2016 Chinese GP Executive Summary

Tuned in for and F1 race and a touring car race broke out?

By any standard the 2016 Chinese GP was one of the most exciting races in a long time.  Crashes, passes, blowouts, bits falling off cars...the works

The race started with the promise of excitement when Lewis Hamilton had to take a five spot penalty for a changed gearbox but it got even wilder after qualifying one the world champion was relegated to last place by an engine issue and Daniel Ricciardo put the Red Bull on the front row next to Rosberg and ahead of the Ferraris.

Pass the popcorn!

Another less than perfect Mercedes start,  Rosberg  hampered by his choice of the Soft Pirelli vs everyone else's Super Soft. and then the first corner fracas between Raikkonen, Vettel and Kyat.



Vettel was pretty upset but

A:  he would have done the same thing and has done the same thing in the past.
B:  you don't win that argument,  if there's a hole a racer will go through it and he know it.
And finally,
C: perhaps he should have been more upset at Kimi.   Look at the replays, Raikkonen sees Rosberg begin to understeer and dives for an inside line in front of Seb.    But then he loses grip and locks up, probably because he saw he was a bit too greedy and was going to hit the Mercedes.   That leaves a gap Vettel goes for.    But Vettel is also pushing wide enough to leave room for the Red Bull and it's obviously superior grip to give it a go.  As Vettel turns right, Kimi also cuts back in front of him.  at that point it was three into one and someone was going to lose.   Vettel saying Kvyat was never going to make the corner makes little sense I'm afraid since he actually did, without touching anyone.

Anyway, great drama and great drives from both him and Kimi.   If I were in charge I would have a talk with the aero guys,  that Ferrari seemed to be able to follow cars just fine even without a substantial portion of its front wing gone.

But for the third straight race we are left to wonder how Ferrari would do if they had a "normal" race.

Is the Mercedes weak in dirty air?

Rosberg certainly never had that problem this week end but Lewis struggled.   Yes, I know Mercedes claimed major damage to aero parts due to that first lap contact but the Ferrari's were losing bits left and right and did quite well in close quarters.   Lewis in the first part of the race set some fastest laps so the aero damage could not have been as devastating as he would have you believe.
Food for thought anyway.

Red Bulls are back

Mighty impressive performance by the "Ce n'est pas une Renault" powered Red Bulls.  How would the race have played out without that second lap puncture for Ricciardo?

Williams?  Bonus points for Felipe Massa's dad cheering when his son kept Lewis behind. Another very unimpressive race for Bottas.  Ferrari picked the right Finn.

There was a mirage of performance from McLaren but in the end, just that.

Verstappen,  you got to love the guy,  he completely humiliated both Hulkenberg and Bottas with identical moves in the same corner.    The guy is such a great racer.   Sainz is quick but he lacks the killer instant to make those low percentage passes and clear traffic.   It took him over two laps to pass Bottas after Max went through.

Rosberg now has a 26 point lead over Hamilton,  he can afford to DNF and would still be in the lead. Long season for sure but it must give Hamilton pause  and the Hamfosi a reason to invoke conspiracy theories?

A Mercedes at each end of the grid for tomorrow's Chinese GP

Don't miss the Chinese GP tomorrow,  the setup is great:    Rosberg on pole, Hamilton dead last after  an engine issue in Q1 left him in without a time on the board.

To add to the spice, next to Rosberg in row 1,  not a Ferrari but Ricciardo's Red Bull with a lap that surprised even Christian Horner.    Row two is all red but with Raikkonen besting Vettel who has banked all on a single lap in Q3 and failed to deliver.

RAI first run on S second on SS. ROS the reverse

But that's not all.   Rosberg will start on a set of Soft tires while everyone around him will start on the Super-Soft.    Mercedes has shown it is happiest on harder tires but in FP2, which was run in temperatures thought to be close to what the race will be Sunday,  Ferrari was able to run the red SuperSoft  tire quite a bit longer than the Germans (graphic by Giroveloce.it)

Vettel only did one run in Q3 and saved a set of sticker red tires so,  from a strategic point of view, the race could be quite interesting.


Much will depend on the start, if the Ferrari's are able to get around and lead,  they will be able to control the tire wear and make the most of it.   There are a lot of variables, if it's colder, like it was in qualifying, the softer tire advantage in wear might be minimal,  if it's warmer it will be advantage Ferrari.

