2013 UBS Chinese Grand Prix

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Well, there's team orders, then there's team favoritism.

There's no way they can expect to use team orders again anyway, them saying it is just a formality. You think Webber's going to listen to anything he's told to do in regards to giving Vettel an easier time?

As far as who'll get upgrades first and things along those lines, of course it'll be Vettel.
 
As far as who'll get upgrades first and things along those lines, of course it'll be Vettel.

Their line in the past, whether it's true or not (although I don't believe they've ever gone against it), is that upgrades go to the championship leader first.
 
Not sure if I should make a thread for the specific topic of "team orders" so - in doubt - I'll just place this here.

As all eyes are on Red Bull and on how their drivers will behave on track after what happened at Malaysia, and as the always fiery debate about team orders gained new amounts of fuel (both from RBR and Mercedes), Emmerson Fittipaldi, first brazilian WDC in 1972, and first WDC in a McLaren, in 1974, wrote this account on why he left Lotus at the end of 1973, in a chain of events that led to him giving McLaren its first title.


The beggining is interesting;

Emmerson Fittipaldi
So why did I leave mighty Lotus for up-and-coming McLaren at the end of 1973, you may well be wondering? After all, I’d won the World Championship for Lotus in 1972, and I’d started the 1973 season extremely well too, winning three of the first six Grands Prix of the year, in Argentina, Brazil and Spain, and finishing on the podium in the other three, in South Africa, Belgium and Monaco.

Well, as the 1973 season wore on, I began to have a few mechanical issues and reliability problems, which I’d never had to contend with the previous year. It was terrible, to be frank. Having scored a lot of points in the first six Grands Prix of the 1973 season, I scored just one point in the next six. It was really frustrating – but, in spite of my recent run of bad results, as we arrived at Monza, I still had a mathematical chance of catching Tyrrell’s number-one driver Jackie Stewart for the World Championship. My team-mate Ronnie Peterson didn’t.

So we made an agreement: if I was leading the race within 15 laps of the finish, and Ronnie was running second, he wouldn’t try to overtake me; but if Ronnie was leading the race within 15 laps of the finish, and I was running second, then Colin Chapman, the Lotus boss, would hang out a pit-board to instruct Ronnie to let me pass, so as to keep my World Championship chances alive.

Ronnie had qualified on the pole, and he took the lead early on. I’d started from fourth place on the grid, but I soon worked my way up to second place behind Ronnie. As we reached the 15-laps-to-go stage, I expected Colin to signal Ronnie to let me pass. But he didn’t. So I began to drive as hard as I could, right on the limit, and I caught up with Ronnie, and we began to race flat-out for the win.

Ronnie was a great guy – I didn’t blame him for not letting me pass because Colin never signalled for him to do so – but in the end I finished second, less than a second behind Ronnie, with the result that Jackie, who’d finished fourth, more than 30 seconds behind Ronnie and me, was World Champion. It was ridiculous. I was so angry with Colin, and that afternoon I decided to leave Lotus at the end of the year.

At around that time I was approached by some senior executives at Philip Morris, the parent company of Marlboro cigarettes, with a very attractive offer. “Choose your next team, Emerson,” they said, “and we’ll sponsor it, whichever team you end up choosing.”

continues ... full text here

Also, still a bit off topic in this thread, but on topic about "Team Orders and Formula 1", I read a very interesting blog entry by Joe Saward, commenting on this new RBR policy of "no-team-orders"

Here, definitely worth a read.

Just a personal comment on this ridiculous RBR news ....

(it's not an official announcement, but it is a reliable info, it comes from an interview Marko gave to BILD)

... to say that, the way I see it, RBR realized after the last GP that they don't have authority over their 3xWDC to give him orders, and that they also lost whatever previous authority they had to order Webber anything. Therefore ... RBR as pragmatically become a "power to the people" no orders team. IMHO of course.
 
There is a key difference there Hun though, Lotus didn't use team orders which would have favoured Fittipaldi.
Red Bull attempted to use team orders against Vettel. The key is that Lotus wouldn't have lost any visible strength if they had or hadn't used team orders.
But here Red Bull have visibly been challenged by Vettel, who disregarded team orders. Its much more difficult situation because it makes Red Bull management look weak.
 
Can't wait to see how things play out this weekend.

