Pictures, Videos, Wins & Fails from the 2013 German GP after the break
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| Vetter and Webber burn Hamilton at the start |
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| Massa appears to screw the pooch on lap four |
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| Red Bull screws up Webber's pit stop and put an FOM cameramen in the hospital. The would be fined a measly 30K Euros |
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| Marussia's Cosworth explodes. Corner workers, apparently asleep. allow car to roll across the track. Vettel is lucky to have just enough time to dodge it. |
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| Safety car allows all the leaders to stop for tires, Webber somehow is allowed to un-lap himself. |
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| Grosjean on the same strategy as Vettel, attacks but will have to let Kimi through on team orders |
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| Alonso's strategy did not fully pay off because he could only do a 14 lap stint on primes at the start. Button did 21 on the same tire. He also lost too much time behind a desperate Lewis Hamilton. |
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| Disaster for Mercedes, after Rosberg not making Q3 Hamilton scores just 5th from pole. |
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| Epic battle in the final laps, with Raikkonen, Grosjean and Alonso chasing down Vettel. |
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| One or two more laps and Kimi would have done it. |
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| But it was Vettel's day as he wins his first home GP! |
WIN & FAIL
WIN:
Pirelli: manufactures 1000 or so new tires in less that a week, none failed.
Vettel: flawless race under pressure.
Lotus: It very easily could have been a Lotus 1-2 in Germany. Both Grosjean and Raikkonen had amazing drives.
Alonso: 9th to 4th, gave it his all as usual.
Webber: Salvages a 7th place finish after the pit stop disaster. Will buy Charlie Whiting a pint for letting him take his lap back under safety car.
Mclaren: amazingly, 6th and 7th is a great result for Mclarn this year!
Nico Hulkenberg: Best way to get over not getting a paycheck is to put in a job application like that.
FAIL:
Mercedes: It was supposed to be their week end at home, they looked rather pathetic. Hamilton manages 5th from pole and whines the whole race about bad tires. Rosberg is 9th, two places down from Webber who had been DFL at one stage.
Hamilton: whiner.
Massa: His goose is getting more and more cooked.
Ferrari: they cannot continue to rely on Alonso to come back from lousy qualifying positions.
Red Bull: That pit stop was more Minardi than Red Bull
Force India: Hero to zero after the British GP
Daniel Ricciardo: Not the kind of performance you need if you want Webber's spot.
Williams: now truly in danger of scrapping with Caterham.
The German Grand Prix
Nurburgring, Germany;
Results - 60 laps:
Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap
1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1h41m14.711s
2. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault +1.008s
3. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault +5.830s
4. Fernando Alonso Ferrari +7.721s
5. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +26.927s
6. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes +27.996s
7. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault +37.562s
8. Sergio Perez McLaren-Mercedes +38.306s
9. Nico Rosberg Mercedes +46.821s
10. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber-Ferrari +49.892s
11. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes +53.771s
12. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari +56.975s
13. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes +57.738s
14. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari +1m00.160s
15. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault +1m01.929s
16. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault +1 lap
17. Charles Pic Caterham-Renault +1 lap
18. Giedo van der Garde Caterham-Renault +1 lap
19. Max Chilton Marussia-Cosworth +1 lap
Retirements:
Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 22 laps
Jules Bianchi Marussia-Cosworth 21 laps
Felipe Massa Ferrari 3 laps
World Championship standings, round 9:
Drivers: Constructors:
1. Vettel 157 1. Red Bull-Renault 250
2. Alonso 123 2. Mercedes 183
3. Raikkonen 116 3. Ferrari 180
4. Hamilton 99 4. Lotus-Renault 157
5. Webber 93 5. Force India-Mercedes 59
6. Rosberg 84 6. McLaren-Mercedes 49
7. Massa 57 7. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 24
8. Grosjean 41 8. Sauber-Ferrari 7
9. Di Resta 36
10. Button 33
11. Sutil 23
12. Perez 16
13. Vergne 13
14. Ricciardo 11
15. Hulkenberg 7
So yeah, just what IS the justification for Weber getting to un-lap himself?
ReplyDeleteLotus is on my fail list for choosing to pit Kimi on lap 50. Why didn't they try to hold on to 1st place and instead chose to have to overtake for the win. We saw how soft the lotus was on it's soft tires with Grosjean pitting until lap 14 on the softs. Even if they couldn't keep Vettel behind, Grosjean would have given up second anyways and have helped to fight off Alonso, who was running out of fuel.
ReplyDeleteIf I were Hamilton, I would be furious with the engineers. That pits stop strategy was really pathetic. Call him a whiner or whatever, I take his side in this one.
ReplyDeleteI was suspecting that the last pit of Grosjean was nothing more than a red herring to throw RBR into calling Vettel in. It's a shame they brought Kimi in knowing now that he could've made it to the end with his hard tires.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I'm in the US now and so had to watch via CNBC. This is my first time to see an American feed. I was shocked at how bad the coverage over here is. I think there were more commercials than racing coverage, The commentators treat the audience like complete noobs too!
I wondered about that as well. Even the commentators speculated that perhaps Kimi could have gone the distance without pitting. Shame to see him get so close without getting by Vettel.
ReplyDeletething is Hammy blamed the tires not the engineers...
