United States Grand Prix 2012, Austin - Race 19/20

How exactly does turbulent air affect a race car? I've heard that it can slowly degrade carbon fiber components, but haven't seen any evidence to how a driver behind a car is affected by it.

Honestly? :o

You can visibly see drivers understeering when in the dirty air of a car infront.

The wings and aero pieces are designed to take the airflow and accelerate it to create downforce. The car then passes this newly distorted flow of air to the car behind which has to try to process the air in a way that suits it's own aero pieces.

Imagine being geared up to deflect a water pistol, pretty straight forward. Then someone chucks a tennis racket between you and the stream of water.. you now have a spray of mist coming at your face.
 
How exactly does turbulent air affect a race car? I've heard that it can slowly degrade carbon fiber components, but haven't seen any evidence to how a driver behind a car is affected by it.

Cars these days heavily rely on aerodynamic grip rather than mechanical grip.

They are designed in wind tunnels with near perfect airflow to maximise their effectiveness which is great if you're in clean air, but as soon as you're stuck behind another car causing turbulence it reduces the grip/balance/control of your car.
 
Is vettle good enough to win without luck?

Is Alonso? As it looks like people are wishing bad luck onto Vettel because it no longer looks like Alonso can do it on skill alone.

I agree Alonso is a better driver than Vettel, but then F1 has never and will never be about just the driver. It will be the best driver and car combination that win the championship.

As with Hamilton last year its become 'cool' to hate Vettel. I don't particularly like the guy and he definitely does have a short tantrum temper on him, but that doesn't mean I'm going to start claiming he's a rubbish driver only being carried by the car, and I'm definitely not going to start wishing that he looses just out of spite.

I am however happy that the season has gone down the the last race, as regardless of who it is, domination by a driver is not good for the sport. I'm not a fan of either Alonso or Vettel, but I am going to thouroughly enjoy watching the title fight at Brazil because above all else I am a fan of 'F1'.
 
How exactly does turbulent air affect a race car? I've heard that it can slowly degrade carbon fiber components, but haven't seen any evidence to how a driver behind a car is affected by it.

Think of a plane in turbulence. It loses lift in turbulent air, hence the bumpiness. If you think of an F1 car as an inverted plane it works on the same principle. In turbulent air F1 cars loose down force. Less down force means less grip, less grip means less speed.
 
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I've lost a bit of heart after yesterday tbh. I'm really not happy with the gearbox stunt, I understand it but I don't much like it.

As for Vettel I don't think it's become cool to hate him, he's always been pretty much disliked on this forum, more than Hamilton last year. I think the finger did him no favours, it doesn't seem to sit well with brits for some reason. He could be the nicest guy in the world but looks like he lack humility. Plus everyone is thinking no1 my backside.

I don't think Alonso has lost the ability or skill to win this, I think the car is just falling further and further behind regards the other two cars. They just have nothing to respond with. When everyone was saying it was Alonsos to lose, I couldn't see how they thought that. Exactly what I predicted would happen has happened. Too many other cars between Alonso and Vettel. I also feared early on when Red Bull wasn't so good that Hamilton and Alonso didn't get enough of a lead when RB came back at them.

Sadly I was right :(

I said Ferrari needed more wet races, sadly none of them came at the venues they had to visit. Only rain can save this for Alonso now.
 
Massa got up to 4th and you think they are falling behind? I would say they are matching the development of Mclaren and Red Bull (ofc they need to exceed it really to be able to qually on front row).
 
Massa got up to 4th and you think they are falling behind? I would say they are matching the development of Mclaren and Red Bull (ofc they need to exceed it really to be able to qually on front row).

Its either massa has been on form the last few races or the car got better. I think the car is 3rd best and the only reason alonso is up there is due to he's skill and luck.
 
Massa got up to 4th and you think they are falling behind? I would say they are matching the development of Mclaren and Red Bull (ofc they need to exceed it really to be able to qually on front row).

