The 2013 British Grand Prix Thread

[go_Rubens]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/23089321#play-video

The BBC reckon they've found the spot that has been causing all the cuts in the tyres (and hence the blowouts that followed). If this is the case, then it's not so much the Pirellis, which up until now haven't been exploding en masse, even post-test at Monaco and Canada (a track that in my opinion, share alot of the same characteristcs as Silverstone), but a track specific anomaly that can be fixed, and people can stop getting so worked up over how the Pirellis do exactly what people asked of them to do.

http://youtu.be/98GB1I2TyrE

If turn out to be the case, I'd say then that it's more the driver's fault (for driving out of the track limits) than pirelli's.
Sure, pirelli could probably do something to make the tyres stronger, and the tracks could have a different kerb layout. But ultimately the driver shouldn't drive that far into the kerb and expect it to be safe. Like in the 70's, kerbs cut tyres.

Exactly.

That was probably the most chaotic dry race since Canada 2007 or Australia 2008.

I might have to agree with this.

[tristan1117]

That was probably the most chaotic dry race since Canada 2007 or Australia 2008.

Valencia 2012 is probably up there too.

That being said, I'm still not sure if I am thoroughly enjoying the new order of things in Formula 1 (#GodSaveOurTyres). I mean, Hamilton would have most likely won this race had his tyre not exploded, and Massa might've had a podium as well. The tyres, once again, although in an admittedly more spectular fashion, continue to mask the true performance of drivers during the race, which is rather frustrating. However, Formula 1 is one of those sports where the equipment and technology often eclipses the actual happenings on-track (is it the only sport? Perhaps bass-master?), so I suppose this only extends that strange tradition.

[Salamander]

The tyres, once again, although in an admittedly more spectular fashion, continue to mask the true performance of drivers during the race, which is rather frustrating.

I disagree with this. I think it was quite clear which drivers drove well and which drivers did not. Maybe the best driver didn't win today, but the best driver doesn't always win. That's motor racing.

[razta]

:D

Seriously, I'm sick of their dominance.

At least VETTELWINSLOL seems to have turned into either ROSBERGWINSLOL or RÄIKKÖNENWINSLOL.

I think thats why the British crowd cheered for the other German, driving a car built 8 miles down the road, backed by the world largest German car maker!

sorry - just taking the pi$$ lol MERCEDESWINSLOL!

[Svenko Wankerov]

It's a bit "disrespectful" to blame the tire failures on the drivers, they were taking the fastest legal line through that turn which had not resulted in tire failures in previous years. Not to mention the drivers were led to believe that the tire failures were a result of debris instead of kerbs prior to the race.

[Faustus]

Geri Halliwell is drunk lol. What an interview

Having Geri Halliwell as a 'VIP guest' really is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

[Alextrax52]

Geri Halliwell is drunk lol. What an interview

Having Geri Halliwell as a 'VIP guest' really is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

I'd want to hire her full time. Unpopular Opinion anyone?

[Jocke1]

Alright, Gary Anderson found that kerb with a kind of sharp elevation difference. But that was after the race.

What did the drivers and their engineers do on Wednesday and Thursday? They always walk the track or ride bikes and scooters.
They inspect every little detail of the circuit and plan out the weekend from there.

How is it that twenty-two drivers and twenty-two engineers can miss this spot and not be prepared for the sessions / race?
If just one of these forty-four guys would have said something beforehand, the kerb could have been fixed.
I don't understand it.

[mario]

Geri Halliwell is drunk lol. What an interview

Having Geri Halliwell as a 'VIP guest' really is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Not just scraping the bottom of the barrel, but through the barrel and into the cellar floor beneath it...

As an aside, it looks like, according to Adam Cooper, that a few teams are rather unhappy about the relatively light penalty Rosberg received for speeding under yellow flags. Given that it was a double waived yellow (i.e. marshals on track and considerable danger), yet Rosberg went on to set a purple sector time (i.e. the fastest sector of the race at that point in time), there are some who feel he should have been more harshly dealt with for the risk he presented to the marshals.

[good_Ralf]

According to STATS F1, Grosjean retired because of 'wing'. He may have had rear wing damage at some point from tyre debris or something and that caused him to tail off in the race before dropping out altogether. Then Wikipedia said he had a gearbox failure, another likely cause for his poor pace and retirement.

[Faustus]

Geri Halliwell is drunk lol. What an interview

Having Geri Halliwell as a 'VIP guest' really is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

I'd want to hire her full time. Unpopular Opinion anyone?

