United States Grand Prix 2013, Austin - Race 18/19

The whole idea of being green is daft. Driving fuel guzzling engines around a racetrack itself isn't very green, so who are they kidding by being economical on tyres.

F1 has been carbon neutral since the late 90's. That includes the transportation emissions of all the teams, and all the fans traveling to race tracks.

The 'green' agenda is all about image. They wan't to look like they are doing their bit. The new engines is following global trends, I can accept that, but reducing the tyre allocation to try to look 'green' while also specifying tyres that are thrown away after 5 laps is a bit of a conflicting position to hold.

The teams have less tyres per weekend now than they did with the indestructible Bridgestones, which is just retarded.
 
...tyre talk...

Before the new tyres and the controversy over the tyres falling apart, Lotus and Ferrari were the teams to beat.

RBR were complaining that the tyres were preventing Vettel from driving flat out. Rather than using the car aggressively to get the best lap time, he was nursing the tyre, from corner 1.

Merc - the less said about them the better. They got pole in Malaysia (was it) and then went backwards in the race as they had to manage tyres. After the race not a single body in the team knew why they had such a problem. They then had an extra, illegal test and a few races later, they were able to compete in the race and qualifying.

In any case, this season is almost over, so no point in arguing over something which isnt going to make any difference.

Regarding the Summer break: after the Summer break, RBR came back storming - Vettel on top form. This does seem to be a pattern. I'm not sure if RBR even take a break during the Summer, but as DM states, they do have a habit of moving forward while the employees are on holiday. Where other teams seem to stand still during the holiday period. Perhaps Sparky can explain how this works?
 
F1 is the 'pinnacle' of Motorsport, the whole green issue with the tyres makes me want to tear my nut sack off :mad:

Damnit man. You must really hate the tyre situation; to even think about wanting to grab your scrotum and pull so hard that not only the scrotum comes up, but its contents as well.

:p
 
He is German, he does not care if it is MW's last race.

Vettel is such a cruel man.
Even in his last year, Vettel wants to ensure that Webber does not get a win.
Even MSc had a heart...but this guy is just ruthless.
Dont ever let his smile fool you. He is a smiling assassin.
 
If I was Webber I wouldn't want to win my final race by my faster team mate pulling over and letting me.

Senna pulled over to let Berger win.
Berger was not appreciative of this.
If Vettel did this for Webber, I think Webber would be gob-smacked, more than anything. Vettel is probably the most ruthless competitor I've witness in F1, since Senna.
 
Before the new tyres and the controversy over the tyres falling apart, Lotus and Ferrari were the teams to beat.

RBR were complaining that the tyres were preventing Vettel from driving flat out. Rather than using the car aggressively to get the best lap time, he was nursing the tyre, from corner 1.

Merc - the less said about them the better. They got pole in Malaysia (was it) and then went backwards in the race as they had to manage tyres. After the race not a single body in the team knew why they had such a problem. They then had an extra, illegal test and a few races later, they were able to compete in the race and qualifying.

In any case, this season is almost over, so no point in arguing over something which isnt going to make any difference.

Regarding the Summer break: after the Summer break, RBR came back storming - Vettel on top form. This does seem to be a pattern. I'm not sure if RBR even take a break during the Summer, but as DM states, they do have a habit of moving forward while the employees are on holiday. Where other teams seem to stand still during the holiday period. Perhaps Sparky can explain how this works?

Kimi got 98 points to GB, and 90 or so since, Grosjean got 26 points to GB, and 90 since? Are Lotus really doing worse, Grosjean certainly isn't, Kimi had similarly bad results in the first half of the season as he's had since.

Lotus has been second best all year, they have a few tracks they sucked, a few they were so good they could genuinely compete with RBR, no different to last year, they were the most inconsistent in terms of car vs track last year, and this year. Grosjean sucked balls first half of season, drastically improved the second, Kimi went off the boil but motivation/morale and fighting with the team + bad back clearly had a huge effect there, and some bad luck with his DNF.

As for Merc, they won their races and improved race pace almost straight away, not when tire testing was done and MILES before the new tyres were used in race.

Hamilton, lets see, I'm going to list how many places Hamilton went back in the race from grid to finish in order(just the number to make it shorter) 2, -1, 2, -4, 10, 2, 1, 3, 4, 0(his win), 2, -3, 0, 3, DNF, 3, 3. Outside of the Spain race... I see no difference. People are acting like Spain, the absolute one off where he went back 10 places and Nico went back 5 places, was the "norm" it wasn't it was a massive outlier. Since the new tyres they've picked up less points(just), not won since Hungary and looked less competitive in qualifying.

All year from the start they've mostly gone back 1-3 places, with a couple going forward and Spain hated the car, hated the tyres hated the drivers. Spain was absolutely a one off, it was not the average situation at all, if they raced at Spain now, same would happen.

