Grand Prix Rejects

DanielPT wrote:I will go for Van der Garde wheel. It robbed him of easily his best race yet.

Second will go for Sauber's pit stop.

Finally, I won't say Mercedes as I was expecting their fall, but still, if they keep fading on race days they will be within a shout from McLaren, who still managed a double points finish.

madmark1974 wrote:For me it has to be Pirelli this time round. I know people have been complaining about the tyres pretty much all year, but this race seems to have been the worst example yet.

Well, I say race, there wasn't really any like-for-like racing out there. Qualifying has now become totally meaningless, and it was almost embarrasing to see the Mercedes floundering due to the tyre
compounds appearing to be made of liquorice. How can a car go from being 0.3 seconds faster than anything else in quali, to being over 1 second a lap slower in the race? It appears that the fastest
car is no longer actually the fastest car, well it might be for about 1.5 minutes on the day before, but as soon as the lights go out ...

At least Pirelli have finally acknowledged the issue so we might see some proper racing from Silverstone onwards. The situation is neutering the more 'racy' drivers such as Hamilton and Webber,
I want to see drivers pushing the limits of their cars, not Driving Miss Daisy.

DalekSam wrote:Honorable mention to Hulkenberg for being a complete tool and crashing into Vergne. The amount of pitlane drama these days is abysmal.

UgncreativeUsergname wrote:

DalekSam wrote:Honorable mention to Hulkenberg for being a complete tool and crashing into Vergne. The amount of pitlane drama these days is abysmal.

Isn't that Force India's fault?

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:

UgncreativeUsergname wrote:

DalekSam wrote:Honorable mention to Hulkenberg for being a complete tool and crashing into Vergne. The amount of pitlane drama these days is abysmal.

Isn't that Force India's fault?

I believe Hulkenberg drives for Sauber these days...

But yeah, it was Sauber's fault for letting him go too early.

East Londoner wrote:

LellaLombardi wrote:Guiterrez. I like nothing better than seeing a driver who has taken some serious shite off people to do well. Hope he can build on it.

Wrong thread.

wsrgo wrote:Mercedes.

At this rate, I feel we are going to be treated to the world's longest openwheel car train at Monaco. Until they box, that is.

Honourable mentions to:

Sauber's pitstop for Hulkenberg.

Webber with another bugger of a start. At least, his four-stop was intentional, aggressive, and well-executed.

Bottas: horrible afternoon.

Button: required McLaren to step off their moral high horse of being he team sans team orders

Chilton: somehow managed to finish nearly 20 seconds behind Bianchi despite the latter having to pit on lap 1.

NOT TO FORGET: Psst...does anyone know why there was a marshal on the start line waving a yellow?

THE SUNDAY TORTOISE AWARD goes to the one and only true-bred racer Lewis Hamilton!!!!

East Londoner wrote:New nomination - Dietrich Mateschitz. Just go home mate.

go_Rubens wrote:

East Londoner wrote:New nomination - Dietrich Mateschitz. Just go home mate.

Damn him. In my line of sight, he's trying to be a crybaby wannabe and wants the tyres to be less severe so his team can do the double. AGAIN. That is shite. The safety fears I can take, but just use the tyres they give you for God's sake. To know that the championship might not be a Red Bull cakewalk is a good thing for once, but Mateschitz is trying to make his team win everything and then claim F1 is actually racing again. What a hypocrite. This may need to be a new sig because of how rejectful Dietrich is being. What a debacle. A laughable failure. Need I say more? I think not.

DalekSam wrote:

madmark1974 wrote:For me it has to be Pirelli this time round. I know people have been complaining about the tyres pretty much all year, but this race seems to have been the worst example yet.

Well, I say race, there wasn't really any like-for-like racing out there. Qualifying has now become totally meaningless, and it was almost embarrasing to see the Mercedes floundering due to the tyre
compounds appearing to be made of liquorice. How can a car go from being 0.3 seconds faster than anything else in quali, to being over 1 second a lap slower in the race? It appears that the fastest
car is no longer actually the fastest car, well it might be for about 1.5 minutes on the day before, but as soon as the lights go out ...

At least Pirelli have finally acknowledged the issue so we might see some proper racing from Silverstone onwards. The situation is neutering the more 'racy' drivers such as Hamilton and Webber,
I want to see drivers pushing the limits of their cars, not Driving Miss Daisy.

