2012 Japanese Grand Prix

  • Thread starter PeterJB
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Apparently Vettel has been called in front of the stewards for allegedly blocking Alonso in Q3.
 
Stole it from the autosport forum but:

"@tgruener
#F1 By the way: No penalty against @kamui_kobayashi. Telemetry shows clearly, he slowed down sufficiently and he didn't use KERS or DRS."

:crazy:
He just needs a good start tomorrow and a clean race to a podium.

Edit also:
FIA
No / Driver 17 - Jean-Eric Vergne
Competitor Scuderia Toro Rosso
Time 14:18
Session Qualifying
Fact The driver of Car 17 impeded car 19 at Turn 16
Offence Breach of Article 31.7 of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations
Decision
Drop of 3 Grid positions
Reason
Self Explanatory
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Mclaren said in practice at least that Button had less downforce than Hamilton, was that the case in
qualifying? Did he show any sort of speed prior to Q3?

EDIT: "We were kind of on [Red Bull's] pace in practice. We made some changes and it was the complete wrong way. Our car is clearly good. Jenson did a good job with it, and it's a shame I wasn't able to extract more form it but hopefully tomorrow I will."

mattythedog
Apparently Vettel has been called in front of the stewards for allegedly blocking Alonso in Q3.
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6 place penalty for Vettel?
 
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Vettel is now looking in a very good position for the championship. They have certainly improved performance of car and got on top of it regarding setup, not much slower than last year around here. Alonso is probably worried now that his title chances are looking smaller now that the person who is closest to him has got a car hooked up and on rails. Anything can happen in race though but how long can this Alonso finishing highly and others missing out on good points continue when it matters.

It is not looking good for Hamilton now, starting behind Button and Alonso going a place higher up due to the penalty. Hopefully his pace is good in the race.

Looking good for Kobayashi, hope he gets a clean and good start. Not had much luck once qualifying well. Would be awesome for him to get podium in front of his home crowd, maybe even first win...

It sets up for a good race due to the sort of mixed up grid, if someone gets in front of Vettel, it will make it even better as then he won't disappear into the distance but will have a race on our hands. Will be interesting to see what McLaren do with Button and maybe Red Bull with Webber and also Lotus with Grosjean...
 
It might be another Silverstone for Lewis, “Long run pace wasn't bad yesterday but the car – I'm going to struggle with it tomorrow." It looks like they've ruined the setup in qualifying.
 
It looks likely, Alonso just keeps picking up points though. I wouldn't be surprised if his lead is even bigger at the end of season than it is now.
 
Peasantslayer
It looks likely, Alonso just keeps picking up points though. I wouldn't be surprised if his lead is even bigger at the end of season than it is now.
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I doubt it. As someone said, this is looking like 2010 all over again. There are a lot of tracks coming up that vettel has been strong at. Alonso needs what he needed in 2010. Podiums at every race.
 
I missed it myself, but the short version is that he was going slowly on the approach to the chicane at the end of Q3 while Alonso was still on his flier. Vettel moved over, but Alonso and Ferrari evidently felt that he didn't move over soon enough.
 
From crash.net:

Sebastian Vettel has kept his pole position for Sunday's F1 Grand Prix of Japan at Suzuka, after a tense three-hour session with the race stewards over an incident in Q3 where it was suggested that he'd impeded Fernando Alonso

Vettel claimed his 34th career pole as Red Bull posted their first front row lock-out of the season after qualifying in Japan, but that was thrown into doubt after Vettel was ordered to report to the stewards office after the session ended to explain his driving in Q3 which appeared to impede Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

The meeting went on for almost three hours and was described by some observers as being "heated" before word came that Vettel would not lose grid places for the start of this weekend's Grand Prix even though he had been deemed to have impeded Alonso at turn 16.

That was described by the stewards as "an incident as defined by Article 16.1 of the FIA F1 Sporting Regulations."

Instead of a penalty, Vettel was merely reprimanded - with the stewards adding that the reason for the reprimand was "self-explanatory" and would not elaborate further.
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3 hours? Sounds like he got pinged for blocking, was about to be given a penalty and then somehow got the decision reversed.

If it were Ferrari, the conspiracy theorists would be busy...
 