I'm not really expecting fireworks this weekend anymore, instead I'm expecting trepidation throughout the rest of the season. It may come to a head sooner or later and it may not, but I'd like to guarantee that RB's pitwall is going to be on needles for a while.
 
New haircut, new attitude:

h2lA4hZ.jpg
 
Their line in the past, whether it's true or not (although I don't believe they've ever gone against it), is that upgrades go to the championship leader first.

It's funny because for me it always seems to go on Vettel car, I dont remember having Webber with a performance part that Vettel didnt had. There was the front wing incident in silverstone, hell last year Webber like the car that they had at the start of the season but Vettel didnt, guess what they did ? Totally change the car so it will fit Vettel.

That Red Bull 'no team orders' decision can go either way. I have a feeling which way though and to be honest it should favour Vettel.

Of course it will go in Vettel's favor. It always has been and he's 3 times World champion, any team that wouldnt put the 3 times world champion ahead of someone who never won a title with the same car would be a bit strange.
 
Talking about DRS, I think Canada is where they have got it most wrong. The detection point is right after the hairpin surrounded by the fans. This basically kills any overtaking, and thus, action into that corner. If there are two DRS zones, they should be on the straight leading up to the hairpin, or even the one before it under the bridge, and the long straight, not the start straight. The detection should always be before a corner to allow overtaking to happen naturally before it, especially if the big grandstands are by it.

Back to China, the BBC says it will be dry for the whole weekend. Boo.
 
How is that disgusting?

He's absolutely right. I'm so glad he's finally saying it himself now. I've busted my ass on F1 technical and Reddit defending Vettel to no end because of Mark's past arrogance. There were so many times where Mark was asked to help the team and did not.
 
Really? When racers are racing fair enough.

Once they are told to stay in order and stop racing then they are no longer racing.

Vettel is a thief. He stole a win that did not belong to him.
 
This is a complex issue.

I don't like Vettel as a driver at all, I actually love Mark a lot, but all things considered, Vettel was just starting to get even with Mark. And even then, he'll still have to do a couple more things like this to get on Mark's tally in ignoring team orders.

Mark isn't a team player, Vettel is, he just decided to do things differently this time and was able to pull it off, now everyone is deciding to be blind to history and crucify Vettel.
 
He's absolutely right. I'm so glad he's finally saying it himself now. I've busted my ass on F1 technical and Reddit defending Vettel to no end because of Mark's past arrogance. There were so many times where Mark was asked to help the team and did not.
The problem here is not the fact that Vettel defied his orders. It was the way he defied them. In doing so, he broke his word. He gave absolutely no warning that he was about to defy the team, which meant he gave Webber no chance to defend his position. He's a spoiled child who decided he wanted to win the race, and did it in the sneakiest way possible. It was a disgraceful act of unsportsmanlike conduct, and if he wasn't a World Champion, he'd probably be forced to sit the next race out - and rightfully so. People have compared Vettel to Senna for what he did, claiming that he was a true racer who didn't settle for second just because someone told him to. These comparisons are undeserved and insulting; Vettel will never be one of the sport's greats, even if he wins another three titles.

Whatever Webber did in the past has no bearing on this discussion, because while he has defied team orders in the past, he has never interfered with the outcome of the race. When he was told to hold position at Silverstone in 2011, he might have ignored the order, but he never caught Vettel. He's a savvy enough operator to know that the media and the public will take his side in a stouch within the team, so he simply has to ignore the order just enough to appear to have his independence, but not so much that he defies the team. It's a calcualted, cynical move, but he's never justified the brazen "the means justify the ends" attitude of Vettel.

There's a reason why you've "busted your ass" trying to defend Vettel: it's because you're trying to defend the indefensible.
 
Their line in the past, whether it's true or not (although I don't believe they've ever gone against it), is that upgrades go to the championship leader first.
The championship leader would've been Webber had Vettel obeyed team orders 3 weeks ago. Do the math.

Doesn't matter though, because Webber was the championship leader early 2012 and they transformed the car to Vettel's liking.

Vettel has recanted his apology, claiming that he'd do it all over again if the situation presented itself, as in retrospect, he felt that Webber didn't deserve to win:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/106631

Disgusting.
"If you're not cheating, you're not trying"
-Every scumbag that ever lived


This is a complex issue.