As for Lewis,  well he keeps saying how much he enjoys starting from the back and slicing his way though Manors and Saubers.   I guess he got his wish.   He should definitively make it into the points but I wonder how long it will be before the Hamfosi  start yelling "conspiracy"!

Full Results



Kravitz's is pretty sure Ferrari made a mistake, but then again he feels F1 cars should have bigger brakes too... face palm

2015 Chinese GP Executive Summary

Lewis Hamilton Chines GP 2015 (Mercedes AMG Petronas)

As expected, Mercedes was back on the top steps of the podium in China after that stinging defeat at the hands of Ferrari and tire wear in the Malaysian heat.   The only surprise perhaps that it was able to do so using the softer, option, tire.

Third place for Vettel just ahead of Raikkonen.   Three races in and Ferrari has already scored half the points it had for the whole of the 2014 season.   Fair to say they under promised and over delivered so far.  Arrivabene will have to carefully manage expectations but it's clear that,  for the first time in years, the Scuderia is not on the back foot.
One feels for Fernando but you must wonder if there was something toxic in the mix  or if it is simply the case of all the pieces finally falling into place.    From the outside we will never learn the whole truth but perhaps Raikkonen's pace against Vettel this year is a key.

Hamilton's victory was a result of qualifying. He made sure at the start to cut in front of Rosberg because he knew clean air was the key to making the tires last.     When Rosberg pushed him, Lewis backed him up into Vettel, compromising both their performances to an extent.
Strategically, a good move.   Had Nico done it you can be sure he would have been lambasted for playing dirty.    On the other hand Hamilton would probably just have passed him on track so, while it's a shame F1 still has not figured out how to make aero regulations that allow cars to follow each other closely, Rosberg's post race bitching will just enhance his sanitary napkin wearing reputation this year.   Don't hate the player, hate the game Nico.

If you wonder why Mercedes did not split strategies and have Rosberg go long on primes in the middle stint, well maybe there's a reason Hamilton has been delaying signing his contract and talking so much about Ferrari lately.   Now the pattern is now pretty much set, more so if Ferrari continues to pressure.   It must be incredibly frustrating for Rosberg.

Star of the race: Verstappen.   Anyone complaining about young kids with "little experience" coming into F1 forget Raikkonen,  world champion or Vettel, four time champion, both had "little experience".    Proof is in the pudding and it's clear Max will be in a top team in two years or less.

Unfortunately, Verstappen verstoppen right in front of the packed grandstands with four laps to go.  It was his second engine related  retirement in three races.

Clown show of the race:  Button. Unless all the drivers made a deal that they would take turns punting Maldonado off the track this year and it was Jenson's turn.

The sickening sound of a Renault F1 engine self-destructing

Painful, isn't it?

The Renault at the back of Max Verstappen's Toro Rosso exploded with four laps to go in the Chinese Grand Prix,  the second engine related retirement in three races for Verstappen ruining another impressive performance by the 17 year old.

Hope Cyril Abiteboul packed his boxing gloves for China too...

Packing up to Malaysia. Race (round?) 2. pic.twitter.com/RZ6p7Xln1w
— Cyril ABITEBOUL (@Cyroul) March 24, 2015

Adding injury to insult,  the Toro Rosso crew had to endure a less than white glove treatment from the track marshals who kept smashing their expensive front wing into a wall...  not their exasperated expressions.     Amazing the same series that races in Monaco where every station has a dolly jack for sliding cars could not get their shit together in China and forced the race to finish under yellow.

Lame.

Today, in Free Practice 2...

Today in Shanghai, during the second Free Practice session for the 2015 Chines GP...

A man ran across the track.



Kimi had problems with brakes,



Massa crashed, just a little,

Leave your predictions: Ferrari for real?

Everyone and their grandmother has written a piece wondering if Ferrari will be able to repeat the exploit of Malaysia.

The conventional wisdom is no, it was a fluke: that track, the hot temperatures, the safety car, the bad strategy call from Mercedes.   China will be much cooler and with 80% of the laps spent cornering, the track will tax front tires more,  conventional wisdom  says Ferrari's won't be able to switch on the tires and Mercedes will be back to its dominant Australian and pre-season testing form.

But the again, conventional wisdom said Ferrari would not have been able to challenge until well into the season.

What do you think?