For comedy value or because of some unexplainable attraction to her? She's been around a bit. A clear case of 'it's not the years, it's the mileage'.

[Faustus]

Geri Halliwell is drunk lol. What an interview

Having Geri Halliwell as a 'VIP guest' really is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Not just scraping the bottom of the barrel, but through the barrel and into the cellar floor beneath it...

As an aside, it looks like, according to Adam Cooper, that a few teams are rather unhappy about the relatively light penalty Rosberg received for speeding under yellow flags. Given that it was a double waived yellow (i.e. marshals on track and considerable danger), yet Rosberg went on to set a purple sector time (i.e. the fastest sector of the race at that point in time), there are some who feel he should have been more harshly dealt with for the risk he presented to the marshals.

He didn't even wave at them, like Hakkinen used to do to show that he was aware of them and was acknowledging them. That was pretty lenient.

[Salamander]

Alright, Gary Anderson found that kerb with a kind of sharp elevation difference. But that was after the race.

What did the drivers and their engineers do on Wednesday and Thursday? They always walk the track or ride bikes and scooters.
They inspect every little detail of the circuit and plan out the weekend from there.

How is it that twenty-two drivers and twenty-two engineers can miss this spot and not be prepared for the sessions / race?
If just one of these forty-four guys would have said something beforehand, the kerb could have been fixed.
I don't understand it.

Maybe because it hasn't caused any problems in years previous?

[AdrianSutil]

I don't buy this 'high kerb' explanation. At all. I think it's just the tyres being pushed too hard, too quickly. We didn't see it in practice because the drivers don't push as hard, it didn't happen in qualifying because the drivers only do one or two flying laps on each set so it only happened during the race because... It's a race.

[Alextrax52]

Mercedes GP could be facing a real dilemma over the battle for the championship. Hamilton and Rosberg are just 7 points apart and 43 and 50 behind Vettel. The question is Who do they back? Do they choose Hamilton who seems to be finding his feet and who has finished every race bar Spain in the top 5 including 3 podiums? Or do they choose Rosberg who is in the form of his life with 2 wins and 3 poles and who seems to be better than Lewis in the wet weather at the moment? It's a tricky situation and i think they should wait until the European season is done before making a decision

[good_Ralf]

Mercedes GP could be facing a real dilemma over the battle for the championship. Hamilton and Rosberg are just 7 points apart and 43 and 50 behind Vettel. The question is Who do they back? Do they choose Hamilton who seems to be finding his feet and who has finished every race bar Spain in the top 5 including 3 podiums? Or do they choose Rosberg who is in the form of his life with 2 wins and 3 poles and who seems to be better than Lewis in the wet weather at the moment? It's a tricky situation and i think they should wait until the European season is done before making a decision

This situation sounds like the one that Ferrari had to deal with in 2007, when their drivers swapped positions in the championship for 5 consecutive races.

[go_Rubens]

Mercedes GP could be facing a real dilemma over the battle for the championship. Hamilton and Rosberg are just 7 points apart and 43 and 50 behind Vettel. The question is Who do they back? Do they choose Hamilton who seems to be finding his feet and who has finished every race bar Spain in the top 5 including 3 podiums? Or do they choose Rosberg who is in the form of his life with 2 wins and 3 poles and who seems to be better than Lewis in the wet weather at the moment? It's a tricky situation and i think they should wait until the European season is done before making a decision

This situation sounds like the one that Ferrari had to deal with in 2007, when their drivers swapped positions in the championship for 5 consecutive races.

Yeah, I wonder what Merc will do about this. I'd say let them race and whoever is on top in the final rounds gets the team leadership role. But that is just my opinion.

[mario]

Mercedes GP could be facing a real dilemma over the battle for the championship. Hamilton and Rosberg are just 7 points apart and 43 and 50 behind Vettel. The question is Who do they back? Do they choose Hamilton who seems to be finding his feet and who has finished every race bar Spain in the top 5 including 3 podiums? Or do they choose Rosberg who is in the form of his life with 2 wins and 3 poles and who seems to be better than Lewis in the wet weather at the moment? It's a tricky situation and i think they should wait until the European season is done before making a decision

At the moment, I would argue that they might be better off to leave it for a few more races until one driver or the other has a clear advantage. It is true that Rosberg is in good form at the moment (although, given that Hamilton looked like the quicker driver in Silverstone before his tyre blew, Rosberg's win in Britain was a little fortunate), but, as you say, Hamilton does seem to be gradually getting more accustomed to the team and is likely to improve in his own right as the season goes on.
For now, if I were at Mercedes I would aim to keep providing both drivers with equal treatment and make the decision, at the earliest, at the Hungarian GP (which marks the midpoint of the season). It might even be best not to give either driver priority at all - I half suspect that Rosberg's surge in form is because he felt, after the Malaysian GP, determined not to be in a position where he'd have to yield to Hamilton again, and that has really spurred him on since then.