This seems to be getting brushed aside by the Alonso fans.

The fact was Massa was by far the fastest Ferrari all weekend, which is... interesting, considering how lowly most Alonso fans rank him.
 
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Massa got up to 4th and you think they are falling behind? I would say they are matching the development of Mclaren and Red Bull (ofc they need to exceed it really to be able to qually on front row).

39 seconds off the lead. I'd say they are further away from the front in the dry. At no point do they ever look like troubling the other two on saturday or race pace. Ferrari have great starts a usually a good first stint after that if they aren't in the lead they are stuffed. I can't see how they have kept pace with the others development wise if their grid positions aren't getting better or the gap to the other two.

This seems to being brushed aside by the Alonso fans.

The fact was Massa was by far the fastest Ferrari all weekend, which is... interesting, considering how lowly most Alonso fans rank him.

A broken watch is right twice per day. He is ****, I don't rate him. Never have. Over a season he's been destroyed, it's fair to say there are a couple of places that suit him better in a season. Just like there are for Webber and JB. Who hires a driver for 2 or 3 good races per season?

Maybe Alonso the driver who actually has been able to fight faster cars this year is tightening up due to the pressure of having to keep the car on the road to have any chance of winning? While his team mate can get utterly destroyed but has a new contract to come back and get utterly destroyed again while not being able to take points off Alonsos rivals?

JB and Webber can at the very least take points off Alonso, while Massa all year has shown the ability to take points off of er er Grosjean?
 
I thought Massa just must have had a better setup this weekend, surprised if that was the case Alonso didn't copy it unless it completely didn't suit him.

A Ferrari driver having only 1 podium in almost 2 full seasons says it all. Massa is the sacrificial lamb in Montezuma's empire :p
 
My point is, the super star drives that we saw from Alonso at the start of the year, out driving the car to wins it had no right to earn, destroying his team mate and rightfully earning him praise as being the best driver on the grid, are gone. Instead we are seeing decent solid drives, but nothing spectacular. And this has been shown by the way Massa has caught up to him in terms of pace and performance. I don't know if its the pressure getting to him, I don't know if the developments to the car have helped Massa more than him, but what I do know is that he is not performing as well as he was earlier in the year.

If he was allowed to race Massa could have beaten Alonso in Italy, Korea and the USA. You couldn't even get close to making that sort of statement about any of the races up to Belgium.
 
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My point is, the super star drives that we saw from Alonso at the start of the year, out driving the car to wins it had no right to earn, destroying his team mate and rightfully earning him praise as being the best driver on the grid, are gone. Instead we are seeing decent solid drives, but nothing spectacular. And this has been shown by the way Massa has caught up to him in terms of pace and performance. I don't know if its the pressure getting to him, I don't know if the developments to the car have helped Massa more than him, but what I do know is that he is not driving as well as he was earlier in the year.

A lot of Alonso's early success was due to other teams making mistakes, uncertainty over tire wear, brilliant opportunistic driver and a fair share of luck with reliability and conditions.

Compared to the rest of the field the Mclarens and RB have looked very dominant recently. Alonso was well over 30 seconds down on the front 2 so I'd say the eprformance gap is bigger than it has ever been. As for Massa well lets not forget he was once a very quick driver indeed, more a case of him getting back to his old form than Alonso dropping off.
 
The camera work was really shabby I thought. The camera operators were erratic, shaking and panning left to right and back suddenly then zooming in and out all over the place. I found it made following the footage a bit harder. In comparison to Abu Dhabi with their smooth sweeping wide angle shots it all looked to lack professionalism?? Anyone agree or am I talking carp :p

I was thinking that, they seemed to keep cutting between shots at exciting moments too!
One moment you could see Button about to overtake someone, and the camera switched to a reply of another incident - surely that could have waited! :p

Really enjoyed the race though. Good to hear that Vettel was complaining about the HRT not the overtake specifically. I'm sure he wouldn't have minded if it was the other way around though ;) About time the luck didn't go Vettel's way imo.
 