Let me add a couple of considerations you may or may not have picked up on:

1.  If the F15T is gentle on tires it means it must have balance and a balanced car will give Ferrari the option to play with strategy.

2.  Mercedes always planned on stopping early in Malaysia and running more primes. Thy used up all their new option tires in qualifying (used them in Q1 to save primes for the race).  Ferrari always planned on running long on option-option-prime.

3. Mercedes' error in Malaysia was stacking the cars in the safety car stop and not splitting the strategies.    Why?  Because if they pitted just one there would have been endless political issues of favoritism.    In China they might have to favor one driver....sorry Nico.

3.  Mercedes was indeed faster in the race but Ferrari had a more constant lap times throughout the stints.

4.  On the periphery of all this there is this talk of the FIA cracking down on fuel sensor cleverness.  It has been speculated that some teams may have figured out how to get around the 100 kg/h limit by allowing an extra volume of fuel to accumulate past the flow sensor bring the braking phase so that it can then be used during the subsequent acceleration.   It's a bit of a mystery,  it was brought up first on technical sites like F1Analisitecnica.com and then, earlier this week, by Autosport.  Will the FIA checks happen?  If so, who will be penalized if they gray area is "clarified"?  If this is indeed the case, why has it not gotten more play?

So check out the  practice time, especially in P2.   If you have the F1 app (and it actually works) keep an eye on the long run stints and what tires they are run on.  

Then let's see who gets it right!

Tough Luck.

Lewis Hamilton was happy

Nico, not happy

After the highs of the Bahrain GP,  F1 gave us a bit of a snoozer,  so dull that the race director waved the checkered flag two laps early.    So, not much action on track after lap 1 but plenty of drama happening,  psychological drama.

Lewis growing a mohawk?

Hamilton has dealt Rosberg another big hit and Nico's body language in the pre-podium "green room" spoke volumes.  Yes  the german had no telemetry but he had the fastest lap, he had the higher top speed and he had more fast sector times than Hamilton, yet finished some 18 seconds behind.  
Not much in the way of hugs after this one, perhaps Nico heard those interviews where Hamilton pointed out how he used to wipe the floor with Nico back in their karting days.

Score one more for Hammy.  If he does not win the world championship this year, with that car,  he may as well grow a mohawk...

Cruel, cruel internets!

The other big hit was at Red Bull.

Two aspects to consider.   Vettel is not feeling the RB10,   the RB6 through 9 were pretty much built around him and around his driving style and needs but with the new regulations this could not be done, cars are too different and Ricciardo, coming in as a blank slate of sorts is driving what they give him,  happily without getting hung up on whatever it is that Seb is missing to do his thing.

The other is the team showing him zero respect.  Once gain he got the Felipe Massa treatment.  This would never have happened in previous years so,  despite all the the kumbaya comments after the race, either being a four time world champion means little at Red Bull or perhaps Marko and company know Vettel has a signed contract tucked in his pocket?

Alonso made Mattiacci's day

Either way, man what a beating, tough luck there.

Hamilton may have been faultless but let's face it, Chilton could score points in the Mercedes.  The star of the race has to be Alonso.     Another wicked start and first lap,   a bit of luck surviving Massa's  sideswipe  (Massa's "he crashed me"  will go down in the annals of silly F1 driver whines).  He chased down Vettel and then pounded around fast enough to finish third, after the week Ferrari has had?  Badass.

Poor Stefano Domenicali must wonder, what is Montezemolo had showed up in China rather than Bahrain?     The pace is still not there to take it to Mercedes but, if Ferrari had set the goal of being the next fastest, that they accomplished.  Not bad for a team already written off by most of the press.    I bet Ron Dennis is wishing he had a team principal ready to do what Domenicali did.

The only sour note for the Scuderia was Raikkonen, like Vettel, it seems he's not getting the new cars fully yet.

Next stop, Spain.

Frictions with Alonso one of the reasons for Domenicali's early departure.

It's useful to look at different sources when the UK centric ones seem to be stuck on surprise, football coach metaphors and national stereotyping when trying to describe what happened last week at Ferrari.

Autosprint is Italy's oldest motorsport publication and historically very close to Ferrari.  Usually they get it right.

Domenicali was going to retire at the end of 2014.