I don't like Vettel as a driver at all, I actually love Mark a lot, but all things considered, Vettel was just starting to get even with Mark. And even then, he'll still have to do a couple more things like this to get on Mark's tally in ignoring team orders.

Mark isn't a team player, Vettel is, he just decided to do things differently this time and was able to pull it off, now everyone is deciding to be blind to history and crucify Vettel.
Can you guys list the events in which Webber didn't help the team? The Silverstone incident is BS. He didn't pass Vettel. Brazil last year was nothing. Am I missing anything?

Granting you the proposition that Webber's been a dick lately, it's only a backlash after what's been done to him in the past 4 years. Don't let this turn into a chicken/egg argument.
 
I want to see how fast the Benz engined cars will be. Force India may do some damage this weekend if they can get the twisty bits sorted. Nico will be going for the win if the setup is good enough.

And Lotus, if Kimi can get on either of the front 2 rows in qualifying, I think he'll be gone if he can grab the lead by 4 turns. If not, then a change for position during pitstops will net him that 2nd victory.

I'm going for Mercedes this year(since red bull are racing Holdens in V8s I'm not going near anything Red Bull- my RB F1 jacket just sits in the closet) and would be nice to see an MB engine on that top step this weekend.
 
The problem here is not the fact that Vettel defied his orders. It was the way he defied them. In doing so, he broke his word. He gave absolutely no warning that he was about to defy the team, which meant he gave Webber no chance to defend his position. He's a spoiled child who decided he wanted to win the race, and did it in the sneakiest way possible. It was a disgraceful act of unsportsmanlike conduct, and if he wasn't a World Champion, he'd probably be forced to sit the next race out - and rightfully so. People have compared Vettel to Senna for what he did, claiming that he was a true racer who didn't settle for second just because someone told him to. These comparisons are undeserved and insulting; Vettel will never be one of the sport's greats, even if he wins another three titles.

Whatever Webber did in the past has no bearing on this discussion, because while he has defied team orders in the past, he has never interfered with the outcome of the race. When he was told to hold position at Silverstone in 2011, he might have ignored the order, but he never caught Vettel. He's a savvy enough operator to know that the media and the public will take his side in a stouch within the team, so he simply has to ignore the order just enough to appear to have his independence, but not so much that he defies the team. It's a calcualted, cynical move, but he's never justified the brazen "the means justify the ends" attitude of Vettel.

There's a reason why you've "busted your ass" trying to defend Vettel: it's because you're trying to defend the indefensible.

Well we're gonna go there, I'm gonna try to keep things concise because this is a thread for China after all.

I'm fully aware of how stupid Vettel's move was on Webber in Sepang this year. Not only did he pick the wrong DRS zone to pass on, but he was on fresh and warm Medium tires and Mark was on cold hard tires, and he had his engine turned down. Vettel's a horrible wheel-to-wheel racer compared to the rest of the field. I support Webber for his racecraft and ability to charge at the most amazing times, but his overall pace is slower and he just isn't a team player, as I said.

After Fuji in '07, when Vettel ran into him from behind during the pace lap, which ruined his good chance of claiming RBR's first win. I think Webber carried this grudge with him into the next year when Vettel came aboard RBR in the next year. With this grudge set, it grew into resentment after Vettel beat him squarely in '09.

Going into '10, Vettel was having some trouble getting to grips with the package and made some boneheaded mistakes, like in Spa with Jenson, and Turkey with Mark. Then Mark kept ahead of Vettel for the remainder of the season, being WDC favorite along with Alonso. Vettel was determined to help out Mark in anyway, even going as far as to say he'd pull over for him. Vettel was always a good sport, whether his past mistakes played into his complacency or not. But then Abu Dhabi happened and Vettel steals the crown.

After this, Mark probably killed off any motivation he had to help Vettel. Then the front wing fiasco happened in Silverstone '11. Webber was furious, during the race he was catching up to Vettel and they gave team orders to hold position since the race was closing up and they had a 2-3 going, but he went for it and buzzed Vettel hard, trying to beat him for second so he could feel better about himself.

In Abu Dhabi he consciously objected to doing any favors for Vettel: http://www.news.com.au/sport/motor-...pite-team-orders/story-fne8930l-1226509925984

http://sports.ndtv.com/formula-1/news/198809-mark-webber-to-shun-team-orders-and-go-for-win

In Brazil he was, rightfully, asked to help Vettel anyway he could, what does he do? Attempts to pass him on lap 30. During a super tense battle in traffic with bad conditions and Vettel in a car they have no idea how long will last.

http://live.autosport.com/commentary.php/id/547
Go to lap 30 in that commentary.

