September 13, 2009

So who won at Monza?

Ross Brawn won it, from the pit wall. Sure, Barrichello drove very well, I just cannot get behind a guy who is all lovey dovey with his team when things go well yet is quick to throw hissy fits and "blah blah blah" when they don't go his way. I cannot get behind the guy who criticizes Renault's Briatore for questioning Piquet Jr's manhood but was all too happy to call Schumacher a fag in public.

Whatever, Rubens drove a mistake free race, he qualified one spot in front of Button and finished the same way, the first of the cars with the ''right''one stop strategy. Good for the Brazilian but I'm sure that if Button ends up winning the championship it will be Oliver Stone time again from Rubens.

Sebastian Vettel was pretty bad, his first lap was really pretty nasty stuff. Maybe he had really started to believe he was in the championship hunt and it got to him. Mark Webber could be the new David Coulthard.

Raikkonen for the first time I heard critical of Ferrari, in his mild mannered Finnish way. He drove as fast as it would go but was not too happy he could barely keep ahead of of the non KERS Force India. Adrian Sutil scored fast lap of the race, amazing. Fisichella meanwhile was perfectly happy not to be last and to have a job for next year.

Finally Hamilton: he tried, he was on the ''wrong'' 2 stop strategy but charged the whole race. He made one mistake in the wrong place and boom, from hero to zero. But at least he tried, he did not just settle for third and, according to people who were at the track, even Ferrari's Stefano Domenicali went to of his way to congratulate him after the race....(or maybe he was just thanking him for the extra points!)

I superimposed the relevant section of the lap before Hamilton's accident and the final lap. There is not much difference but then again, it does not take much. See if you can spot it and give us your theory as to what happened at Lesmo. Monday morning driving coaches welcome!



After the jump I have another special treat for our readers...




Here is the complete race from onboard cameras. Don't worry about the sound, it starts towards the end of the warm up lap. I always find the warm up lap fascinating from onboards:when drivers try to get temperature into their tires you really get the sense of how easy it is to make the cars understeer with low downforce and how little it takes to spin the rear wheels.
The different quality video is because not all car carry the new for this year HD cameras.



14 comments:

  1. Massive thanks for the whole race via onboards. Fantastic stuff! Mind if I ask where you got it?

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  2. +1 thanks for the great angles.

    -allenr

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  3. I think if you watch very closely hamilton just brushed the inside curbing enough to make the car track out just enough and that rear wheel got on the green stuff. That was my observation. how do you get these onboard?

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  4. I think the line was close enough to identical. My hypothesis is that he was just on full noise a fraction earlier and the rears spun-up. As soon as they did and the rear went off the grippy stuff it was all over. Maybe a little bit of dust/dirt had gone down.

    Whatever the cause, got to be impressed with pushing a purple S1 on the second last lap when nothing to fight for than the fun of finishing higher up the order.

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  5. Trulli caused Hamiltons prang
    inadvertantly of course

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  6. Hallo everybody from Italy ;)

    I don't fully agree with you: Hamilton had six valuable points for the team and lost them, so they're now at minus 15 from Ferrari (while they could go at minus 7, so a double gap).

    Moreover, Hamilton has once again shown the same lack of "greater view" that already costed him "almost two" championships. He can be a really great driver but he must learn to think, at least sometimes, even "try always" has a limit ;)

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  7. @Stig yes that and if you look carefully he turns if just a fraction earlier, at midcorner he has a small oversteer correction as a result is a fraction wider in the exist curb. But he then seems to want to pull the car back in towards the track and that's when he loses it. This, done on a much higher level and with minute corrections of course, reminds me of the classic mistake so many run into even at track days.... a teachable moment, see even a world champion can... :o)

    @Gattopazzo... benvenuto! Yes I can certainly agree on that view, but having already bashed Barrichello, I felt a big more generous towards Lewis going all Ricky Bobby on us! ;O)

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  8. You are correct AC in how Hammy lost it. The line is not identical as Stiggy suggests; just wide enough to put a wheel off, and, particularly at Lesmos, to have the car bottom on the opposite cambering those outside curbs carry. Wheel off + simultaneous bottoming + already working the tail of the car back in line = you're going off Hammy!

    Also, thank you for the lack of racism (hehe)

    Sincerely,

    Anonymous

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  9. I think he was on the power too much to early. If you hear the audio I think one of the tires loses grip, while the other maintains it, cause him to lose the back end... He was just pushing to hard.. He shouldnt have pushed that hard on the last lap, he had no chance of passing button with half a lap left... That kid still has a lot to learn.

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  10. I don't particularly like Hamilton but I do feel bad about his shunt, that's a tough break for anyone to fight the entire race and then go out on the 2nd to last lap.

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  11. I told you already that it was Senna's ghost that pushed Hammy's throttle 1/4" too far as payback for his copycat (fake) "emotional" speech at the Qualifying press conference...

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  12. Rest assured AC, as I've said before, the Brazilians in general don't care for "cry-baby" Barrichello either.

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  13. Had another look. Granted, turn in, apex correction and two inches wider on exit kerb...... but boy it let go quick so I'm going to concede on all points but claim he spun up the rears (either heavy right foot or something else causing traction loss - fluid, dirt, bottoming) to actually cause the spin/crash :-)

    On Nuvolari's point though, I am now fascinated but the impression different countries generally have for drivers. I'll start, the Aussie F1 media are utterly obsessed with Webber, most people I know think he is solid but lacking the required spark of specialness.

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  14. Thanks so much for posting the whole race in-board. I really wished this is how they would show in on TV, ok well maybe 90% on-board shots 10% replays from various angles from outside.

    Too bad there's such a delay between the sound and the picture...

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