Red China

A perfect race for Fernando Alonso who dominated an interesting Chinese Grand Prix that while dominated by tire considerations and strategy non the less presented some good scraps and confirmation the 2013 Ferrari has plenty of race pace. The only sour note for Ferrari was the less than stellar performance from Massa who got lost during the race and only managed sixth on a day when Ferrari could have made up more ground on Red Bull in the Constructor's Championship.

Red Bull's qualifying gamble and race strategy, starting on hard tires from further back on the griddid not pay off.   Webber who started from pit lane,  tried a bonehead low percentage pass on Vergne's Toro Rosso and had to pit earlier than planned for a new nose.  During his service, Red Bull made yet another error on Webber's car and did not tighten the read right wheel which then came off, right in front of Vettel.
RBR seem to be in a bit of a Multi-21 daze.

Raikkonen also managed to mess up his nose and front wing when he ran into the back of a weaving Perez but did not change it in the pits with Lotus opting to keep track position.  Kimi showed aerodynamics who's boss  as he managed to keep Hamilton at bay for more than half the race.  "yes, yes, frontwingwhatever".  Brilliant and it makes you wonder how good the Lotus might have been with a complete front wing.

Hamilton's Mercedes did not live up to the promise of qualifying but Brawn's team have certainly made progress with that car. Hamilton had some great overtakes and great moments with both Kimi and Button. It's a new Lewis.



Pirelli's brief is to deal wild cards, well, that they did.  4 useful laps on the option tire must be a record of sorts. Not totally convinced about a race where so much is determined by tire performance delta.

However, as long as everyone's given the same lemons...  Let's see who will make the best lemonade in Bahrain in six days time.

results after the break

F1: Technical Developments Ahead Of The Chinese GP

Thanks Sky Sports...

Come qualifying who do you think will get the quicker rear wing at Red Bull, Vettel or Webber? Shocker.

2012 Chinese GP Executive Summary: Britney pops his cherry!

Cheap shot?  OK fine, truth is I can't find anything negative to say about any driver at the Chinese GP, not even Massa!

Aside from Nico Rosberg running away with it and essentially disappearing for  his first win in 111 starts, it was cracking race, more Moto GP than F1 at times. 

I lost track of all the passing and there was more wheel to wheel action in one GP than there have been in whole past seasons of racing.

The on track action, especially in the second half of the race was just bananas: wheel banging, three across passing yet it was all, with one notable exception, clean and beautiful to watch. Even back markers made no mistakes (come to think of it I don't think I saw an HRT on the broadcast at all!).

The race really was, more than ever, about tires.  Mercedes, the car that was hard on tires, won with a two stop strategy vs the three stops of Mclaren.

A bad tire stop knocked Schumacher out and another bad tire stop compromised Button's race.

Tire debris littered the wide Shanghai track turning into a narrow single car gully where a passing attempt meant almost a certain off.

Some cars worked well on a two stopper while others (Lotus) fell mercilessly off the cliff.

Rosberg had clean air and no fights,  key to his tires lasting. Mclarens had the pace to beat him, maybe, but Button's bad pit stop put him back in traffic and ruined his chances, Hamilton could not overcome his five spot penalty, again mostly because of traffic.

Vettel, made his strategy work, just. he should be happy with fifth from eleventh. Not so happy Webber blew by him on the outside on the last lap but Vettel could very easily have made that move much harder for the Australian but chose to gave him room. Again good driving by all.

Not so good Perez's move on his teammate Kobayashi.

Ferrari, Alonso really should have been fifth or sixth but he, lacking straight-line speed, had to resort to passing attempts in odd places and ended up in the marbles while trying Maldonado, an error that had him nearly collected by Perez in what would have been a big one.

Massa, well, he did what he could I think, a two stopper was a big ask for that package.

Williams, surprise of the day.

Raikkonen, other surprise, he was up to second when Lotus should really have called him in for tires. In the final laps Pirellis fell off the cliff and lost something like eight spots over two laps.  It was painful to watch but Kimi's back mentally, not even Hamilton could rattle him.

So, awesome race, enjoy the highlights.  Next week end the circus heads to Bahrain, where nobody wants to go but, I guess, the money's too good to pass up.

What's good for Mercedes is good for F1?

Photo: Carlos Lopez

Photo:Roberto Blank

Nico Rosberg is not the highest paid driver never to have scored a pole in Formula 1 anymore but he still is the highest paid driver not to have ever won a race and there lies the key to the 2012 Chinese GP tomorrow.