Agreed completely - I'd much rather sacrifice the artificial 'racing' for drivers doing blinders for the whole race, not for a lap and then having the tires die right after and having them fall like a truck, much like the Mercedes did.

wsrgo wrote:

go_Rubens wrote:

East Londoner wrote:New nomination - Dietrich Mateschitz. Just go home mate.

Damn him. In my line of sight, he's trying to be a crybaby wannabe and wants the tyres to be less severe so his team can do the double. AGAIN. That is shite. The safety fears I can take, but just use the tyres they give you for God's sake. To know that the championship might not be a Red Bull cakewalk is a good thing for once, but Mateschitz is trying to make his team win everything and then claim F1 is actually racing again. What a hypocrite. This may need to be a new sig because of how rejectful Dietrich is being. What a debacle. A laughable failure. Need I say more? I think not.

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madmark1974 wrote:A very interesting piece from David Coulthard here, about the tyres and their effect on the racing, which I pretty much agree with totally :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/22512693

wsrgo wrote:
A large part of the audience are Hamilton fans, who are having to go through Sunday nightmares as they see their driver dropping back, powerless to defend. Whose fault is it, really? I'd say Mercedes, because they haven't done enough to build a car that would use the tyres probably. Is it just Pirelli's fault, that Hamilton dropped down from 2nd to 12th? If Hamilton had not myopically locked up his PZeros big time at Turn 1 on Lap 1, would he have struggled so much initially?

DanielPT wrote:Having said all this, I would not have any problem with this outcry if it weren't for the Whole British Press assuming that they have the moral high ground (when the rules benefit johnny foreigner) only to leave it behind when it is convenient. It is highly hypocritical. I am sorry if I upset any British forumites, but this view is shared by many outside your country (at least I know many). Also, I reckon I might have entered in a bit of conspiracy theory a few lines back.

CarlosFerreira wrote:

DanielPT wrote:Having said all this, I would not have any problem with this outcry if it weren't for the Whole British Press assuming that they have the moral high ground (when the rules benefit johnny foreigner) only to leave it behind when it is convenient. It is highly hypocritical. I am sorry if I upset any British forumites, but this view is shared by many outside your country (at least I know many). Also, I reckon I might have entered in a bit of conspiracy theory a few lines back.

Johnny Foreigner here, how are you doing?
I mostly agree with you (I have a permanent itch to scratch with the British press), but I thought I'd highlight an important factor: it's Mercedes and Red Bull who've been using ze German* press to put pressure in Pirelli, partly using the safety card. A part of me hopes Pirelli simply wheels out last year's tyres and gives everyone the bird.

*fans of 'Allo 'Allo, stand up!

CoopsII wrote:

CarlosFerreira wrote:

DanielPT wrote:Having said all this, I would not have any problem with this outcry if it weren't for the Whole British Press assuming that they have the moral high ground (when the rules benefit johnny foreigner) only to leave it behind when it is convenient. It is highly hypocritical. I am sorry if I upset any British forumites, but this view is shared by many outside your country (at least I know many). Also, I reckon I might have entered in a bit of conspiracy theory a few lines back.

Johnny Foreigner here, how are you doing?
I mostly agree with you (I have a permanent itch to scratch with the British press), but I thought I'd highlight an important factor: it's Mercedes and Red Bull who've been using ze German* press to put pressure in Pirelli, partly using the safety card. A part of me hopes Pirelli simply wheels out last year's tyres and gives everyone the bird.

*fans of 'Allo 'Allo, stand up!

I dont understand why being British has anything to do with it, neither British driver will benefit enough to win the championship no matter what Pirelli do.

CarlosFerriera wrote:Rest assured, if Pirelli creates tyres that completely change the dynamics of the races and Vettel wins the Championship by a country mile, the same parts of the press will have a second bite of the cherry, and accuse Pirelli of producing tyres that are too durable, or too close to Red Bull's needs.

DanielPT wrote:

wsrgo wrote:
A large part of the audience are Hamilton fans, who are having to go through Sunday nightmares as they see their driver dropping back, powerless to defend. Whose fault is it, really? I'd say Mercedes, because they haven't done enough to build a car that would use the tyres probably. Is it just Pirelli's fault, that Hamilton dropped down from 2nd to 12th? If Hamilton had not myopically locked up his PZeros big time at Turn 1 on Lap 1, would he have struggled so much initially?

