Car & Bike Formula1 2013 disscusion

Who do you think will win this year's Championship

  • Kimi Raikkonen

    Votes: 31 41.3%

  • Fernando Alonso

    Votes: 13 17.3%

  • Sebastian Vettel

    Votes: 23 30.7%

  • Felipe Massa

    Votes: 3 4.0%

  • Lewis Hamilton

    Votes: 5 6.7%

  • Mark Webber

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Jenson Button

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Romain Grosjean

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Sergio Perez

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Nico Rosberg

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    75
  • Poll closed .
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Nice write up @prabs

I saw Qualifying and Ferrari were struggling badly there. The pace seemed a bit better today with both Massa and Alfons making up places.

TBH I was rooting for a British driver to win and also had a smile when Vettel stopped especially after Lewis' puncture.

All the tyre blowups were ridiculous but it did give a really good race. Was also glad to see a good turn out for the race since I would rather see tracks like Silverstone than some of the other lousy new tracks.

It was also good to see Webbers late charge but could have done without some of his usual whining.

Looking forward to consecutive weekends of races :D
 
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Another disappointing race for Kimi fans. I wonder how is it that he can't even overtake Toro Rossos and Force Indias, whereas others can do it as if they are on quad DRS. It was a golden opportunity to get some good points. This car is no longer a championship car and Lotus seem to have fallen back. The season is degenerating.
 
Only a reprimand for Nico... so the result stands.

It was a crazy race, tyres blowing off randomly and Seb's transmission failure was a bummer. Let's see what Pirelli does for the German GP. Fingers crossed!
 
bottle said:
Kimi did say that their new passive DRS system was a failure but he was willing to take the risk, maybe next race without it will be better
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Deja Vu isn't it? Last year it was the same story they invested in a part that was pronounced a failure and were left struggling.

Looking at Romain I just wish they had focused on Kimi from the word go instead of trying to fix Romain's car. The way Romain drives I am sure he would have been a failure in a RBR 2011 in 2011.
 
forcabarca said:
Let's see what Pirelli does for the German GP.
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No chance for anything in one week for sure, maybe the next race because that's a solid month away from today. They'd have already started prep and manufacturing for that race. It'll be a miracle if they can switch this late, tyres have to be at venue on Thursday - that's three days from now.

They're talking of either 2012 construction, or a totally new construction. The protos failed on Friday IINM, so not much light at the end of that tunnel.

FWIW when the contracts for 2012 2011 were being drawn up manufacturers were told that tyres would need to degrade at a certain rate per lap - about 8% performance drop (Dry grip). At least two manufacturers refused to even submit a proposal document because of this stipulation, as this would lead to severe safety issues and that the tyre would be the only component in the entire car that would be designed to operate at less than maximum performance.

The fact is that the racing has become more exciting, but also very dangerous. It is a lot more fun and unpredictable to watch, but the teams and drivers are fairly concerned because it's a bit like a circus - the animals jumping through hoops are uncomfortable but he crowds love it.

If Silverstone can do this, imagine what happens at Monza after 6 times around Parabolica.
 
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Paul Hembrey says they'll bring in changes for the German GP. He says the new bonding process is not at fault. These Pirellis are making F1 boring, it's more like "tyre management" and not racing.
 
http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2013/6/14743.html

Not what he says here, so not sure where you got the 'changes' from.

They're saying they need to identify the cause before the next race so if it's a tyre pressure, setup or kerbing issue it can be accounted for (Appropriate next steps, in his words). Supply chain cannot turn around (22 x 4 x 24 tyres) in three days.

Each car requires 6 sets each (3 for Friday and Saturday morning, 3 for balance of weekend) of 4 kinds of tyres (2 dry compounds, 2 wet compounds) for the entire race weekend. Setups have to be done keeping similar construction in mind, you cannot mix 2012 dry tyres with 2013 wet tyres. Doesn't work.
 
I saw his interview after the race and he said they'll investigate and bring in changes for the German GP. But it's a different and cooler circuit. Degradation may not be high.
If you look closely most of the cars were running with high negative camber at the British GP. This could cause problems for the inside of the tyres too.
I don't think we'll see a major change in the tyres for the next race though.
 
Just saw the documentary - 'The Real James Hunt'. I really hope Kimi doesn't end up like his idol.

F1 at the moment is a joke. Pirelli is in a real fix even though the main culprit here is the FIA. Pirelli built tyres according to the specifications that they were given. It is possible that they (Pirelli) might have gone a bit overboard to make the races exciting and in turn made it dangerous for the drivers.