Webber isn't a victim at all. Some people try to show him as the poor kind guy who is oppressed by his team-mate. That's ********.

Webber did his bad deeds mostly without warning, the only time he tried giving fair warning was in Abu Dhabi last year, all other times, the actions were just as backstabbing as what Vettel did.

It doesn't matter how Vettel did it, he just did it and pulled it off. Had he crashed into him again, then I'd be agreeing with you fully.
 
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The problem here is not the fact that Vettel defied his orders. It was the way he defied them. In doing so, he broke his word. He gave absolutely no warning that he was about to defy the team, which meant he gave Webber no chance to defend his position. He's a spoiled child who decided he wanted to win the race, and did it in the sneakiest way possible. It was a disgraceful act of unsportsmanlike conduct, and if he wasn't a World Champion, he'd probably be forced to sit the next race out - and rightfully so. People have compared Vettel to Senna for what he did, claiming that he was a true racer who didn't settle for second just because someone told him to. These comparisons are undeserved and insulting; Vettel will never be one of the sport's greats, even if he wins another three titles.

Haters gonna Hate.

I'm not even going to bother trying to respond to this biased dribble. Vettels raw pace alone puts him as one of the sports fastest ever drivers and his ability to pull gaps at the start of races and manage them.

I have no idea what guidelines you have in order to judge a driver but if you think Vettel is un-deserving then they must be quite silly indeed.

Looking forward to this race, should be interesting to see if the order remains the same or if, like last year we get more surprises.
 
Right. Vettel has always won when they were in a battle. Not because he is the favorite driver of the team, but he is the faster one. Much faster.

China presser:

 
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All this racing stuff sucks guys, I'm going to sit in a board room for three hours, where the real action is, where we can argue about which shade of white dries faster.
 
I think and hope we will see a different Webber from now on. 10 pounds of aggression in a 5 pound bag etc. This incident may bring out the best in him.
 
The problem here is not the fact that Vettel defied his orders. It was the way he defied them. / People have compared Vettel to Senna for what he did, claiming that he was a true racer who didn't settle for second just because someone told him to. These comparisons are undeserved and insulting; Vettel will never be one of the sport's greats, even if he wins another three titles.

Unfortunately for you mate Vettel already is one of the sport's greats, and he was before Malaysia. Top ten, easily. Vettel is comparable to Senna in this situation because they have comparable winning mentalities. Do you forget that Senna himself suggested an agreement between himself and Prost that whoever was first after turn 1, would win the race without challenge from their team mate? Prost was first, Senna passed him a bit later on. He was always going to. At that point Senna was seen as a villain and rightly so because those actions were not illegal, but it was gamesmanship.

Vettel is seen as the villain now and rightly so. I personally condemned his actions in Malaysia because I like Mark as a driver, and felt he would have won the race, had Vettel not ignored the team's wishes. Being a Massa fan myself, I'm against team orders but I knew damn well that Alonso was quicker than Felipe in Hockenheim, he just didn't want to risk passing in a competitive situation. That's arguably less sportsmanlike than Vettel. Anyway, Mark had of course turned the engine down and was cruising. However, this is not the kind of betrayal you make it out to be, like we saw with Villeneuve and Pironi. Gilles was passed on the final overtaking point of the final lap, after Ferrari had ordered both cars to slow and hold position. Pironi tricked Villeneuve there, but Vettel made it clear for a long time that he wasn't going to sit around in 2nd.