Thanks in part to clever plumbing the Mercedes W03 is super fast over a single run but so far it has gone nothing but backwards in race conditions. Rosberg not only scored pole but he destroyed the opposition by a half second, a huge gap in F1.

The grid will be unusual and will certainly make for interesting first laps, two Mercs, Kobayashi and Kimi? I might even wake up in the middle of the night to watch.

There was something quite curious in the final Q3 results: P6 through 9, Button, Webber, Perez and Alonso (P10 Grosjean chose not to run Q3)all went slower in Q3 than they did is Q2. That's quite strange, a small difference in air temperature and wind direction change cost some cars well over a half second (Button 2/10ths, Webber 6/10, Perez 7/10. Alonso 7/10)?

Did these drivers hedge their best and are doing a rain dance tonight?

The shocker of the session has got to be Vettel not making it into Q3, no smiled ar Red Bull for sure, except for Webber that is. Vettel reverting to a different exhaust configuration? almost sounds like panic or, dare I say it a possible hissy fit?

Now back to Mercedes, their first pole, first front row (Hamilton, P2 in qualifying, has a penalty for a gearbox change) since the days of Fangio. Great headlines, great PR, what a coincidence it came right around the time heavy rumblings from the M-B board about the lack of results. Does it take Oliver Stone to see a connection between the stewards hilarious finding on the legality of the Mercedes F-duct and the understandable desire to keep Mercedes happy?

The 2010 F-Duct was was banned, drivers cannot activate something that changes the balance of the car except for the rear wing DRS element. OK the latest Brawn cleverness is not independent of DRS but surely it's a driver activated device that is NOT just the rear wing element. That i was found to be legal is quite amusing.

That is not to take away from Rosberg's pole lap, pretty close to perfection I'd say.

Bunus points if you are still amazed how at the first corner, F1 cars can turn in at 300+ km/h at full throttle and scrub speed winding around around that Taijitu shaped complex.

Pos  Driver                Team                 Time          Gap   
 1.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m35.121s         
2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m35.626s  + 0.505
3.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m35.691s  + 0.570
4.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m35.784s  + 0.663
5.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault        1m35.898s  + 0.777
6.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m36.191s  + 1.070
7.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m36.290s  + 1.169
8.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m36.524s  + 1.403
9.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m36.622s  + 1.501
10.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault        No time
Q2 cut-off time: 1m35.831s                                   Gap **
11.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m36.031s  + 0.331
12.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m36.255s  + 0.555
13.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault     1m36.283s  + 0.583
14.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault     1m36.289s  + 0.589
15.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m36.317s  + 0.617
16.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes 1m36.745s  + 1.045
17.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m36.956s  + 1.256
Q1 cut-off time: 1m36.933s                                    Gap *
18.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m37.714s  + 1.516
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault     1m38.463s  + 2.265
20.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault     1m38.677s  + 2.479
21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth    1m39.282s  + 3.084
22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth    1m39.717s  + 3.519
23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth         1m40.411s  + 4.213
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m41.000s  + 4.802

107% time: 1m42.931s

* Gap to quickest in Q1

** Gap to quickest in Q2

Timing table via Autosport

2011 Chinese GP: Hamilton wins but it was Webber's race

I would have loved to see the look on Horner and Marko's faces when Webber passed Button on the second to last turn on the final lap but perhaps even more so when, during the press conference, he said he was happy someone beat his teammate! What an extraordinary thing to hear.
Not bad for a #2 driver again, after being put by the team on hard tires in Q1 Saturday, after again not having a working KERS (tell me again what good is KERS?). Webber deliverer a rather clear message to Red Bull:

Red Bull seemed to be a bit too convinced of its speed coming into the race. we mentioned they had done successful long stints in practice and that it looked like they would go for a 2 stopper. I suppose they figured they would have such an advantage between the car and Vettel running off after the start that they would be ok...bzzz wrong. Mclaren with Hamilton destroyed Vettel and the Red Bull brain trust today, what a performance by them. But for me, and many of you I'm sure, it was Webber's best race ever. Yes he had the right strategy, yes he's driving an RB7, but there was that fire that only comes to someone who eats red mist for breakfast. Frankly, Vettel may be world champion but I don't remember him putting in a performance like that ever. Go @aussiegrit!