As to the British GP, Derek Warwick has responded to the accusation that it might have been the kerbs at Silverstone that caused the problems with a thundering missive. He's certainly not mincing his words here:

"I think Bernie, the FIA and Pirelli are bringing the sport into disrepute and they need to have a serious look at themselves and change these tyres and not expect all the teams to agree," said Warwick.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/0 ... F920130701

[good_Ralf]

This is the points table for the last five races

n Driver Nb Points/GP
1 VETTEL Sebastian 80 16.00
2 ROSBERG Nico 70 14.00
3 ALONSO Fernando 68 13.60
4 WEBBER Mark 61 12.20
5 HAMILTON Lewis 49 9.80
6 RAIKKONEN Kimi 49 9.80
7 Di RESTA Paul 28 5.60
8 MASSA Felipe 27 5.40
9 SUTIL Adrian 17 3.40
10 GROSJEAN Romain 15 3.00
11 BUTTON Jenson 13 2.60
12 VERGNE Jean-Éric 12 2.40
13 PEREZ Sergio 10 2.00
14 RICCIARDO Daniel 5 1.00
15 HULKENBERG Nico 1 0.20

Sorry if it is hard to read.

Rosberg predictably has scored more points than anyone in the last four races.

[go_Rubens]

I understand the statistics you have given and can read them, so no complaints here!

So, it looks Rosberg can challenge Vettel to the title with these stats.

I think Nico deserves a better ride. The Merc is good, but a Red Bull or a Ferrari may be better for him to challenge.

[Londoner]

This was too funny not to share.

[CoopsII]

I don't buy this 'high kerb' explanation.

Neither does Derek Warwick who points out that the kerbs have been in place since, ooh, 2009.

[Alextrax52]

This was too funny not to share.

To be fair the reliant robin could manage it's tires better than the F1 cars

[Alextrax52]

Natalie Pinkham. That is all.

Where the hell did that come from?

[Alextrax52]

Nice to see a trio of drivers that don't hate each other chatting away informally.

Indeed.

Podium interviews suck. Is that Damon Hill?

It is. Also the first race which doesn't have Brundle, Jordan or Coulthard interviewing.

Also the first time Nico Rosberg has ever done a Podium Interview

Nuts i forgot the edit button

[AdrianSutil]

Natalie Pinkham. That is all.

Where the hell did that come from?

The back of my mind.

[Barbazza]

A bit late to the party, I was away this weekend and somehow managed to completely avoid any GP talk yesterday.

I was quite pleased that I got home at 3pm able to watch the race without knowing what was going to happen. Except I could have guessed....race being made to look artificially exciting by tyre related nonsense. Again.

I'm sorry, but this is absolute drivel now. There's always been some element of limiting factor in F1, whether that's the mid-80s fuel limits when cars would sometimes cross the line running on fumes or later the opposite with refuelling strategies. Different tyre manufacturers was interesting as we had healthy competition and apart from one notable exception, not much wrong with that either. However, we are now getting into the realms of things getting dangerous and I really don't like it.

Apologies if that seems a bit of an over-reaction but the Perez blowout in particular could have ended up with nasty consequences.

[Alextrax52]

A bit late to the party, I was away this weekend and somehow managed to completely avoid any GP talk yesterday.

I was quite pleased that I got home at 3pm able to watch the race without knowing what was going to happen. Except I could have guessed....race being made to look artificially exciting by tyre related nonsense. Again.

I'm sorry, but this is absolute drivel now. There's always been some element of limiting factor in F1, whether that's the mid-80s fuel limits when cars would sometimes cross the line running on fumes or later the opposite with refuelling strategies. Different tyre manufacturers was interesting as we had healthy competition and apart from one notable exception, not much wrong with that either. However, we are now getting into the realms of things getting dangerous and I really don't like it.

Apologies if that seems a bit of an over-reaction but the Perez blowout in particular could have ended up with nasty consequences.

Where have you been. Were you at the GP like me or were you somewhere else?

