Grand Prix Rejects

There is only one good part of the Aussie coverage, which is the preview of the track with Webber in the Red Bull simulator. Otherwise, completely pointless till the race starts.

Bad news for Jaima Alguersuari - a water leak meant that he was unable to take to the grid in time, and he will now have to start from the pit lane.

Liuzzi has pulled up with suspension problems at the sling, safety car's out!

The Safety Car is brought to you in assossiation with Allianz.

Hulkenberg has discovered something amazing.....the hard tyre does not have grip...... duh....ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO!!!

ADx_Wales wrote:Hulkenberg has discovered something amazing.....the hard tyre does not have grip...... duh....ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO!!!

But with Bridgestone, you never know...

Timo Glock, not bending over to peer pressure, GET IN THE QUEUE!!!

Good on ya, Kamui, give Schumi a taste of his own medicine!

Kobayashi triggers SC; Senna goes into him as well.

KAMUI AND SENNA GO OUTTA!

Oh, so now there's a safety car.

Klien out as well, leaving the race HRT-less.

Hamilton's really dumb, fo' real.

Oh boy, Hamilton and Webber - this race is going to get hot if it continues like this.

€: SPARKLING SCHUMACHER! ... That guy seems to have problems with former team partners of his.

Bloody di Grassi holds up Webber, bloody Hamilton hits Webber. All is well, for now. Well, not for Hamilton.

Mercedes driver hits Mercedes former tester.

In the space of a few laps, this has changed from a rubbish race to merely a poor race.

Poor old Heidfeld.

GwilymJJames wrote:Mercedes driver hits Mercedes former tester.

In the space of a few laps, this has changed from a rubbish race to merely a poor race.

What are your expectations from a race? This race has had intriguing tactics, overtaking, safety cars, championship implications... what do you want from a race?

shinji wrote:What are your expectations from a race? This race has had intriguing tactics, overtaking, safety cars, championship implications... what do you want from a race?

Obviously boring MotoGP-style racing with so many overtakes that each of them becomes more and more pointless and it is stupid to follow them. You know, ADHD sports...

No action against Webber - all good

My goodness, Kubica is really on fire!

Renault team orders?

Kubica just IIDOTR'd

muttley wrote:My goodness, Kubica is really on fire!

So's Kovaleinen!

Major man points for Kovalainen putting out his own car's fire.

Very WTF from Heikki.

Is it just me, or was Brundle wrong to bleat about him not bringing the car into the pits. I can't imagine a pitlane full of people, tires, petrol etc. is the greatest place in the world for flaming car.

Enforcer wrote:Is it just me, or was Brundle wrong to bleat about him not bringing the car into the pits. I can't imagine a pitlane full of people, tires, petrol etc. is the greatest place in the world for flaming car.

also full of trained firecrews and plenty of extinguishers!

pretty good race actually, was a bit boring in the early stages but the final half was great. Not really a fan of all this startline chopping though

Webber 202
Alonso 191
Hamilton 182
Vettel 181
Button 177

Wow!! Button is only 25 points from Webber. This is unique.

If you were McLaren, how do you choose who to back, when they are 20 and 25 points off the lead with only 4 races to go?

dr-baker wrote:If you were McLaren, how do you choose who to back, when they are 20 and 25 points off the lead with only 4 races to go?

Toss a coin, pick a number between 1 and 10, rock, paper, scissors, there are many ways.

patrick wrote:

Enforcer wrote:Is it just me, or was Brundle wrong to bleat about him not bringing the car into the pits. I can't imagine a pitlane full of people, tires, petrol etc. is the greatest place in the world for flaming car.

also full of trained firecrews and plenty of extinguishers!

pretty good race actually, was a bit boring in the early stages but the final half was great. Not really a fan of all this startline chopping though

With refuelling gone, and with the mechanics only allowed to exit the garage when their car is going to come into the pits, personally I would have thought that returning to the pitlane would have been relatively safe - and would have put him much closer to the fire crews.

Whilst a slow burn at the beginning, it became a bit more lively at the end there - and quite a few things to discuss there.
Interestingly, Hamilton seemed to be more confused then angry about his accident with Webber - he claims that Webber was in his blind spot, and he simply could not see him as he turned into the corner. I guess that we'll have to wait to hear from Webber, but so far Hamilton doesn't seem to be putting the blame on him.

It's actually an interesting thing to ponder - Mclaren were telling Hamilton to push to pass Webber after the re-start, and to go to a more aggressive engine setting. Given that Webber was distracted by Glock (I think), that probably was going to be Hamilton's best chance to try and pass him, and Kubica showed that it is possible to around the outside of somebody into that corner.
Perhaps Mclaren should not have told Hamilton to attack Webber, and encouraged Hamilton to be so aggressive on the track?

dr-baker wrote:If you were McLaren, how do you choose who to back, when they are 20 and 25 points off the lead with only 4 races to go?

It is probably a bigger problem for Red Bull - Webber has the points lead, but Vettel has had the better results in the last two races, and Alonso is splitting the two. For Mclaren, you might as well back your drivers equally because they are so close together - but the gap between Webber and Vettel is much more significant, and with Alonso closing fast, he will be a major threat.

On the other hand, this race can't have done Alonso'e engine any good - he was on full revs, and full power, throughout that race, and he still has to do Suzuka on that engine. Whilst Ferrari's form has improved markedly recently, the engine issue may come back to haunt them.

shinji wrote:Very WTF from Heikki.

To mash-up, And what is Kovalainen doing? I had never seen that before.

CarlosFerreira wrote:

shinji wrote:Very WTF from Heikki.

To mash-up, And what is Kovalainen doing? I had never seen that before.

To be honest, when I saw what he was doing, I was fearing another Kyalami 1977

muttley wrote:

CarlosFerreira wrote:

shinji wrote:Very WTF from Heikki.

To mash-up, And what is Kovalainen doing? I had never seen that before.

To be honest, when I saw what he was doing, I was fearing another Kyalami 1977

Same here. Alonso came close to the pit lane when celebrating... there was smoke...

dr-baker wrote:If you were McLaren, how do you choose who to back, when they are 20 and 25 points off the lead with only 4 races to go?

None of the two.

Well, in this particular case I would marginally favour Hamilton because he's clearly the faster driver. The problem is that he always manages to find new ways to lose points (although to be fair, I found Webber was more to blame this time), while Button maximises his results.

With Alonso leading the McLarens and Red Bull's preferred and overall slightly quicker driver, he's starting to look like the title favourite. They say Red Bull will be quickest on the remaining tracks but they said the same about Singapore, so...

For anyone who missed it or wasn't watching the bbc, they showed webber's tyre in parc ferme and it was quite far off the rim - to the point that coulthard said you could just push it off. So he may have been on borrowed time!

What a waste of a Sunday afternoon. Nothing at all happened apart from the collision which was completely Webber's fault - his front wheels were level with Hamilton's rear wheels.

tc3j3r wrote:What a waste of a Sunday afternoon. Nothing at all happened apart from the collision which was completely Webber's fault - his front wheels were level with Hamilton's rear wheels.

Apart from all the overtaking, collisions, spins and the fire on the start-finish straight you mean?

Enforcer wrote:Is it just me, or was Brundle wrong to bleat about him not bringing the car into the pits. I can't imagine a pitlane full of people, tires, petrol etc. is the greatest place in the world for flaming car.

I think the safest place for it was out in the open. Not sure the safest place for Heikki was standing on the track putting it out, mind you!