I guess everyone loved the artificial tire degradation related passing, it sure made the job of putting together the usual Executive Summary long! enjoy.



home

Chinese GP practice

(photo: David Morecambe)

Results look awfully familiars, don't they? Aside from the oppressing smog cloud shrouding the Shanghai circuit and the complete lack of human beings on the stands, I found two tidbits of interest in this clip of Jenson Button's car:

Mclaren are running grills on the brake ducts, something I don't remember noticing before. Presumably, this is to keep that rolled up Pirelli rubber everyone seems to be (at least publicly) in denial about, out of the rotors.

Also from the relative ride height of the tea tray vs the sidepods, one might assume Mclaren it trying out Red Bull's raked set up.



font class="pre">

Pos  Driver                Team                   Time                Laps
1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m37.688s            34
2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m37.854s  + 0.166  22
3.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m37.935s  + 0.247  31
4.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m37.943s  + 0.255  34
5.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m38.105s  + 0.417  29
6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m38.507s  + 0.819  36
7.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes   1m38.735s  + 1.047  35
8.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault                1m38.805s  + 1.117  26
9.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault                1m38.859s  + 1.171  31
10.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m39.327s  + 1.639  33
11.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m39.538s  + 1.850  33
12.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth      1m39.667s  + 1.979  37
13.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m39.771s  + 2.083  18
14.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m39.779s  + 2.091  17
15.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m39.828s  + 2.140  25
16.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1m39.925s  + 2.237  32
17.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m39.953s  + 2.265  30
18.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault          1m40.476s  + 2.788  30
19.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault          1m41.482s  + 3.794  32
20.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m42.902s  + 5.214  25
21.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth           1m43.850s  + 6.162   3
22.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth        1m44.008s  + 6.320  35
23.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth        1m44.747s  + 7.059  12

All Timing Unofficial

end of post

Chinese Grand Prix Executive Summary.

First off, thank you for all the comments on the post below, as Bernie knows, controversy makes for entertainment! Now lets continue with the Hamilton bashing: Lewis had a fantastic race, all the best moves were his and he displayed a level of aggression and decisiveness in passing that is absent in most of the rest of the field. His passes on Vettel and Sutil and Schumacher the second time were career highlight material.

That being said, we are extremely happy Button is kicking his ass. Button, who everyone gave for dead at the start of the season, is becoming quite the 21st century Lauda. Shrewd in his calculations, starting with his switch away from Brawn, he has been tempered by years of crappy cars and has emerged cool as a cucumber. Hamilton, who has always had perfectly prepared cars from a top team his whole life is most definitively letting the pressure affect his judgement.

There is more than a good chance Alonso would have won today had he not jumped the start. He finished 11.8 seconds behind Button, his drive through penalty cost him 13.8 extra seconds in pit lane. Alonso made a hard pass on Massa into the pit lane (I'm expecting a rules clarification about where and how you can enter and exit pit lanes...). This was a clear assertion of alfa driver status for the team to pick up. Massa had been holding him back, again and that was clear punctuation by Fernando.

Vettel an Webber had lousy races, from front row to 6th and 8th but Kubica and Rosberg showed that Button's "no panic" 2 stop strategy was the way to go.

What can you say about Michael Schumacher? After qualifying he blamed a new wing which did not exist on Rosberg's car, now Mercedes is going to build hims a whole new chassis because his current one "... has an inherent flaw"? OK.






end of post

Baking the Ham

Let's jump right to the race incidents and open it up for discussion: Personally I find it incredible Hamilton, as brilliant as his race was, did not get penalized for at least one of the incidents he was involved in on Sunday. I guess having a steward who had been a Mclaren driver for six years as Alex Wurz was, helps!

In this clip he first decides to pretty much drive backwards to the pit entrance, cutting across the runoff area and the gravel trap. Apparently that's allowed now.

Then the most egregious incident, the pit lane insanity with Vettel. Again to my surprise, you are allowed to enter the pit lane outside of the white lines and even pass (this goes for Alonso too). OK fine but there is no excuse for what happened as the cars were released. Vettel is in the lane and in front of Hamilton and had the right of way. As soon as Hamilton loses traction and position he should have realized he wasn't going to get out fist. But no, he kept going in the mechanic's area. As CG said, there should be a poll among the pit crews to see if they would rather waterboard him or just go straight for decapitation...

