2013 UBS Chinese Grand Prix

He shouldn't have let him pass then.

We do in a lot of tracks but with China I think it should've been shortened.

You can say the same thing about tyres. How many times have we seen a wheel come off after a tyre change? Doesn't mean we should get back to 1 set of tyres for the entire race.

Drivers of the day: Alonso, Button, Raikkonen, Hulkenberg and Ricciardo.

Webber got screwed again. Him and Rosberg are getting 2012 Schumacher bad luck. Hopefully it doesn't last as long. It's a shame he got a penalty. Initially I thought he thought he was taking out Vettel, but he just gave Vergne too much credit. If that had been Button get passed he'd just go to the outside and give him room.


Any of you guys know when the drivers are coming here? Might want to stalk them to their hotels to get an autograph I'd like to get Damon's at least.

 

Raikkonen*

 

There. Happy?

 

Yes thank you Also, youre not the only one making that mistake..

 

DRS was too strong again. Posted about it on Friday, and hoped they had shortened the zones. It is supposed to open up the possibility to overtaking (i.e. putting the chasing car alongside in the braking zone). It most moves though, the chasing car was ahead before the braking zone. It gets ridiculous when you see Lewis Hamilton get a fairly decent exit from the final turn, Alonso's is comparatively average, but he passes him halfway along the straight. Massa from 3rd place is actually the one who is alongside Lewis Hamilton in the braking zone for turn 1.

A very impressive drive from Fernando Alonso, and the idea that he had extra pace to spare as well. Should be a very interesting season, Alonso looking omminous again though with only his Malaysia mistake affecting his early form.

The Webber / Vergne incident was fairly clearly Webber being overly optimistic and lunging. A lot of talk about Vettel pulling rank on him, but I wonder if he was trying to pull rank on the Toro Rosso team there! They don't normally defend hard against the Red Bull drivers, but they won't jump out of their way either...

On the Perez / Raikkonen crash, I'm actually with Raikkonen on that one. The gap was there for him on the outside, and Perez slammed it shut only when Raikkonen had put his front wheels in line with Perez's rear wheels. After Bahrain last year, I believed they were not allowed to squeeze an opponent over the white line when overlapping?...

 

We spoke about it earilier in the thread, like I said it is over powered and it looks even more overpowered when one car has high wing and the attacker is on a low downforce setup. You will never find a DRS sweet spot unless all the cars run the same settings.

 

The problem with DRS was that it was based on last year's positioning. And while that worked pretty well for the 2012 cars, it doesn't take into account the way the cars have evolved for 2013. Nor does it consider the way DRS usage in free practice and qualifying has been restricted to the DRS zones as they are used in the race. This has allowed the teams to fine-tune their car setup a little bit more, which means that the cars are more efficient going through the DRS zone.

 

DRS should not really matter as other cars should be able to try and DRS back but problem is if you are slightly worse on tyres, you struggle more to follow car in front and it is not worth trying to pass as it will leave you vulnerable at end of race.


Anyway more comments against these anti-racing tyres: Link

 

+ :
Alonso : Fantastic drives, made tons of overtake, some with some without DRS. Nothing to say, he was even better than Lewis when they had to retake position after changing tyres. Perfect sunday for him. I can't see what you could say against him.

Raikkonen : Despite the Perez incident (I think that Raikkonen might have been a bit too optimistic on this turn) and the start, he did a fantastic job with a car not in a good shape.

Hamilton : Great week-end for him, 1st pole on Mercedes (and I think first pole for mercedes since Moss) and a good GP. He probably could have gotten 2nd but dropping to 4th was also a possibility so great result I think. I would never have thought even in my wildest dream that Hamilton would be in that position in the championship after 3 race. Exciting.

Overall I found the GP nice, it was fun to watch and had suspens which is always nice for me.

Vettel : He did also a great week-end, some people here will probably disagree but starting from 9th place and almost getting 3rd is great stuff for me. He probably lost the GP in the qualification. Karma ?

Button : A good race with what he have in hands. Nice strategy, ends up working pretty well.

Riccardo : Great race from him. His highest finishing until now. Maybe an aussie gonna replace another aussie ? Even if Vergne isnt really to blame with what happen with Webber, I can't see Red Bull heads really liking it. So Riccardo scored some good points against his teammates this week-end.

Bianchi : Another solid race from him, finishing ahead of his co-driver and both caterham

- :

Massa : He took a good start, he was right on Alonso back then drop off and we never saw him again in the front. That's too bad for him. He seems to be really fast in qualification now but still lacks some racing pace.

Grosjean : He was never really in the spotlight, even on TV we barely saw his car except the start of the race. He was far away from Raikkonen pace and had a contact with a Red Bull at some points. A bad week-end for Romain overall.

Perez : He did a lot of weird move, I'm still surprised he wasnt penalized by the FIA because I thought waving was forbidden and he did a good bunch of it. He tried his best I guess but it wasnt enough. He seems to be in the same form as the end of last season : not a good one. He really need to step up if he wants to continue with Mclaren.

Webber : I'm still unsure if he deserve a minus because it was mostly not his fault what happen this week-end. I think that if some driver in the front would have drive like Vergne, Hamilton and Alonso would probably have been taken out or have accident as well. For me it was a race incident and didnt deserve the grid penalty on next gp. You gotta let people fight otherwise F1 gonna get boring again. I dont see what Webber did wrong to merit a penatly. He tried to overtake ? Was it optimistic yet, did it deserve a penatly ? I dont think so.

 

Like I already explained the difference there is that those mistakes are down to the team, it's their car, their wheels & nuts, their wheel guns, their mechanics, their locking mechnaisms etc. The fuel rigs were nothing to do with the team and when one of them failed it was completely out of their control.

 

Räikkönen

 

Mark Blundell's report, (SniffPetrol version) is hilarious. Here the verdicts and their reasons:

FULL ARTICLE HERE

 

Must be some strange sort of humour that I don't get.

 

SniffPetrol version of Mark Blundell, do you even grammar?

 

That's the joke. Blundell's grammar is hilariously bad.

 

Am I the only one that read all that in his voice?

 

Epic mod double post FTW

 

Oh, the number of times I've deleted his double posts...should've merged them a few times, just mess with him.

When the lap times lower dramatically, we say figuratively, "they're driving the wheels off the car". When the pit stops have lower times, they literally do!

 

Anyone know where to find a clip of the Mercedes first pit stop for (Lap 6? ) ? Lewis & Nico came in about 7 seconds apart and the Merc pit crew were on point ! Both cars had 3.3 second stops about 3~4 seconds inbetween them.

 

Don't think they showed it on the live FOM feed. Should be around somewhere though.

 

Haven't been able to find it anywhere
It deserved a replay from the race feed.

 

Yeah I remember them showing Lewis exiting the pits and Sky talking about how Nico was right behind but the world feed director wanted to show something else.

Mercedes has been the best pit crew this season so far. Yeah, RB's quick, but they really dropped the ball this round with Webber. And all the other teams have had big issues already.

 

!!

 

I was just channel flipping and NBCSN is showing the re-air of the race right now.Nico was passed by Vettel and Button just before the stop.By lap 12 Nico was 11 sec behind Lewis.

Lewis- Pit lane 20.379 (3.3)
Nico- Pit lane 22.299 (3.3)