In the previous piece we wondered if Hamilton glancing the wall on the final flying lap in qualifying might come into play in the race. So far there is no word from Mclaren but one has got to think there is a good chance it might have had an effect on the Mclaren gearbox.
Hard to say without knowing the precise timing of events but you'd the team would have told Hamilton to abort his lap as he had pole in the bag (by a mile). On Sunday, someone decided to gamble and not incur a 5 spot penalty for swapping the gearbox, Mclaren easily had the speed but reliability will win this championship.
Another notable failure was Schumacher's. Mental or mechanical? Schumacher said the latter * but the "What the hell was that?" radio transmission from Ross said "senior moment"....
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| Photo: Thanassi360/Flickr |
*Schumacher has since fessed up and was handed a 10 spot penalty for Suzuka.
On the BBC forum Martin Whitmarsh said they did not know of any problems with the gearbox before the race (he was directly asked the question). He did say they saw the problem coming quite a few laps before it blew up. Lewis was already having problems selecting gears and had lost one of them.
ReplyDeleteWell... Maybe he should have.
DeleteI think you are maybe trying to make something from nothing, or McLaren are liars
ReplyDeletehttp://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/102824
They knew about the issue before the race. The radio transmission after the incident was quite clear on that point.
DeleteSo Martin Whitmarsh is a liar?
DeleteThis was a race worth not having.
ReplyDeleteMasa pulling a amazing pass was about the only worthwhile part of it.
Alonso on Perez wasn't bad...
We can now write off the only other real pass of the race (Webber v Kobayshi) since the little shove off the track was deemed to invalidate the pass.
Maldonado finally managed not to hit anyone only to DNF with a mechanical issue. I guess he still had half a race to screw up. Little OPS not noted on the BBC. Maldonado actually pulled into Bruno's garage to retire. Not quite as bad as Button pulling up at Red Bull.
Hamilton's DNF, well, enough has been written about that, but the radio message after the failure did seem indicate they knew before the race.
Schumacher, you are really the Michael Jordan of F1. You should have stayed retired.
And the best part is we get look forward to this race for another five years!
Where's Michael's one-race ban? Oh, that's right, he took out a back marker, so carry on.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts exactly. Sometimes I think F1 is just a big game to some bigwigs sitting behind the scenes. Oh...
DeleteIs this the executive summary? Should be titled, it takes two to tangle so we have an interesting championship to watch.
ReplyDeleteWait, where does it say Schumacher fessed up?
ReplyDelete