Finally the last restart, this was probably more Button's fault for bunching the field like that but Hamilton clearly dive bombs and nerfs Webber out of his way, maybe not illegal as the incident happens what I'm assuming is the "Safety Car Line" mentioned in the sporting regulations but very certainly very much like what all the people singing his praises spent years criticizing Schumacher for...

Discuss.




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F-Duct that...

I guess the biggest surprise in qualifying was seeing Alonso ahead of the Mclarens on a track where the top speed potential of Button's and Hamilton's cars was supposed to be key. Of course the race is another story especially if the Mclarens get in front.

With rain in the forecast it will be interesting to see who can thread the needle best since all top 10's times indicate nobody has chosen any kind of compromised "rain"setup.

The race to the first corner, who do you think will win it?

Pos  Driver         Team                  Q1        Q2        Q3
 1.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault      1:36.317  1:35.280  1:34.558
 2.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault      1:35.978  1:35.100  1:34.806
 3.  Alonso         Ferrari               1:35.987  1:35.235  1:34.913
 4.  Rosberg        Mercedes              1:35.952  1:35.134  1:34.923
 5.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1:36.122  1:35.443  1:34.979
 6.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes      1:35.641  1:34.928  1:35.034
 7.  Massa          Ferrari               1:36.076  1:35.290  1:35.180
 8.  Kubica         Renault               1:36.348  1:35.550  1:35.364
 9.  Schumacher     Mercedes              1:36.484  1:35.715  1:35.646
10.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes  1:36.671  1:35.665  1:35.963
11.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth     1:36.664  1:35.748
12.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1:36.618  1:36.047
13.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1:36.793  1:36.149
14.  Petrov         Renault               1:37.031  1:36.311
15.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari        1:37.044  1:36.422
16.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth     1:37.049  1:36.647
17.  de la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari        1:37.050  1:37.020
18.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes  1:37.161
19.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth       1:39.278
20.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth        1:39.399
21.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth        1:39.520
22.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth       1:39.783
23.  Senna          HRT-Cosworth          1:40.469
24.  Chandhok       HRT-Cosworth          1:40.578

All Timing Unofficial

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More on Buemi's crash.

Some isolated shots and more super slow motion video of the incredible Toro Rosso double suspension failure. The right side upright failed but the force was immediately transferred to the other side of the suspension, the stills are one frame apart so within 1/30th of a second and you can clearly see both sides have collapsed.

Not sure why this incredible transfer of energy would occur, that will be up to those more familiar with the specific suspension design. I would venture to say though is that a design which allows this to happen cannot be deemed safe.

Another thing you might notice is in the very last onboard replay. You can hear the car was scraping and skipping on the pavement well before the failure occurred, listen for the sound.

Again, the failure of the tethering is most troubling (remember what happened to Henry Surtees). In one of these replays you can clearly see the cameramen likely ducked for his life as the right side wheel slams into the camera position.












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Insane Suspension Failure

This was Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi just a few laps into the first practice session in Shanghai.
I can't recall ever seeing anything like this. Maybe Kimi Raikkonen's suspension failure with Mclaren, but that was just one side and after running many laps with a square wheel. This was just incredible, Buemi is very lucky.

Another thing to add is...what happened to the wheel tethers? the right wheel looks like it end up nailing one of the the cameras.

Toto Rosso says it's the upright that failed. From the video it looks like it was the carbon fiber arms that failed and the failure of two "aluminum" upright/hubs at the same time seems impossible. Readers need to help me out here, I remember F1 teams were running or at least experimenting with a front axle system that distributed braking torque between the wheels. Might that explain why both sides failed simultaneously?





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Alonso getting all F-Duct'd

Commenting on new aero developments Ferrari will bring to China this week end, Fernando Alonso said they "will be very useful" on the long straight of the Shanghai circuit raising speculations that Ferrari will be the second team to copy Mclaren's clever blow wing. Sauber tested a version in Australia but did not use it in the race.

It will be interesting to see if Ferrari make it work as one would imagine the system has to be integrated with the rest of the car's aerodynamics and represents quite an effort in terms of manufacturing effort for an away race. LaSexta reports that only Alonso will get the new bits to try, if they work and he uses them in the race there will be one unhappy Brazilian in the paddock.
(la Sexta/Mediaset)




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