So far teams like Red Bull, Mercedes have slammed Pirelli for the rate at which the tyre degraded. If Pirelli were to change them teams like Lotus and Ferrari opposed.

In the current situation Pirelli might get the nod to fix the tyres in turn changing the tyres which might cause the advantage to shift to a different team and putting another team at a disadvantage it might also lead to a situation like last year where the start of the season was completely unpredictable.

Whatever happens there is nothing that Pirelli can do for the next race or fix the damage that their brand has suffered due to their participation in F1. Pirelli to some extent had this coming as well iirc they wanted to be sole tyre suppliers in F1 and wanted no competition. May be if there was another manufacturer, neither party would have nodded to making these horrible tyres.
 
forcabarca said:
But it's a different and cooler circuit. Degradation may not be high.
If you look closely most of the cars were running with high negative camber at the British GP. This could cause problems for the inside of the tyres too.
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Good points both. Also, we don't have a single high-speed corner in Nurburgring, whereas there are three in Silverstone, so loading will be much lower.

I worry for the fronts though, with two very severe braking zones. But we'll see.

Edit: Apparently they did have a bunch of the Kevlar-belted tyres prepared for Canada so those will make an appearance this weekend before being replaced completely for Budapest.
 
For those blasting Pirelli, please understand that it is much, much harder to make a tyre that degrades purposely and at a specified rate. It's even more difficult than making a durable tyre. If anyone is to be blamed it is the FIA, but don't knock them yet. In the three years that Pirelli have been in the sport, racing has become much more exciting.

In every year the GP has been held drivers and teams have been fighting some resource or the other. Power, grip, aero, fuel, everything has been a challenge at some point or the other. The racing since 2010 has been designed to be exciting, it definitely has been much better as a spectator sport. Think back to the Bridgestone era, one guy would go fastest on Saturday and then he would win because overtaking was impossible and everybody's tyres degraded slowly and at the same rate. Racing was more boring then, even though it was maybe purer.

Do I like it? Not necessarily but it's better than having no F1 at all, which would have been the case had this situation lasted another few years. If you think about it, apart from Ferrari, Williams, Sauber and McLaren, the rest of the field has totally changed since 2009 (though a lot of the people remain the same, I admit). Big tobacco money no longer funds the sport, so they are doing a lot more with a lot less resources. We could do with a lot less whining.
 
Like I said before Pirelli made tyres as per the specifications handed to them by FIA but should have known where to draw the line.

More Overtaking does not necessarily mean better racing or exciting racing.

I think the way regulations are being changed it will shift the balance anyway in 2014. Remember 2005 - the changes got rid of Ferrari's dominance and the constant and gradual changes helped shift power to Red Bull. The sport has always been who can best adapt to changes and over the last few years the team to do that is Red Bull.

I don't think the season of 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2008 was boring at all. They didn't have stuff like Poor Tyres, Kers and DRS. What it had were some really skillful drivers in cars that could be driven at their maximum potential.
 
Yeah, a good day for all those who were disappointed with the previous race. You know which drivers I'm talking about ;) Kimi was damn close; the late tyre change was exciting.
 
bottle said:
Quite a good race today :p
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+1

@Renegade @blkrb0t - We should really rename this thread to 'Kimi Fan Club of 2013' ;)

Truth be told I feel a bit gutted for Romain. I think he could have taken the fight to Sebastien but considering his position in the championship he knew he would have to give way sooner or later.
On the other hand - There are 2 more possibilities had Nico co-operated with Lewis and allowed him to pass and held back Kimi.
1. I have observed that Lewis gets restless when he wants to get past and doesn't think of the tyres and in the process destroying them at times. Here he did just that. Had Nico not messed with him his tyres would have been in good shape and he would have benefited from the Safe Car as well thus pushing Kimi off the podium.
2. Nico slows down to let Lewis by and accidentally leaves the door open for Kimi as well. Kimi continues to fight Lewis till the safety car and even after the that. Kimi makes a pitstop and moves to medium compound alongwith the front runners. Fred moves to soft late in the race and overtakes Kimi as he struggled to get past Lewis and then Lewis who has worn out his tyres defending from Kimi.

We should all thank Nico for today's race.
 
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I was rooting for Romain as well to take his first win but I don't think he had it in him. He just wasn't as aggressive as Kimi was
 
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