Fixed as no one really cares much about Rosberg.

AxelP800 wrote:Pirelli's 2012 spec tyres are enough to make race interesting. No need to make it softer (or it'll become a pillow).

ROTR: Lewis Hamilton. Drop 10 positions

DanielPT wrote:I still thought that Pirelli had a chance to get out of this whole debacle, by themselves, on a high by starting to bring in the harder choices but from the moment they chose to change the tyres mid season like this, that this is probably only going downhill for them, IMHO. Perhaps I am wrong, but knee-jerk changes like those, specially if viewed favouring someone, never did any good for one's reputation.

mario wrote:

DanielPT wrote:I still thought that Pirelli had a chance to get out of this whole debacle, by themselves, on a high by starting to bring in the harder choices but from the moment they chose to change the tyres mid season like this, that this is probably only going downhill for them, IMHO. Perhaps I am wrong, but knee-jerk changes like those, specially if viewed favouring someone, never did any good for one's reputation.

As many have said, they are damned if they do and damned if they don't - if they don't change the tyres, the negative publicity would only continue to grow and, with Bernie no longer defending them in public (he defended them after the Bahrain GP but, since that meeting he had with Mateschitz in Spain, he has become more critical of Pirelli now), their reputation would continue taking a hit in the longer term. If Red Bull do now run away with the championship, then they will be seen as having influenced the title and having favoured Red Bull and the press is likely to remain critical, so it is hard to see how Pirelli can really win either way.

mario wrote:

DanielPT wrote:

wsrgo wrote:
A large part of the audience are Hamilton fans, who are having to go through Sunday nightmares as they see their driver dropping back, powerless to defend. Whose fault is it, really? I'd say Mercedes, because they haven't done enough to build a car that would use the tyres probably. Is it just Pirelli's fault, that Hamilton dropped down from 2nd to 12th? If Hamilton had not myopically locked up his PZeros big time at Turn 1 on Lap 1, would he have struggled so much initially?

Fixed as no one really cares much about Rosberg.

Perhaps not within the British press, but the German press is another matter - unsurprisingly, they care a lot more about what Rosberg says than Hamilton, and whilst Rosberg has moderated his comments to the British press, he has been much more scathing of Pirelli when speaking to the German press. That is also fairly important when you consider that it is often through the German press that Red Bull, and to a lesser extent Mercedes, have been putting their points across, with those comments then being picked up in the British press a little later on.

JeremyMcClean wrote:It's a very good reason why I think Pirelli will leave F1 after this year - I honestly don't think they'll be able to take this dumb criticism any longer. Also, this lose/lose situation will make the executives furious.

DanielPT wrote:

mario wrote:
Perhaps not within the British press, but the German press is another matter - unsurprisingly, they care a lot more about what Rosberg says than Hamilton, and whilst Rosberg has moderated his comments to the British press, he has been much more scathing of Pirelli when speaking to the German press. That is also fairly important when you consider that it is often through the German press that Red Bull, and to a lesser extent Mercedes, have been putting their points across, with those comments then being picked up in the British press a little later on.

Well, sure Red Bull and Mercedes might put their criticisms with the German press, but the fact that there are many many more people able to understand English rather than German, it kind of diminishes their lobbying power because of their limited reach and in spite of their economic power. Anglo-Saxon press on the other hand...

JeremyMcClean wrote:It's a very good reason why I think Pirelli will leave F1 after this year - I honestly don't think they'll be able to take this dumb criticism any longer. Also, this lose/lose situation will make the executives furious.

I am with you on that one. And if they do leave, who will come next? It is hard to see past the idea that whoever comes after will end up pretty much in the same situation. Bridgestone got much stick for building tyres that last forever and therefore reducing strategy to zilch. Pirelli is the other way around. There is no reason to think that striking the balance looks to be a very hard task. It is an ungrateful task, it seems. Perhaps a lesser constructor would want to do it on the basis of any publicity is good publicity.

madmark1974 wrote:I understand the point that DanielPT is making above, but from what I remember of the race coverage (I watched on the BBC), Coulthard mentioned that people were on partial throttle round turn 3 pretty
much every time an onboard was shown (definitely when riding with Kimi and I think Alonso too), and commented that the drivers were not able to push, which he has since followed up on in the link I posted
above. They didn't really discuss Hamilton during the race as he was pretty much out of contention after 2 laps. From what I have heard Brundle was saying pretty much the same on SKY.