Anyway i'm getting sick of the talk of tires and tires and more tires. This is what's driving Webber out of the sport (sorry for the pun if it was one) because as we saw at Silverstone he just wants to wring the neck out of the car 100% of the time. We can only really compare drivers in Qualifying and i think Rosberg is a quick as we make him out to be compared to Hamilton. It's just a shame that these Jelly Pirellis are masking their outright racing

[Barbazza]

I was watching some exciting and unpredictable racing elsewhere yesterday which wasn't artificially generated (*) namely horse racing at Windsor.

Driving back up the M40 today we saw team transporters from Ferrari, McLaren, Force India and Toro Rosso going the other way (presumably from Silverstone to somewhere down South where they will get on a ferry) plus an DHL F1 branded vehicle (carrying Bernie's bus maybe?)
So that was my only live racing experience related to F1 this weekend.

* NB Except for maybe some drugs. Or jockeys not trying hard enough (favourites in the last 2 races did suspiciously badly...)

[F1000X]

Mercedes GP could be facing a real dilemma over the battle for the championship. Hamilton and Rosberg are just 7 points apart and 43 and 50 behind Vettel. The question is Who do they back? Do they choose Hamilton who seems to be finding his feet and who has finished every race bar Spain in the top 5 including 3 podiums? Or do they choose Rosberg who is in the form of his life with 2 wins and 3 poles and who seems to be better than Lewis in the wet weather at the moment? It's a tricky situation and i think they should wait until the European season is done before making a decision

Since when does Ross Brawn still care about the drivers championship? As long as they don't spoil each other's races, which they haven't yet, I don't think he will interfere. Why risk breaking one their spirits, and creating an underperforming sourpuss (read: Felipe Massa) within the team?

[FullMetalJack]

Natalie Pinkham. That is all.

Where the hell did that come from?

The back of my mind.

Perfectly understandable

[Sublime_FA11C]

Alright, Gary Anderson found that kerb with a kind of sharp elevation difference. But that was after the race.

What did the drivers and their engineers do on Wednesday and Thursday? They always walk the track or ride bikes and scooters.
They inspect every little detail of the circuit and plan out the weekend from there.

How is it that twenty-two drivers and twenty-two engineers can miss this spot and not be prepared for the sessions / race?
If just one of these forty-four guys would have said something beforehand, the kerb could have been fixed.
I don't understand it.

My guess is that the rain soaked Friday limited track time and the dry practise sessions forced teams to test their most important configurations. None of which apparently included full tank running.

Also, the temperature had risen quite a bit for Sunday, Martin Brudnle gleefuly mentioning the heat haze which is a very rare occurence at Silverstone GPs.

So i guess all teams were caught out running dangerous cambers/tyre pressures during the race. Of course, nobody could have known that it would be dangerous and Pirelli's job is to ensure that such occurences don't happen. But honestly, unless they employed soothsayers, they could not have predicted that one.

[Sublime_FA11C]

Pirelli have revealed more about the tyre failures in Silverstone and the upcoming changes for Nurburgring and Hungaroring:

After a two-day post-mortem into events at Silverstone, F1's sole tyre supplier announced late on Tuesday night that the tyres to be used in Germany will be the Kevlar-based construction tested in Friday Practice at Canada last month and a new type of tyre will be introduced for the Hungarian GP 'combining the characteristics of the 2012 tyres with the performance of the 2013 compounds'.

http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/new ... -German-GP

[Jocke1]

Natalie Pinkham. That is all.

Where the hell did that come from?

The back of my mind.

Lee > Nat

[CoopsII]

I was watching some exciting and unpredictable racing elsewhere yesterday which wasn't artificially generated (*) namely horse racing at Windsor

No high speed horseshoe failures then?

[good_Ralf]

After 8 races in 2012

Red Bull had 176 points
Mercedes had 92 points
Ferrari had 122 points
Lotus had 126 points
Force India had 44 points
McLaren had 137 points
Toro Rosso had 6 points
Sauber had 60 points
Williams had 45 points

After 8 races in 2013

Red Bull had 219 points
Mercedes had 171 points
Ferrari had 168 points
Lotus had 124 points
Force India had 59 points
McLaren had 37 points
Toro Rosso had 24 points
Sauber had 6 points
Williams had 0 points

[Faustus]

Lee > Nat

Lee is more knowledgeable but Nat is fitter.

[takagi_for_the_win]

Lee > Nat

Lee is more knowledgeable but Nat is fitter.

There's something about Lee's Scottish burr...

[Faustus]

Lee > Nat

Lee is more knowledgeable but Nat is fitter.

There's something about Lee's Scottish burr...

And lovely eyes.

[takagi_for_the_win]

Lee is more knowledgeable but Nat is fitter.

There's something about Lee's Scottish burr...

And lovely eyes.

And thighs