2013 UBS Chinese Grand Prix

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I just hope for next year, they go completely in the opposite direction regarding tyres, whether if Pirelli get a new contract or not.
 
BHRxRacer
I'd like to see someone trying an overtake going through the marbles. From the looks of things, we'll see a track full of them halfway through.
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I don't think it'll even take that long with the top ten most likely starting on softs. Those things were graining and chucking off huge chunks of rubber in less than 10 laps in P2.

Saidur_Ali
I just hope for next year, they go completely in the opposite direction regarding tyres, whether if Pirelli get a new contract or not.
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I'm just tired of everything being dominated by the rubber. If I was sad and anal enough I'd sit and count how many times "tyres", "wear" or variations of those words were used over the race weekend, both by the TV crew and the F1 circus.
 
I prefer this over the tire war era. Back when everyone just went flat out on those hard tires, it was more of an extended qualifying session/parade than a race.

I do like the 2012 spec over these though.

But the biggest issue actually just may be Pirelli and their tire choices. There's no rhyme or reason to their selections. I mean, softs, seriously? They knew it was going to be colder than usual.

I want the team that does the best balancing act to win on raceday, as a full outfit.
On the same token though, I think qualifying tires should come back. All this non-sense of having to keep your qualifying tires in just neuters the start and first stint of the race. And it turns Q3 into a sole qualifier session pretty much, with cars only going out, tip toeing around the track until they get up to the front straight for their single flyer, then right back to tip toeing for their inlap.

Qualifying should be the part of the weekend that's focused on going balls to the wall.
 
SimonK
I'm just tired of everything being dominated by the rubber. If I was sad and anal enough I'd sit and count how many times "tyres", "wear" or variations of those words were used over the race weekend, both by the TV crew and the F1 circus.
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Variations of these words for this weekend seems to be so far disintegrated and delaminated ;). I disliked these tyres since the start, I think they are anti-racing personally. They are lucky with regulations implementing DRS and KERS, otherwise we would get processional races with drivers crusing around in my opinion to a slow delta time. The things have Pirelli have helped is pecking order around top teams / drivers a bit unpredictable as things are so temperature sensitive and probably helped safety in a way as drivers are going a lot slower and physically and mentally are being pushed a lot less.

Racing currently seems to about setting your car up the best to go at a certain slow speed to be competitive in races, not drivers and their cars being pushed close to the limit. Jenson's comments today are quite telling. I wonder how much doing a Q3 lap will cost the top teams against some of the midfield teams.
 
Obviously the problem of dirty air hasn't gone away and likely never will in F1 racing but I do think they've gone too far in purposely making the tyres wear to improve the show. They just need to ease it back a few notches so tyres are wearing but only if you absolutely hammer them. They shouldn't be destroying themselves after 10 regular fast laps.

It's just too dominating right now and I think the drivers are actually getting really tired of it as well, I've seen Webber strongly hint at it a few times at least, and a few others. We want to see racing, even if we don't see passing. Not drivers mollycoddling the cars for 75% of the race.

The other issue that is denying us racing is under-fueling although I'm not really sure what solution there could be for that. The FIA can't tell them how much they have to put in because each car will have a different MPG, tank size etc.
 
Excellent post by F1fanatic.co.uk here:
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2013/04/12/2013-chinese-grand-prix-friday-practice-analysis/

RB's looking absolutely DEADLY on those Mediums. What the hell did they do after Australia, anti-gravity?

Ferrari's being peaky and sporadic as usual, Mercedes seems to have a nice decent gradual curve, good pace and looking great in sector 3. Lotus is on it as expected (remember round 1), but the surprise to me there is just how awesome Force India continues to be with their control of the graining. Those guys have it great.
 
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Wardez
But the biggest issue actually just may be Pirelli and their tire choices. There's no rhyme or reason to their selections. I mean, softs, seriously? They knew it was going to be colder than usual.
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If Pirelli took Hard and Medium to this race I wouldn't be surprised if we had a 1-stop race.
 
MLDoom
You think Vettel is sandbagging?

And did you see those speed trap times from Sauber?
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Friday practice are test sessions. Times mean nothing at all.

FP3 is the earliest when times start to indicate real speed.
 
Interesting tidbit, I was reading a local newspaper at lunch today and noticed that the Vettel/Webber contretemps made their sports section. 8-10 inches on page 9, but still, the only F1 coverage I can recollect them ever publishing before was Senna's death and the occasional Schumacher title sew-up.
 