I have previously declared myself a Vettel fan, but due to his success my support for him has decreased over the last year or two and probably came to an end last week. But I'm actually glad Vettel retracted his apology and previous statement. It's made me think slightly better of him. We know he is a cold blooded Schumacher-esque born-to-win kind of guy. We know he's willing to overstep the mark, as most if not all F1 greats were. Vettel knew exactly what he was doing in Malaysia, he won the race by any means necessary as true champions often have to, I'm glad he's actually grown the bollocks to admit that. Its what he is paid to do. He's not paid to show respect to his team mate or sit in second place, even if the team says so. He's programmed to win, just like every other F1 great. When it comes to sorting the would-be champions from the runners up in Formula 1, you'll find some of them drive for the team and some drive for themselves. As you may have gussed from above, my favourite driver of all time is G. Villeneuve, he sat behind Sheckter for the entire 1979 final race in a 1-2 and could have overtaken at any time to win the championship, but as a gentleman, he did not. Had he done so he would have been remembered as a champion and a ruthless, selfish man. Villeneuve was neither and died without a championship, but he also died with the respect of every single racing fan on Earth. Look at Rosberg last race, he admirably chose not to pass, and in my opinion that handed the team over to Lewis quite neatly. Vettel showed he's not going to be pushed around, he's a bastard for doing it, but it's something a successful F1 driver needs to illustrate. For you to call Vettel 'disgusting' previously is to call most of F1's greats disgusting as well. You know what? They probably are, throw all the successful teams in there as well. Because none of them have ever gone a season without cheating or breaking the rules undetected, that's how you win in Formula 1. You cheat or you come 2nd, it's as simple as that.

I'm by no means saying Vettel is as good as Senna, in my eyes he isn't. Sure, there's some rose-tinted specs because he sadly died young and was at the time the greatest driver in the world, but we know he had that something else about him too. However, when it comes down to it, you're stating that Vettel will never be a great because you don't like him. That's fine, you're welcome to your opinion as we all are, but try not to let it get in the way of the facts.
 
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It's funny because for me it always seems to go on Vettel car, I dont remember having Webber with a performance part that Vettel didnt had. There was the front wing incident in silverstone, hell last year Webber like the car that they had at the start of the season but Vettel didnt, guess what they did ? Totally change the car so it will fit Vettel.

Are you talking about China, 2012? Vettel made his own decision to revert to an older spec of their car because he felt more comfortable with it.

Honestly, I think Red Bull is one of the teams that make sure to give the exact same car/parts to both drivers, unlike Lotus and Ferrari...
 
The problem is not the straight - it's the corners beforehand.

So once again, Tilke was let down by the shape of the land that he was given to work with.


The FIA should (and probably do) know what they're doing. When they were first experimenting with DRS, Shanghai was one of their earliest successes. They put the activation point on the back straight in just the right place to allow drivers using DRS to put their front wing alongside the rear wheels of the car they were trying to pass. It wasn't enough to guarantee a pass, but it gave the attacking driver a fighting chance.

The turns before hand are an issue yes but you can't get close to the car infront as they have so much downforce. If they were racing with limited downforce it would make it a lot easier.

Also DRS on the back straight won't ever get perfected due to every car having different characteristics. But saying that I rather have it to be under powered than over powered.

And on the note of the whole Vettel thing:

If Senna did what Seb did (which he did many times) people would be raving about it saying wow what a real racer and all this ball crap.

What I'm trying to say is F1 fans have double standards, I respect Seb for winning.
 
going for a gap while your teammate turns down the engine it's not racing, it's backstabbing. i have zero respect for this infantile saying mark didn't deserve to win.

i really do hope he shot himself in the leg. mark will give more than 100% just to destroy his chance of winning this years title, he has nothing to lose, his contract ends this year
 
going for a gap while your teammate turns down the engine it's not racing, it's backstabbing. i have zero respect for this infantile saying mark didn't deserve to win.

i really do hope he shot himself in the leg. mark will give more than 100% just to destroy his chance of winning this years title, he has nothing to lose, his contract ends this year

No one ever calls Senna a backstabber though?

Racing is racing
 
Yes it is. Driving to the finish in order to conserve the cars on the other hand is not racing.

What Vettel did is indefensible.
 
Are you talking about China, 2012? Vettel made his own decision to revert to an older spec of their car because he felt more comfortable with it.

Honestly, I think Red Bull is one of the teams that make sure to give the exact same car/parts to both drivers, unlike Lotus and Ferrari...

Then for Barcelona Red Bull totally changed the car so it fits Vettel driving more.
What about Silverstone in 2011 then if Red Bull is so fair ?

Anyway this should all be in the Malaysia thread instead of here.
 
It is defensible.

Mark pushed and used a lot of fuel to take Seb, Seb had the fuel to take Mark and win the race. Seb is a racer and racers don't do 2nd.

Many guys have broken team orders in the past and nothing like this has happened. People just love to jump on the Seb hate wagon
 
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