Formula 1 2013 Santander British Grand Prix

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Anghammarad
Anyway, I wonder if Hamilton would have been able to hold of Vettel the entire race. I don't think so.
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He wouldn't have needed to, unless in the alternative universe where Hamilton doesn't get the puncture Vettel also doesn't retire. Even still he was very much controlling the race from the front before it happened so he was looking good.

FCB-Rizla-TML
Checking up on my left rear tire after watching the race yesterday
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Funny but this is exactly the reason Pirelli aren't going to want this bad press going on for too long. To the uninformed thinking their Pirelli road tyres bear any resemblance/structure to F1 tyres it's going to mean buying another brand next time around.
 
Peasantslayer
Really? Rosberg had strong pace and when you consider Hamilton's was even better it would have at the very least a close race.
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Rosberg was lucky that he had a few mid pack cars and also a Räikkönen-on-very-old-tyres cushion between himself and Webber. Had Mark been in second at the restart no one can deny that he would have taken Rosberg easily. The Red Bull car was clearly stronger than the Mercedes.
 
Anghammarad
Rosberg was lucky that he had a few mid pack cars and also a Räikkönen-on-very-old-tyres cushion between himself and Webber. Had Mark been in second at the restart no one can deny that he would have taken Rosberg easily. The Red Bull car was clearly stronger than the Mercedes.
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You're comparing a Mercedes on primes and a Red Bull on options...
 
Samus
The track is of course but the kerbs look relatively fresh and as I say, the same design. I don't know when they were renewed, if it was the same time as the new section, but it's certainly not decades old kerbing.
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The kerbs have been there since 2009 without previously causing problems, so to my mind, the tyres are completely unfit for purpose and therefore it IS Pirelli's problem.
 
Yellowbeard
The kerbs have been there since 2009 without previously causing problems, so to my mind, the tyres are completely unfit for purpose and therefore it IS Pirelli's problem.
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Pirelli said they need to change tyre some GP ago, they brought new tyres in Canada but Ferrari, Lotus and Force India use their veto power so it wouldnt happen. So IF there is someone to blame look for those team.

Also I think the problem in silverstone is probably a 3 way problem.

1st, the kerbs
2nd, the tyres and the pressure used during the GP
3rd, the driver going way on the kerbs and "cutting" corners.

If you add those 3 together you obtain what we saw on sunday.
 
Samus
Funny but this is exactly the reason Pirelli aren't going to want this bad press going on for too long. To the uninformed thinking their Pirelli road tyres bear any resemblance/structure to F1 tyres it's going to mean buying another brand next time around.
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Agreed, the general public's view of Pirelli will be tainted because of all this and their race tires and street tires are nothing alike but it does take away from Pirelli's credibility to some level.
 
Anghammarad
Anyway, I wonder if Hamilton would have been able to hold of Vettel the entire race. I don't think so.
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No reason to think Vettel would overtake him. Lewis qualified faster and put a bit of a gap between him and Vettel, and while that gap wasn't huge it was one that Vettel wasn't closing. One could argue that Vettel holds more wins and WDC wins, but that isn't as simple as one driver being better, and Hamilton beat Vettel's time at the Top Gear test track. Mercedes has been doing a lot better during races than they did earlier in the season, so we can't point to early races as evidence that the Mercs would fall off.
 
Anghammarad
Rosberg was lucky that he had a few mid pack cars and also a Räikkönen-on-very-old-tyres cushion between himself and Webber. Had Mark been in second at the restart no one can deny that he would have taken Rosberg easily. The Red Bull car was clearly stronger than the Mercedes.
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Of course Mark would've got him at the time, he was on newer and softer tires in comparison to Nico's far older tires. Doesn't necessarily mean the Red Bull cars were better. If that were the case, then Vettel would've been able to match and even catch Hamilton at the start.
 
RACECAR
Of course Mark would've got him at the time, he was on newer and softer tires in comparison to Nico's far older tires. Doesn't necessarily mean the Red Bull cars were better. If that were the case, then Vettel would've been able to match and even catch Hamilton at the start.
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I'd just like to point out that Nico pit on the same lap as Webber i.e. when the safety car came out. IIRC Webber was running the softer compound, meaning he had a slight advantage over such a short stint.

The timing of the safety car means that any advantage Rosberg gained from running the options earlier in the race vs Webber who would've ran the primes, was eliminated. Webber would have certainly made the pass. He only needed one more lap.
 