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zippy_the_cat
Interesting tidbit
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It's either journalists who are interested in milking the story as much as possible, or Bernie thinking any publicity is good publicity, or both.

I was already annoyed by the amount of coverage devoted to this three weeks ago...
 
dsgerbc
It's either journalists who are interested in milking the story as much as possible, or Bernie thinking any publicity is good publicity, or both.
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You misunderstand. This is a paper in a US state that isn't one of the country's major media centers, picking up a wire item about a sport that predominately plies its trade overseas. And it's not a slow sports-news weekend here either, what with the Masters golf tournament under way a couple hundred miles away. So some editor saw the wire item, thought it was interesting, and thought there'd be enough people interested in reading it to make it actually worth putting in the paper. That implies that in the perception of this editor there's a market locally for F1 news. That's been far from the norm hereabouts the last couple of decades. The change is decidedly welcome.
 
SimonK
Obviously the problem of dirty air hasn't gone away and likely never will in F1 racing but I do think they've gone too far in purposely making the tyres wear to improve the show. They just need to ease it back a few notches so tyres are wearing but only if you absolutely hammer them. They shouldn't be destroying themselves after 10 regular fast laps.

It's just too dominating right now and I think the drivers are actually getting really tired of it as well, I've seen Webber strongly hint at it a few times at least, and a few others. We want to see racing, even if we don't see passing. Not drivers mollycoddling the cars for 75% of the race.

The other issue that is denying us racing is under-fueling although I'm not really sure what solution there could be for that. The FIA can't tell them how much they have to put in because each car will have a different MPG, tank size etc.
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Fuel issue is not too bad I think, only becomes a big problem like last race if team gets it quite wrong.

Regarding 10 regular fast laps, I don't think they are doing that well:
Jenson Button
"You would say that that tyre is more the feeling that we've had in the winter than at the first few races. So it's extreme degradation and from a tyre that's doing a 1:35 in qualifying spec, after eight laps in the race it is doing a 1:48. That's a big difference and we're slower than a GP2 car by about five seconds - that's strange to see and I think it's too much degradation."
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Centura
I'm so tired of all the Webber/Vettel talk. The media just need to give up already, but of course they won't.
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Don't worry the Bahrain talk that has somewhat started and probably will go into full swing will be back! So now you can look forward to being even further annoyed, oh BOY.:sly::dopey:
 
I was thinking earlier that I can't wait until we get the "Should we go to Korea" discussions, especially if things there escalate as we get nearer the time. I didn't realise the Bahrain dilemma was still a thing.
 
LMSCorvetteGT2
Don't worry the Bahrain talk that has somewhat started and probably will go into full swing will be back! So now you can look forward to being even further annoyed, oh BOY.:sly::dopey:
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Sigh... Well, at least it will be something else for the media to focus on...
 
SimonK
I was thinking earlier that I can't wait until we get the "Should we go to Korea" discussions, especially if things there escalate as we get nearer the time. I didn't realise the Bahrain dilemma was still a thing.
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I was thinking the exact same thing this morning. I hope no Grand Prix are cancelled, although the well being of the country and it's people comes first.

It must have been embarrassing for Perez this afternoon when he put his car in the wall after the flag had dropped in P1. Such a silly mistake to make coming into the pits.
 
Yukon
I was thinking the exact same thing this morning. I hope no Grand Prix are cancelled, although the well being of the country and it's people comes first.

It must have been embarrassing for Perez this afternoon when he put his car in the wall after the flag had dropped in P1. Such a silly mistake to make coming into the pits.
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He whas copying Hamilton...Sunday he will stop at Sauber during his 1st pit stop!!

:sly:


Spy.
 
Why is that stupid gravel there anyway? It's not like it's gonna help anything in an accident. They need to get rid of it! :( bad memories.
 
Wardez
Why is that stupid gravel there anyway? It's not like it's gonna help anything in an accident. They need to get rid of it! :( bad memories.
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I don't understand why that corner is 90-degree. There should be plenty of run-off for the final corner even if you make the corner for pit-in a bend instead.
 
BHRxRacer
And holding the grand prix here will kill people?
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Because by holding the Bahrain Grand Prix it is argued that F1 and Ecclestone are supporting the Bahraini rulers whilst they persecute people basically, so F1 is seen to be supporting a country oppressing its people.
 
Ferrari should have at least one car on the front row, gonna be interesting, they had a great FP3
 
They need to do something about the tires, this is a joke...

Edit: I take back what I said about Bianchi before the season, I am now a fan. Once again he destroys Chilton.
 
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