Infinite Improbability Drive of the Race - 2013 Malaysia

[Onxy Wrecked]

1. Bianchi continuing his miracles in a Marussia. At this point, any race where he doesn't crash or have mechanical failures is this.
2. Grosjean for outperforming Raikkonen and finishing in front of his less crash prone teammate.

[FullMetalJack]

Button - Did not expect him to do that well until his pitcrew cost him. Kudos Jenson
Grosjean - Finished ahead of Kimi, good solid finish

I would have nominated Hulkenberg, put his performances are expected from me nowadays.

[nikspyker]

Bianchi- Another good race with the Marussia

Grosjean- Good drive and Finished ahead of Kimi

Honorable mentions
Button- Everything was going well until the pit stop
Vergne- considering that the incident in the pits was a fault from the pit crew, he finished in the points despite the time lost in the pits

[Ben Purse]

Also have to give a mention to Fernando Alonsos Wing. Finished only a few meters behind Fernando by the time the race was finished.

[Salamander]

Also have to give a mention to Fernando Alonsos Wing. Finished only a few meters behind Fernando by the time the race was finished.

Now that's funny.

[Hound55]

1. Mark Webber - What a start, and an overall solid race before Seb decided to bathplug it up. Still, second was pretty good.

2. Jenson Button - He led the race! And then the world turned against him. Trust McLaren to botch a pitstop right when it matters most.

Honorable mentions to RoGro for a great race free of incident.

[TomWazzleshaw]

Also have to give a mention to Fernando Alonsos Wing. Finished only a few meters behind Fernando by the time the race was finished.

But doesn't it usually finish a few meters ahead of Fernando?

Anyways, my nominations are:

1. Jenson Button: He somehow hauled that crapbox of a McLaren kicking and screaming into outside podium contention before the stuff-up by his pit crew
2. Mark Webber: Holy crap, he actually made a good start for once!

[Warren Hughes]

1. Button - for dragging his car into the top 5 and even leading a few laps (albeit thanks to strategy)
2. Vettel - "for that overtake no-one was expecting"

[DanielPT]

1- Bianchi - 13th place in a great race for Marussia. He is really carrying their flag.
2- Vergne - A point for Toro Rosso is always something good, although it could come more frequently given the sh*t car they have at Williams.

[ibsey]

Just looked it up on the McLaren site, and Chilton finished about 62 seconds behind Bianchi on lap 54 for him - so about 6/10ths of a lap behind. Bianchi was about 8 sec in front after 16 laps but it looks like the in-pit-out elements cost Chilton great chunks of time and
then Max was way slower per lap in the final stint....

http://en.mclarenf-1.com/index.php?page ... &dr1=Jules Bianchi&dr2=Max Chilton

...interesting stuff!

DG

Thanks for the additional info to both Divina_Galica & Mario.

I'm taking a look at the relative lap times of Chilton and Bianchi, and they are indeed quite interesting. Looking at the pit timing data, I'm guessing that Marussia might have queued both drivers up in the pits as they both stopped on lap 6 to switch from inters to slicks (which would explain why Chilton's first pit stop was slower than normal).


For that first stint on dry tyres, the difference in lap time between Chilton and Bianchi is relatively small, and Chilton actually seems to have been catching Bianchi by a few tenths of a second a lap towards the end of that first stint. In the next stint Bianchi does pick up his pace a bit more, but apart from one very slow lap by Chilton - perhaps due to having to let the leaders through, as Bianchi has a similarly slow lap two laps later - his pace is still generally within a few tenths of Bianchi.

It's only after the second stop for slicks, which is at about half distance, that Bianchi really starts to pull away very quickly from Chilton - and, as you say, Chilton's final stint is very strange, as he goes from lapping in the low 1m43's (by way of reference, Bianchi was doing times around the 1m42.9s mark at the same time) to 1m46's in six laps. Did Chilton have some kind of problem in the final stages of the race? The fact that he was suddenly two to three seconds a lap slower in the latter part of that stint does seem to suggest that might have been the case, because that is a lot of time to lose in such a small number of laps.

I’ve done a bit of investigating myself and hopefully John Booth comments from Marrussia's post race press release should help explain the queries you have raised. For your ease I'll quote the main bit below;

Max unfortunately came out worst on the opening lap and also had to queue in the first pitstop, which lost him time. At various times he showed he had the pace to beat both Caterhams but unfortunately he hit the blue flags earlier and then at the end he was held up by Ricciardo a lap ahead and lapping slowly in the Toro Rosso

Source: http://www.marussiaf1team.com/news/805/

Presumably then, blue flags & Ricciardo were the reason Chilton’s laptimes during his final stint were strange in comparison to his teammate. As far as I can see there is no mention on the team’s post race press release of Max having suffering any mechanical problems during the race. So blue flags & Ricciardo probably accounts for some of the 62 seconds difference at the end of the race between the two Marrussia drivers. However lets not forget that Jules also qualified 1.2 seconds quicker than Chilton. So, even without the time lost because of the aforementioned issues during his final stint, based on their respective qualifying performances in addition to their race fastest laps. One has to assume that Jules had the pace to still finish well ahead of Chilton.

[NAM]

1. Button for making the MP4-28 look like a regular podium contender.
2. Webber for the good start and good race.

[razta]

Merc for actually Finishing 3-4.. best double finish ever after brawn

[DanielPT]

Merc for actually Finishing 3-4.. best double finish ever after brawn

It was a nice feat. And Rosberg is coming off like a good racer, never far off Lewis and sometimes even faster. If it keeps going like this and there is no reason for it to stop, he will actually see its stock improved. I already think he is better than Button is. And that puts 2013 McLaren driver pair in perspective...

[Dj_bereta]

1-Bianchi
2-Grosjean

[Jocke1]

Also have to give a mention to Fernando Alonsos Wing. Finished only a few meters behind Fernando by the time the race was finished.

But doesn't it usually finish a few meters ahead of Fernando?

Well, the F1 cars are in the region of 4,63 m long. So now we have to find out exactly where Alonso sits inside his cockpit.
Is it in the dead center?
If so, Alonso has 2,315 m from the cockpit to the end of the front wing. But how long is the Ferrari front wing?
And do we measure from Fernando's longest toe to the end of the wing? Or to the start of the wing? From Alonso's perspective of course.

[Shizuka]

Provisional standings:

Bianchi - 152
Button - 148
Webber - 99
Hülkenberg - 72
Grosjean - 70
Mercedes - 34
Vettel - 31
Rosberg - 16
Marussia - 10
Alonso's front wing - 10
Red Bull - 6
di Resta - 6
Vergne - 6

You can still nominate until tomorrow!

[X61]

Romain Grosjean - Beat Kimi, one of few drivers to not have contact with something or someone.

Jules Bianchi - Close to some of the Williams and STR cars especially in qualifying, best of the rest by a mile, and if he keeps running such clean races soon nobody will remember his crashtastic junior career.

[Shizuka]

And with X61's nominations added,

1. Jules Bianchi - 158
2. Jenson Button - 148
3. Mark Webber - 99
4. Romain Grosjean - 80
5. Nico Hülkenberg - 72
6. Mercedes - 34
7. Sebastian Vettel - 31
8. Nico Rosberg - 16
9. Marussia - 10
= Fernando Alonso's front wing - 10
11. Red Bull - 6
= Paul di Resta - 6
= Jean-Eric Vergne - 6