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I rarely pray to the F1 gods. But today I am doing so, and praying that Kobayashi gets his podium finish.

I don't care who else DNFs or who performs how, I want to see Kobayashi on the podium. He desperately needs this result.
 
Shinshiki
Seems like Hamilton has already given up on McLaren for the rest of the season.
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He said that he went for the wrong setup, he's not sure whether it will be good in the race either.

From the official F1 website - Hamilton lost some time when Raikkonen spun, but his overriding problem was understeer initially, which changes turned into oversteer before the team made a hasty reversion to their Friday set-up. As he lined up ninth, Hamilton described it as a “disaster.”

Bram Turismo
I don't care who else DNFs or who performs how, I want to see Kobayashi on the podium. He desperately needs this result.
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I'd like to see that because everyone seems to have overlooked him due to Sergio's brilliant performances.
 
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Didnt get up for quali this morning, caught the highlights on BBC earlier, no surprise whatsoever to see Vettel get pole..he has got an incredible record at Suzuka! cant wait for the race early tomorrow! 👍:)
 
I'm really looking forward to this race. I think Button will be strong over the distance given his excellent tyre-management ability, the same could well be true of Perez (McLaren presumably want him because his turn-in loads are supremely low a la Button)... but the race is surely Red Bull's unless they throw it away.

Still, part of the excitement of Suzuka is that it punishes the smallest mistake very quickly and impressively so pretty much anything could happen :)
 
Peasantslayer
I'd like to see that because everyone seems to have overlooked him due to Sergio's brilliant performances.
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Indeed. At the end of the day people will still look at how many points both drivers have scored. And it doesn't matter what strategy Kobayashi was on when. The simple matter of fact is that Perez has nearly twice the points Kobayashi has.
 
I will nervously watch the start just for Kobayashi. His start at Spa (before being taken out) was very disappointing and his start in 2011 here was also poor.

He seems to get far better starts when he is further back as he's frequently seen in the top 10 after the first lap when he's qualified badly.

I'm also keeping an eye on Grosjean. Thankfully Maldonado is no where near to screw things up.
 
Ardius
I will nervously watch the start just for Kobayashi. His start at Spa (before being taken out) was very disappointing and his start in 2011 here was also poor.

He seems to get far better starts when he is further back as he's frequently seen in the top 10 after the first lap when he's qualified badly.

I'm also keeping an eye on Grosjean. Thankfully Maldonado is no where near to screw things up.
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The first corner is the sort where you need to choose your line very quickly. I just have this image of Grosjean causing a mini pile up in turn 1, with Alonso sweeping by into 3rd or something. :ouch:
 
Worked out that if grosjean causes another turn 1 pile up ( He may have learned his lesson, but T1 at Suzuka is tight, especially with cars triple file fighting for position) Perez will lead, before possibly handing the win to Alonso through a mistake or something

If all stays clean, Vettel will walk the race by miles, closely followed by webber. Perez looks strong for a podium considering his tire strategies, and Hamilton will crash or come into contact with someone again and go all stroppy and not do interviews.
 
Speedster7
Worked out that if grosjean causes another turn 1 pile up ( He may have learned his lesson, but T1 at Suzuka is tight, especially with cars triple file fighting for position) Perez will lead, before possibly handing the win to Alonso through a mistake or something

If all stays clean, Vettel will walk the race by miles, closely followed by webber. Perez looks strong for a podium considering his tire strategies, and Hamilton will crash or come into contact with someone again and go all stroppy and not do interviews.
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I imagine that will be the most likely outcome, Perez is wise enough to know going wheel to wheel with Grosjean is a bad idea but Kamui at his home race might fancy his chances. Hamilton won't like the idea of aiming for 6th/7th whilst Mark and Seb cruise around at the front.
 
Hamilton is going to have to take his pace when he finds it... from what he said of his setup he's going to struggle to put a coherent strategy together and will, in my opinion, simply have to go flat-chat and see where he ends up.

Look forward to full-bore flag-to-finish laps from him, Alonso and Kobayashi.

Remember Kobayashi's first F1 race at Suzuka? Loads of overtaking (when overtaking was much more rare than now). He'll definitely put on a show :)
 

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