Horner and Hamilton both mentioned how the traffic has both helped and hindered people at different times throughout the year. The same root problem is there though, the HRTs are just too slow.

Did anyone else notice that the contrast or the colour settings seemed way off on the camera on the outside of turn 18? It made the Red Bulls look like Pink Bulls.
 
Vettel didnt lose yesterday because of Karthikeyan. He lost because Hamilton was faster than him.

Hamilton was gaining on Vettel every lap and he was VERY close to making a move in the laps prior to the one that he finally did. I have no doubt that Lewis would have won the race even without Karthhikeyan holding Vettel up through turns 3-7 on that lap.

If Vettel deserved to win, he would have got back past Lewis or at LEAST got into the DRS zone behind him. Instead, Lewis managed the gap and kept it perfectly consistent at about 1.3-1.5 seconds for the last 10 laps.

This pretty much, one of the main reasons why i cannot stand the idiot. Things dont go his way ie dominating and winning and he whinges about it. Imagine if he was in the McLaren, god knows what would have happened...probably make his brain explode:p

From what i saw of the race, Narain wasnt doing anything wrong...he couldnt let Vettel pass as he would have had to drive off the circuit. Also the race director didnt seem to think he had done anything wrong.
 
the rumour is alonso had a new diffuser which did not work well and massa had the old one which was working better hence the difference in pace between them, and they will be reverting to the previous spec for the next race. no source, just a rumour.

i'm just glad it will go to brazil regardless of who wins now!, that was a great race, bring on brazil!.
 
This pretty much, one of the main reasons why i cannot stand the idiot. Things dont go his way ie dominating and winning and he whinges about it. Imagine if he was in the McLaren, god knows what would have happened...probably make his brain explode:p

From what i saw of the race, Narain wasnt doing anything wrong...he couldnt let Vettel pass as he would have had to drive off the circuit. Also the race director didnt seem to think he had done anything wrong.

People bang on about Lewis reacting badly but its pretty simple, when the races go your way, you don't complain, when they don't go your way, you do, this is the same for all drivers.

Hamilton simply has the bad luck to be the only top driver, in the team that makes the most mistakes..... Vettel or Alonso would both have reacted as much as Hamilton if they were in his place, and vice versa, people would be going on about Hamilton being the nice guy if he had THAT Red Bull to race every week.

THe bickering about if someone is a nice guy, reactions after races, and who reacts well or badly do my head in. 99% of the less than good reactions come at an emotional time, get over it, people react badly when emotional(well under stress and something bad happens), and people put on a public persona in the press, when things are going great, they are PR robots(almost all of them) and they are saying WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR. People making judgements off 99% of what is said is beyond ridiculous.

Why is Kimi loved, because even if he is putting on a persona... its at least a different god damned persona, 23 robots and one putting on another tune, even if its fake, its far more interesting, if its not, he's a legend.

I also don't remember seeing this brilliant Alonso this season or undriveable car he put into wins. The car was "undriveable" for half of preseason testing, it was an entirely different car by the second race of the season. He's driven well, but ulimately Alonso spelled it out, the car can't qualify well, qualify 7-10th, be 3-5th by the first corner, thats pretty much the race done. He's won races when those ahead's cars have failed mostly.

The car may not qualify great, but being THAT good off the grid basically makes up for it. They could be normal off the grid and qualify 3-4th every race, makes no real difference. That Ferrari is just uber off the grid and 99% of Massa/Alonso's gains have been made in the first corner... most of the rest in the first lap.... then mostly from failures of others. He's a great driver, I just haven't seen this undriveable car or epic drives. He did well, again at the very start of Valencia, he passed a couple people well and even beyond the first corner, but ultimately he won because Vettel crapped out.
 
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