Now, it could be that as they are both ex-racers they are looking on the racing as being 'not as good as when we were doing it', but how many million people hear and respect their opinions? My initial thought
for ROTR was the tyres before I'd read any of the hyperbole afterwards and I'm still sticking with it. I didn't enjoy the race/racing (not a first for Barcelona), and I feel that the tyres were the main factor in that.

DanielPT wrote:

madmark1974 wrote:I understand the point that DanielPT is making above, but from what I remember of the race coverage (I watched on the BBC), Coulthard mentioned that people were on partial throttle round turn 3 pretty
much every time an onboard was shown (definitely when riding with Kimi and I think Alonso too), and commented that the drivers were not able to push, which he has since followed up on in the link I posted
above. They didn't really discuss Hamilton during the race as he was pretty much out of contention after 2 laps. From what I have heard Brundle was saying pretty much the same on SKY.

Now, it could be that as they are both ex-racers they are looking on the racing as being 'not as good as when we were doing it', but how many million people hear and respect their opinions? My initial thought
for ROTR was the tyres before I'd read any of the hyperbole afterwards and I'm still sticking with it. I didn't enjoy the race/racing (not a first for Barcelona), and I feel that the tyres were the main factor in that.

It is only natural that the press defends their athletes. The only thing that pisses me off is that moral high ground they love to inhabit only to replace it with bad excuses when it is one of the same nationality. That and the easy trigger of accusing everyone else of cheating as it is the only possible way to explain their victory. One thing I remember well was the attack they launched at the Europa league finalist from 2 years ago that opposed two Portuguese sides with an apparent lack of players with the same nationality as if it is not a syndrome that also attacks many Premiership sides and other top European clubs...

Anyway, enough of that. Back to tyres limiting the cars. I can accept that the tyre might, and I repeat, might be placing drivers in danger, but tyre failings have not arise like in the past and it not seems to be the may reason Pirelli are changing. They are changing because the tyres limit the cars. What about the grooved tyres which are probably the worst idea in the past 20 years when it comes to F1? Drivers stopped to drive eau-rouge flat-out back then and I don't remember such outrage...

DanielPT wrote:Anyway, enough of that. Back to tyres limiting the cars. I can accept that the tyre might, and I repeat, might be placing drivers in danger, but tyre failings have not arise like in the past and it not seems to be the may reason Pirelli are changing. They are changing because the tyres limit the cars. What about the grooved tyres which are probably the worst idea in the past 20 years when it comes to F1? Drivers stopped to drive eau-rouge flat-out back then and I don't remember such outrage...

CarlosFerreira wrote:My point is just about a section of the British press, not about being British. They have this a nagging habit of going on and on about anything that can be perceived as pointing the finger of blame to a well defined entity (Pirelli) in order to create fake outrage and sell a few more thousands editions of printed toilet paper. From the perception that there is a problem to the social construction that the problem requires action to solve.

Rest assured, if Pirelli creates tyres that completely change the dynamics of the races and Vettel wins the Championship by a country mile, the same parts of the press will have a second bite of the cherry, and accuse Pirelli of producing tyres that are too durable, or too close to Red Bull's needs.

Wizzie wrote:
Although in that case, the changes were to slow the cars down in the first place. In which case it was mission accomplished as far as anyone was concerned.

atlasf1.autosport.com wrote:Improved safety. Return of the full-blooded circuit. Increased overtaking opportunities. Reduced costs. In return for what? Tyres that don't look right, and lets face it they don't! If they should be banned, that is certainly the reason; but it's the only one.

CoopsII wrote:

CarlosFerreira wrote:My point is just about a section of the British press, not about being British. They have this a nagging habit of going on and on about anything that can be perceived as pointing the finger of blame to a well defined entity (Pirelli) in order to create fake outrage and sell a few more thousands editions of printed toilet paper. From the perception that there is a problem to the social construction that the problem requires action to solve.

Fair enough. I'll have to take your word on it that worldwide newspapers of a similar quality dont do the same thing. We dont read that crap though do we?