Outside of driver differences, the cars haven't changed much at all since the tyres. There is the odd race Sauber look super competitive, others they look crap, same for Force India and even Mclaren now and then. Merc look podium capable at tracks with better tyre wear and they get a bit of luck, otherwise they go backwards, Ferrari only really do well at tracks lotus/RBR aren't so good at IMO, RBR get better throughout the year so other cars are competitive with them depending on track early on but RBR move so far ahead by mid season even at their "bad" tracks they are too fast.

I just can't see where Lotus scored 100 points before the new tyres and like 10 points since, there is almost no difference. Kimi isn't the best qualifier, with one start above 4th. Grosjean didn't get a 3rd on the grid till Hungary, and has matched that a couple of times since. They've been top 3 in 5 of the past 6 races, podium in Hungary. Podiums, number of races one or both has been top 4 , number of races both cars were 5th or worse, I can't see how the second half of the season by any measure has been worse.

There has been three races they didn't get a podium second half of season, four in the first half of the season by my count. More points, more podiums, less bad races, only difference is Kimi got a single win in the very first race.
 
Vettel is such a cruel man.
Even in his last year, Vettel wants to ensure that Webber does not get a win.
Even MSc had a heart...but this guy is just ruthless.
Dont ever let his smile fool you. He is a smiling assassin.

He is becoming my favorite race driver. He comes to the race weekend, sits in car, wins, goes home.

No twitter crap, no getting in papers crap, no famous pics crap, no crap crap. Just straight up racing.

Still think he is spoilt brat though :)
 
He is becoming my favorite race driver. He comes to the race weekend, sits in car, wins, goes home.

No twitter crap, no getting in papers crap, no famous pics crap, no crap crap. Just straight up racing.

Still think he is spoilt brat though :)

This, bar the last bit.

I've warmed to Vettel massively this season, especially after he clinched the championship. His interview came across as incredibly endearing and I don't think he's actually as big headed as he comes across.

At the end of the day, he's an incredibly good driver. For people to say that it's all the car is unfounded and wrong - put Maldonado in that Red Bull and he'd still smack it into a wall, or more traditionally into another driver.

On the subject of Vettel pulling over for MW to win? No chance, nor do I think MW would actually appreciate it. I honestly think Mark Webber would be a lot higher up in the championship this year had Red Bull put the same effort into his ride than Vettel's. Just look at all the bodged pit stops, engine failures, clutch mess ups and spontaneous combustion. Doesn't happen to Vettel, does it?
 
This, bar the last bit.

I've warmed to Vettel massively this season, especially after he clinched the championship. His interview came across as incredibly endearing and I don't think he's actually as big headed as he comes across.

At the end of the day, he's an incredibly good driver. For people to say that it's all the car is unfounded and wrong - put Maldonado in that Red Bull and he'd still smack it into a wall, or more traditionally into another driver.

On the subject of Vettel pulling over for MW to win? No chance, nor do I think MW would actually appreciate it. I honestly think Mark Webber would be a lot higher up in the championship this year had Red Bull put the same effort into his ride than Vettel's. Just look at all the bodged pit stops, engine failures, clutch mess ups and spontaneous combustion. Doesn't happen to Vettel, does it?


Was enjoying that until the conspiracy theory took over at the end
 
Was enjoying that until the conspiracy theory took over at the end

Sorry, didn't intend that to be quite as tin foil hat wearing as it accidentally sounded. I'm talking from the perspective of the old front wing controversy, it's not a hidden fact that Red Bull have steered things in Vettel's favour (and rightly so, I might add). I don't mean that they've intentionally sabotaged Webber's car to prevent him from upsetting the champ - they've merely stacked their money on their best horse.
 
He is becoming my favorite race driver. He comes to the race weekend, sits in car, wins, goes home.

No twitter crap, no getting in papers crap, no famous pics crap, no crap crap. Just straight up racing.

Still think he is spoilt brat though :)

You forgot that he has a new helmet design for every race and gives his cars misogynistic names.
 
I still hold my idea of similar tyre rules as now except teams can choose which two compounds to use
You must use two compounds but you cash use any of the selection
It would take the factor of pirelli deciding the races away

I read a lot of people wanting super durable tyres, do people only have a 1 year memory? It would make the race so dull it would be unbelievable
 
I guess teams aren't to happy with their drivers doing them nowadays as it puts extra strain on gearboxes etc.

Now the season is all-but-finished for Red Bull it makes no difference. Might as well go out and entertain the fans a bit and remove a touch of that 'mechanical' personality Vettel has had recently. It was nice seeing Vettel go a bit mad in India, and the otherwise quiet fans went quite nuts. :)

There's not a hope in hell it will happen next year though, not until the titles are settled.
 
Now the season is all-but-finished for Red Bull it makes no difference. Might as well go out and entertain the fans a bit and remove a touch of that 'mechanical' personality Vettel has had recently. It was nice seeing Vettel go a bit mad in India, and the otherwise quiet fans went quite nuts. :)

There's not a hope in hell it will happen next year though, not until the titles are settled.

But that's exactly the problem though. It's only because he's won the title he is doing them!
 
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