps reducing and the time getting short, Hamilton and Mercedes had to push the car far harder than they would have normally done, and far harder than they had during the early parts of the race. That was in a gruelling environment for both car and driver.

I'm far from being Hamilton's biggest fan, but I thought the way they coped with the race during and after the safety car was excellent and was indeed hard work. They did it perfectly, from Hamilton delivering the laps down to the engineer continually managing Hamilton, knowing that building up an advantage on old tyres was better than releasing him further back down the field and risking burning up the new tyre advantage too quickly.

For all those reasons I think it was a great drive.
 
justbeats said:
That sums it up more than nicely :)

Even though I think Rosberg is a cheating little weasel, I still would have preferred a straight fight between the two. Let's hope now that from here on in there will be zero retirements from either of the Mercs and the fastest man wins.
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there will be another retirement for mercedes though, of that there is no doubt, if you think about it there are 10 races to go for them... 2 cars x 5 circuits... the chances of neither car having another DNF are farrrr to slim.

I hope I'm proved wrong but most of all I hope it doesn't bite one or the other driver at teh last double point race.... to have a DNF like Button did, where one of them is leading the championship on merit and then out of the blue the car shuts down 10 laps before the end, that'd be painful viewing and cruel beyond belief for the driver.

A DNF whether it be Suzuka or Abu Dhabi will occur again though, whether it affects both drivers or just one, engines, gear boxes etc. are all begininng to show the effects of the limits they've been pushed to. :)
 
MooMoo444 said:
Hot environment in Singapore is no excuse for suffering burns and having water that's too hot to drink.
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drunkenmaster said:
Yup, not sure why people think it's some standard thing, suffering burns is not good. It has happened before to drivers but it's due to faults/problems rather than standard issues.

It could be down to, like how the front wing sometimes gets clogged by rubber, a few slots meant not for aero but to get some air into and around the driver to keep them cool getting blocked by rubber. That would cause a big problem with cooling. If you're meant to have some kind of airflow underneath/around the back of the seat but a small vent to allow the air in got blocked you'd have a constant heat build up.

I don't believe that simply higher temps in Singapore mean that area simply gets hotter than anywhere else, it will be a failure in cooling or something overheating. It's perhaps more likely to happen somewhere hot but there will be something overheating or some area where the cooling has stopped that causes the heat to build up.
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Burns is obviously an issue, no argument there. But hot drinks bottles have been standard since the day they arrived. Brundle often describes his drinks back in the day as being like a hot tasteless tea.

The experienced drivers prepare and learn to fill up with fluids before the race and early on, in order to cope with not being able to drink much in the latter part. The new guys haven't had to go through it before so have learnt the hard way. I'm a bit surprised at Magnussen though. Button is widely considered one of the fittest and best prepared drivers on the grid, but it doesn't look like McLaren have mirrored his prep onto Kevin.

The younguns will learn though.
 
It's one thing, fia should mandate a standard design. They'll continue to save weight and shape etc, to optimise car design.

Water bottle is one if the few things on the car that fia should standardise and ensure works well, holds enough liquid and is insulated adequately.
 
I'm not sure that would be that fesable given all the monocoques are pretty different in their design. I suppose they could mandate a maximum temperature for the fluid at the end of the race to encourage them to make them cooler, but then what would the penalty be?

The easier solution is to just better prepare the drivers, which most already are.
 
Seats don't burn drivers by default, Button didn't get burned by his seat. There is a single possible logical conclusion, that is there was a failure in cooling or a failure that caused an increased heat around his seat for Magnussen. This both increased the seat temperature to a point it burned him through a heat protective suit and raised his drink temp to a point it burnt his mouth.

Suggesting a fault in the car that caused burns is a problem with a young driver not being experienced is beyond ridiculous. It's not the young driver being naive here, it's spectators being unable to understand what is going on.

In singapore in a 2 hour race in a hot car these drivers lose up to 3kg of sweat during a race. You can't drink 2 litres of water pre-race, overhydration would simply cause you to pee a lot and quickly and then you'd still lose the 3kg in fluid during the race and still be unable to replace that. Hydration in F1 is going to be harder to control than most sports because temps inside the cockpit leave them hotter than most athletes get. Be it cycling, tennis, football, most athletes, 99.99999% of all athletes don't compete in an insulated fireproof suit sitting on top hugely powerful and hot engine.

It's got nothing to do with experience, he didn't say "this liquid is warm, urrggh, I'm a big girl and I don't like hot water". he said "this water is scalding my mouth", that is not the same thing and not even close. Brundle said it was like horrible warm/hot tea, he did not say it burned his mouth to drink it. Unpleasant to drink and actually painful/harmful aren't the same things.

It is plainly obvious there was a fault and we've seen burns on drivers before due to faults inside the car, it's got absolutely nothing to do with young drivers, fitness or better preparing drivers.
 
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drunkenmaster said:
It is plainly obvious there was a fault and we've seen burns on drivers before due to faults inside the car, it's got absolutely nothing to do with young drivers, fitness or better preparing drivers.
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Agree completely, some of the talk in this thread has been silly implying Mag just needs to 'man up' or be 'better prepared' for drinking hot fluids. How exactly do you expect him to 'train' for being able to drink fluids that are of a sufficient temperature to scald the inside of his mouth? Surely the fact he completed the race unable to take on fluids and suffer no severe side effects shows his preparation and fitness is fine?

*Edit* Customary daily Fail link ;)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...r-cockpit-overheats-Singapore-Grand-Prix.html
 
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drunkenmaster said:
Seats don't burn drivers by default, Button didn't get burned by his seat. There is a single possible logical conclusion, that is there was a failure in cooling or a failure that caused an increased heat around his seat for Magnussen. This both increased the seat temperature to a point it burned him through a heat protective suit and raised his drink temp to a point it burnt his mouth.

Suggesting a fault in the car that caused burns is a problem with a young driver not being experienced is beyond ridiculous. It's not the young driver being naive here, it's spectators being unable to understand what is going on.

In singapore in a 2 hour race in a hot car these drivers lose up to 3kg of sweat during a race. You can't drink 2 litres of water pre-race, overhydration would simply cause you to pee a lot and quickly and then you'd still lose the 3kg in fluid during the race and still be unable to replace that. Hydration in F1 is going to be harder to control than most sports because temps inside the cockpit leave them hotter than most athletes get. Be it cycling, tennis, football, most athletes, 99.99999% of all athletes don't compete in an insulated fireproof suit sitting on top hugely powerful and hot engine.

It's got nothing to do with experience, he didn't say "this liquid is warm, urrggh, I'm a big girl and I don't like hot water". he said "this water is scalding my mouth", that is not the same thing and not even close. Brundle said it was like horrible warm/hot tea, he did not say it burned his mouth to drink it. Unpleasant to drink and actually painful/harmful aren't the same things.

It is plainly obvious there was a fault and we've seen burns on drivers before due to faults inside the car, it's got absolutely nothing to do with young drivers, fitness or better preparing drivers.
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I actually agree with you for once...but for the record I think Button is right up the top in terms of being the physically fittest driver on the grid.
 
If true that is crazy, I understand his frustration with Ferrari but McLaren haven't exactly got a good track record these past few years.

Edit: Which seat would he take? Button is getting around F1 retirement age but McLaren still needs developing and you would think they would want Button's experience.
 
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