F1 2013 Thread

[Rodman]

What a finish! Ice man took fast lap as well.. pit strategy pays off big.. just leave me alone lol

[mcdbrendan]

What a great race! Not a single safety car, dry, and respectable racing. Awesome to see Kimi on top of the podium, Lotus seems really fast this season.

[Soobvirgin]

Did anyone else feel like the more frequent pit stops, brought on by even more severe tire wear, caused confusion as to the running order? Like, through the entire race?! It reminded me of the torture I put myself through by watching the Daytona 500 recently (never again), when the lead only changed because people pitted.

I just thought it made the race a little difficult to follow. It wasn't clear until near the end of the race who was actually doing well. Or am I completely wrong here?

[mcdbrendan]

Did anyone else feel like the more frequent pit stops, brought on by even more severe tire wear, caused confusion as to the running order? Like, through the entire race?! It reminded me of the torture I put myself through by watching the Daytona 500 recently (never again), when the lead only changed because people pitted.

I just thought it made the race a little difficult to follow. It wasn't clear until near the end of the race who was actually doing well. Or am I completely wrong here?

It was a bit hard to follow at times, but I enjoyed the planning/race strategy that was required by the engineers and thought it added to the excitement of the race.

[SonicWagon]

How many times in a row can Kimi do a two stopper and have crazy pace? I love F1!

[rage-wrx]

I sometimes think Kimi Raikkonen is obsessed with getting fast lap. More than he wants to win the race. He was literally mocking the others. Oh your tires are going off after doing 3 stops? Let me show you how its done making 2 stops.So much for the comments about his commitment.

How about Sutil? What a brilliant drive. Must have taken up meditation or something judging from his interview after the race.

[mcdbrendan]

I sometimes think Kimi Raikkonen is obsessed with getting fast lap. More than he wants to win the race. He was literally mocking the others. Oh your tires are going off after doing 3 stops? Let me show you how its done making 2 stops.So much for the comments about his commitment.

How about Sutil? What a brilliant drive. Must have taken up meditation or something judging from his interview after the race.

And that is why I love Kimi!

I think Sutil is trying to clean up his image a bit after the night club incident. Agreed on the drive though, he probably would have won had that rain come in and required a stop for the whole field.

[SonicWagon]

I thought Sutile was ready to stab Paul DI resta in the neck with his complaining about being robbed of 7th place.

[rage-wrx]

[mcdbrendan]

I thought Sutile was ready to stab Paul DI resta in the neck with his complaining about being robbed of 7th place.

Was this when he was blue flagged for no reason? Didn't catch this bit after the race, but did see the flag come out and wondered why.

[Andor]

Sutil's drive was definitely amazing for his first outing after being away from the sport for a year!

And Kimi, what a great start of the year! Broadcast lacked on showing much of kimi leading the race but his strategy definitely worked for his car. I know Lewis in the Mercedes had the same strategy but had to revert to "plan b" when his 2nd set of hard tires died off way too fast!

[06wrx4me]

I was super happy with the race coverage, until they told me Varsha was gonna be standing in for Diffy for the Malaysian GP this weekend.

Great race. I would love to not see Vettel and RB win anything this year.

[RayfieldsWRX]

Out of curiosity, what do you have against Vettel? Was he good friends with Boyd Coddington? (ducks)

Couldn't watch the race, but I've been searching out replays and highlight reels online. Looks like a heck of a run/strategy for Kimi. Weird to see McLaren so far down the pack.

[06wrx4me]

Out of curiosity, what do you have against Vettel? Was he good friends with Boyd Coddington? (ducks)

No lol. I genuinely like the guy, and he is a great driver, but hes also had the best car the last 3 years and mostly because RB racing has cheated very successfully the last 3 years. But since SV is Bernie's golden boy and draws in tons and tons of $$$$ to F1 through his popularity, (and F1 makes Bernie tons of money) etc., it was let slide. Bernie's track record in financial shiesty-ness is well known and may land him in jail for bribery anyway.

RB racing cheated for 2010-(1/2) of 2012 by having remotely adjustable (by hand) ride height settings. So they would lower the car down for qualifying, gaining a huge aero advantage, then raise it up for the race. The other teams had to set their ride height for full fuel load and leave it, otherwise risk DQ due to grinding off more than 1mm from the T-tray. RB claimed that they had never done it so no big deal, but the GP it was discovered as well as a few successive GP's, their performance fell off a cliff.

BBC Sport - Hungarian GP: Red Bull deny breaking rule over suspension

RB racing also cheated in 2012 by utilizing throttle over run (similar to blown diffuser and directly against the rules). Basically at the AUS GP in 2012 RB racing was in huge trouble because they no longer had the blown diffuser which they had mastered better than anyone else in F1. So when their performance was not up to par in the first race (and they had already passed initial season scrutinearing), they took to reintroducing a slight amount of throttle dwell which was very audible on TV for the next races to induce down force and low and behold they were instantly back on top again. Everyone complained right away, but they got away with it for 1-2 races (and scored big points which=millions) since it is so audible before there was an investigation, a ruling change and their performance dropped off again.

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/0...p-controversy/

It's out right cheating at all costs, I hate cheating. Especially when you have Lotus, Caterham, Williams, Marussia, HRT (rip), Force India, trying so hard to fight for scraps because their budgets are orders of magnitude less. By allowing RB to cheat, Bernie compounds the "rich getting richer", MFG points = millions of dollars, and those with the lions share get the lions share of the money. This forces the "back marker teams" performance to continue to degrade because every year they don't score a decent amount (or any points), their budgets get smaller and smaller. Which forces Caterham and the smaller teams to find "paying" drivers. Can you imagine? So you have Hamilton getting paid $40 million a year to drive, and other drivers having to pay for a seat so the team can even be in F1. That doesn't nurture the best drivers, only the richest ones. That's why Maldonado still has a seat, he brings tons of Venezuelan $$$.

On top of that you have SV on TV, passing for position during the Brazillian GP during a course yellow (strictly against the rules and subject to a drive through). Bernie tried to play it down but it is plain as day. This cost Fernando Alonso the drivers championship, and Ferrari several million dollars worth of constructor points.

I liken it to the Lance Armstrong scandal.

If SV made a jump to any other team, I'd genuinely root for the guy. But as it stands, I hope Kimi takes it this year. I'm also rooting for Hamilton because it takes huge marbles to jump to a struggling team like he did.

I'd root for Masa, but he strikes me as the spoiled rich kid who got everything he wanted up until F1 and hes mad he just can't "have it".

I guess my real issues are with RB racing and Bernie E., but since hes tied to both, I can't love SV. I guess the Fairness Police in me feels bad for the lower teams in the series and their staff.

Bit more complicated an explanation than you thought eh? lol

[Soobvirgin]

^^^^ Yup. I'd agree with all of that. But the main reason I don't like Vettel is because he's such a bad loser. If things aren't going perfectly his way, he's in a bad mood. Quite immature.

On another note, I can see why Hamilton got fed up of all the PR events at McLaren. They look sooo boring.

http://www.dpccars.com/car-videos-13...458-Italia.htm