ReplyDeletethe sad part is that the commentators have been doing it for what 10 year? you need new blood there, Hobbs is funny sometimes but it would be so much better to have a current or recent driver. I remember some Sky Sport Italy broadcasts with Marc Gene and he added tremendously in terms of real world, current f1 commentary. Even Brundle is a bit long in the tooth but at least he's there and has driven a recent car a bit.
ReplyDeleteIt's possible Lotus had nightmares about the last time Kimi tried to make a set last until the end. We also are not sure about the state of the tires he had left, maybe he had a nice new set of options and it was too tempting. also I think Vettel and Grosjean were lapping much faster with the new tires,
ReplyDeleteno clue
ReplyDeleteLong time reader here...I've been watching F1 in the U.S. on Speed (and now NBC Sports) religiously since 2000. I haven't seen anything else but I know how bad it is. Is there anyway I can view BBC or SkySports or something else in the U.S. ? Thanks !
ReplyDeleteIt's in the regs.
ReplyDelete40.12 If the clerk of the course considers it safe to do so, and the message "LAPPED CARS MAY NOW
OVERTAKE" is shown on the official messaging system, any cars that have been lapped by the
leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap and the safety car. This will only apply
to cars that were lapped at the time they crossed the Line at the end of the lap during which
they crossed the first Safety Car line for the second time after the safety car was deployed.
Having overtaken the cars on the lead lap and the safety car these cars should then proceed
around the track at an appropriate speed, without overtaking, and take up position at the
back of the line of cars behind the safety car. Whilst they are overtaking, and in order to
ensure this may be carried out safely, the cars on the lead lap must always stay on the racing
line unless deviating from it is unavoidable.
If the clerk of the course considers track conditions are unsuitable for overtaking the message
"OVERTAKING WILL NOT BE PERMITTED" will be shown on the official messaging system.
try Darmeth.com. I just downloaded the entire race of the SkySports feed. It's like I'm watching a different race.
ReplyDeleteWhat the heck do you expect Lewis to do? Talk about how well things are going?
ReplyDeleteHe got the car on pole and then spent the afternoon going backwards despite his best efforts. Cut the guy some slack for goodness sake.
I have Lotus (strategy) on fail too, only because it's always the same. Fail race after race. They got Romain's 1st stop well, then pitted him too soon (before Vettel - he could've tried the leap frog again), and Kimi's last pit was at the worst possible time IMO. Either push and do it sooner and give him time to chase Vettel, or save tires and go the distance. They didi neither. It could "easily" been a "multi21" with Kimi still second at most (proly team orders to 1-2) but surely ahead of Vettel and gaining points, not loosing. The rest of the team (cars, pit crew, settings, drivers etc) were brilliant.
ReplyDeleteIf you go back and watch the US broadcast, they actually briefly debate if Paul Di Resta's release was unsafe. At least they called Webber's pit malfunction correctly.
ReplyDeleteThey'd be better with Kimi as a color commentator.
I agree, it's in the regs and he got the same deal that rolling chicanes usually get. What I question is, why was the safety car needed at all? The Marussia had almost rolled off the track, and was clearly going to leave the track by the time it was deployed. It just seems like something that could have been handled with a radio message and some yellow flags.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the first time a lapped car been able to overtake in safety car conditions so no special treatment for Webber there. The pattern I've seen is they do it when a lapped car may impede front runners from racing directly with each other.
ReplyDeleteIs it fair for the back marker teams like Marussia and Caterham? Probably not. They would've finished one position ahead of where they ultimately did had he not regained the lap. But when's the last time you read a race recap that even mentions the finishing order of the Marussia or Caterham team-mates? Nobody really cares, do they?
This reg isn't new and has been practiced for the last 2-3 years. Better to have lapped cars out of the way than have them in the way and force blue flags. Don't see what is wrong with Webber un-lapping himself here.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing it that as soon as they saw that car rolling and (possibly worse) the genius in the forklift trying to chase it down, the only thing they could do was SC. Once activated, you can't just say "sorry, never mind"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vipboxonline.eu also works, as long as you can deal with the popups
ReplyDeletebut remember that Grosjean could not make up time on Vettel on the same tires at the end
ReplyDeleteI agree. Charlie Whiting needed to react quickly and pushed that SC button, right before the situation settled itself. No one really questioned that because it was in the interest of safety.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on all points. The commentary team hadn't even set foot in a paddock or even been to a track during an actual race for quite some time until Monaco this year, because speed and now NBC would rather just re-broadcast the feed with the guys sitting in a studio somewhere on the east coast. "Oh hey our F1 fans will be fine with us just sending 1 guy and a cameraman to the races, so long as they don't ever catch a SKY or BBC feed...". Shameful, given the amount of commercials they run during the race.
ReplyDeleteI use vipbox to live-stream a decent feed or just wait (err, wake up at a decent time) and download a nice HD torrent - and, the ironic part - I can watch it at the same time as the delayed NBC broadcast.
And they wonder why there isn't a solid F1 fanbase in the US. Hell, even the NYTimes has completely given up covering F1 - they dumped their F1 blogger onto the 'International Herald' sister-site and the most recent article over there was a defense of the Bahrain race. Sites like Jalopnik (supposedly a car/auto-centric site) don't even research the fluff they post... It'll take some serious juju to get 'merican F1 coverage to the standards people in other countries expect.