Seismica
I'd just like to point out that Nico pit on the same lap as Webber i.e. when the safety car came out. IIRC Webber was running the softer compound, meaning he had a slight advantage over such a short stint.

The timing of the safety car means that any advantage Rosberg gained from running the options earlier in the race vs Webber who would've ran the primes, was eliminated. Webber would have certainly made the pass. He only needed one more lap.
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I wasn't saying he wouldn't, I agreed that he could've for the reasons you pointed out. I was just saying its not necessarily indicative that the Red Bulls was better then the Mercedes.
 
RX-7_FD3S
Pirelli said they need to change tyre some GP ago, they brought new tyres in Canada but Ferrari, Lotus and Force India use their veto power so it wouldnt happen. So IF there is someone to blame look for those team.

Also I think the problem in silverstone is probably a 3 way problem.

1st, the kerbs
2nd, the tyres and the pressure used during the GP
3rd, the driver going way on the kerbs and "cutting" corners.

If you add those 3 together you obtain what we saw on sunday.
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I found some great new perspective from /r/formula1:

Teams can only veto the changes if it wasn't a safety issue.
Pirelli can officially declare that the changes are being made for safety and then they are free to do whatever they like. However, Pirelli insisted that the issue was an aesthetic one and the delaminations just made them look bad.
Pirelli, for the sake of saving face, did not want to declare their current construction as unsafe, so attempted to play politics to try to get a unanimous decision. That didn't work out.
Pirelli added that “the tyres that will be tested by the teams in the free practice at the Montreal Grand Prix have never been used by the teams before. With regard to the new tyres, the problem of delamination has been solved by Pirelli’s technicians exclusively through laboratory testing. Delamination, which only occurred on four occasions and always because of on-track detritus, has never put the drivers’ safety at risk, but does risk harming Pirelli’s image. This is why the company decided to intervene”.
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http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/pirelli-states-its-case/[1]
It was based on this line that Force India and Lotus veto'd the changes.
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RACECAR
I wasn't saying he wouldn't, I agreed that he could've for the reasons you pointed out. I was just saying its not necessarily indicative that the Red Bulls was better then the Mercedes.
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It is a good point 👍. Whilst Webber wasn't on newer tyres, it was the tyres that caused the difference in pace (I was agreeing with you, just correcting a small point about tyre age).

On the same compound they were pretty evenly matched in the race. I feel if it wasn't for tyre and gearbox problems we wouldn't have seen a change in the top 3 after turn 1.
 
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Finally acquired and watched video of the race, after spending Sunday and Monday avoiding Twitter and F1-related Web sites. Quick reactions:

1). Pirelli obviously has got the engineering of this year's tire wrong. Never mind the deg; we're talking structure here and I've not seen a good explanation of why they decided to go from Kevlar to steel belts. They will have to switch back and the FIA needs to knock whatever heads need to be knocked to make it happen.

2). The tire situation illustrates the unfeasibility of the testing ban. You can't do good engineering without testing and there just isn't enough of it happening on race weekends. I understand the cost/workload objections and say, boo freakin' hoo, too bad. If the cost means we do without an HRT or Marussia, so be it. As for the workload ... look, it's 19 race weekends. Get some process guys, figure out where your processes are inefficient, and fix it. I suspect there's a still a lot of we've-always-done-it-this-way old-school in F1 that can be wrung out by anyone who cared enough to do it.

3). It's likely that drivers themselves have contributed to the problem by ignoring track limits. With robust tire structures previously, they could get away with it. Without them now, they can't. Solution is better tires, AND making drivers respect track limits. You fix a multi-factor problem by identifying and fixing each contributing factor.

4). As for the race ... good recovery drives from Webber, Massa, Hamilton and DiResta illustrate again that in a DRS world, cars will gravitate to their natural level.

5). Shocking strategy failure by Lotus re Kimi and the last safety car. Ill-timed given that he's very probably got a RBR contract offer in his back pocket.

6). Rosberg's had some bad luck this season, but I'd say that's evened-up for him now and is maybe even in positive territory. But for the problems of Vettel, Hamilton and Webber he'd have been lucky to even make the podium, never mind win the race. This was the least convincing of his three wins -- but, like his dad, he was very opportunistic.
 
I have to say, the laps after the last safety car produced some great racing/tension, and it really looked close coming into the final lap. But after the 3rd tyre failure, I was very disappointed at Pirelli. I can understand that it the drivers might have hit the kerbs too hard, but if that was the case, why didn't any tyre failures occur last year?

Overall, there was some good racing, but it was overshadowed by the tyre failures. Rosberg was quite lucky to win, if there were no tyre failures, I think we would have seen either a Vettel or Hamilton win.
 
Had a great weekend at silverstone this year, best of all where I was staying in the woodlands campsite on the Friday I was watching a very good cover of the chain when Eddie Jordan showed up and joined in.

He then went on to make a slightly drunk and rather interesting speech about f1 and that he has learned of a new team joining,

here is my video of the song and Eddie's rather interesting speech that is well worth a watch,

heres the link as I forgot how to embed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOnQ_rTYVfE
 
Yellowbeard
The kerbs have been there since 2009 without previously causing problems, so to my mind, the tyres are completely unfit for purpose and therefore it IS Pirelli's problem.
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The problem kerbs weren't even there in 2009. The problems kerb is at Aintree corner, which has only been part of the layout since the Arena layout came into use in 2010. Watch the video at this link and you'll know what I'm talking about.
http://f1bias.com/2013/07/01/kimi-gets-pissed/
 
witham
Had a great weekend at silverstone this year, best of all where I was staying in the woodlands campsite on the Friday I was watching a very good cover of the chain when Eddie Jordan showed up and joined in.

He then went on to make a slightly drunk and rather interesting speech about f1 and that he has learned of a new team joining,

here is my video of the song and Eddie's rather interesting speech that is well worth a watch,

heres the link as I forgot how to embed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOnQ_rTYVfE
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Clearly he is bringing JordanF1 from the ashes :sly:
 
braunracing88
The problem kerbs weren't even there in 2009. The problems kerb is at Aintree corner, which has only been part of the layout since the Arena layout came into use in 2010. Watch the video at this link and you'll know what I'm talking about.
http://f1bias.com/2013/07/01/kimi-gets-pissed/
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The information about the kerbs comes from an interview with Derek Warwick, who is president of the British Racing Drivers Club which owns and runs Silverstone, so I think he'd probably know better than you.
 
^^^ You'd think so, but evidently not. Iirc, the "problem kerb" was at turn 4, which was completely non-existent in 2009.
 
"Pirelli to switch to Kevlar belts for Germany before reverting to 2012 tyres for Hungary as F1 rips up rule book"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/mo...vers-threat-to-boycott-German-Grand-Prix.html

Well then, Lotus and Ferrari had a good run, it'll be a RBR and Merc show from now on.

Hopefully other teams with tire problems can move up a bit though... to try and see things more positively. But in all other regards, wtf Pirelli/FIA.
 
Yellowbeard
The information about the kerbs comes from an interview with Derek Warwick, who is president of the British Racing Drivers Club which owns and runs Silverstone, so I think he'd probably know better than you.
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Why do many use this defunct fallacy to argue with. He is wrong and others on this forum are right, why do people believe that a group of users can't correct the BRDC President that seemed to make a mistake?
 
Actually he is right. The first GP on the new track didn't take place until mid 2010 but the kerbs were installed in late 2009, in construction.
 
Something I thought about.

The tire that went is the one going over inside kerbs both at turn 4 and the Maggots complex.

The weight naturally goes to the outside wheels which did not fail.

Try running your finger along the smooth bit of a blade. No matter how close you get to the blade it won't cut as long as you don't turn your finger round to face the sharp edge.

With the weight on the outside the tires would be less likely to do this unless the driver got the entire tire behind the kerb. This though would likely cause sidewall damage and the sidewalls were the only bits left and didn't look damaged.

Also with a cut what is the chances of 5 tires exploading rather than just a puncture? Surely a few more would have gone all the way in and just deflated the tire.
 
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witham
Had a great weekend at silverstone this year, best of all where I was staying in the woodlands campsite on the Friday I was watching a very good cover of the chain when Eddie Jordan showed up and joined in.

He then went on to make a slightly drunk and rather interesting speech about f1 and that he has learned of a new team joining,

here is my video of the song and Eddie's rather interesting speech that is well worth a watch,

heres the link as I forgot how to embed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOnQ_rTYVfE
Click to expand...

Drunken Eddie Jordan? I've got to make a trip to Silverstone one of these years.
 
It's good to see action has been taken and although we may see a few more one stop races this year driver safety is too important, as Derek Warwick said if one of those tyre belts hits someone in the head they could die.
 

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