51 replies to this topic

[freaky2]

Watching Fox "En vivo", the guys sound Argentinian. Reminds me of the "good" old days when F1 started in Spain... half the radio transmissions are completely guessed

On the other hand, well done Alonso! I guess the grip problems for Hammy were real.

[freaky2]

Another well done! Doing great so far, McLarens are not up to his game!

[LabradoRacer]

Great action between Alonso, Hammy & Button at the start. You sense that Alonso's pushing beyond his & his car's limits.

I hope the Indian GP is cancelled after this one. Unbelievable smog. Can hardly see anything.

[LabradoRacer]

I wish Schumi would just dive into the pits. What's the point of trundling along?

[LabradoRacer]

Vettel's got it in control.

No complaints from anyone else about the smog?

[LabradoRacer]

Hamilton complained he lost a lot of time lapping Schumi. LOLOLOLOLOLOL

[LabradoRacer]

The Toro Rossos having a field day puncutring others' tyres.

[LabradoRacer]

LabradoRacer, on 28 October 2012 - 10:02 AM, said:

Hamilton complained he lost a lot of time lapping Schumi. LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Well, Schumi's under investigation for ignorning blue flags.

[LabradoRacer]

Seems Vettel is in cruise mode. Sensible.

[LabradoRacer]

Webber's KERS issue helped Nando.

[LabradoRacer]

Webber will miss out on podium.

[LabradoRacer]

Schumi in pits on lap 57 of 60? WTF?!

Edit: Game over.

Edited by LabradoRacer, 28 October 2012 - 11:01 AM.

[LabradoRacer]

So Vettel doubles his lead. #3 comes nearer.

Race pace of top 3 teams even stevens. Still, RBR has the upper hand because of their qualifying strength.

[Quiet One]

Missed the live broadcast so I just watched the race now.. As said, great action at the start, then it was just another day for Vettel. Too bdas, because the other guys were racing their wheels off.

I still like the track, even if it looks awful with the smog and lack of landscape features. Boring as Monaco could have been, it compensated the lack of glamour and famous buildings with the midfield battles. For a boring race, I'd rather watch Senna, Hulkenberg and company fighting for entertainment than the yatchs at Monaco bay.

[Quiet One]

Re: the Vettel qualifying issue.

I got my hopes up when I read about it, but watching the video I can't see anything wrong with it. You really need to dissect each thousanth of a second to even find the moment he left the track, not to mention whether there was actually any gain from that. Totally irrelevant, in my opinion. His P1 was legit.

[Villathomas]

At this rate, I think Vettel will win the next two races; therefore clinching the title before Brazil. Alonso will do well to take it to Brazil. However, I really don't like Alonso and Hamilton saying that Vettel's success is purely down to superior machinery, Sebastian still has to work hard to put the car on pole and beat the oppostion, if it was as easy as they say then why isn't Webber winning every race? Personally I think Hamilton is jealous that Seb is able to convert the quickest car into race victories, something McLaren failed to do in the first 10-12 races.

Not the best race today, but really enjoyable battle between Jenson, Alonso and Hamilton and the start, showing Perez, Maldonado, Kobayashi, Grosjean etc how its done.

Frustrated for Kimi Raikkonen today though, Had a quick car, but the new 'Coanda' exhaust power reduction made him unable to do anything. I feel Lotus could've done more this year to give him a better shot at the title.

[Quiet One]

Villathomas, on 28 October 2012 - 08:17 PM, said:

At this rate, I think Vettel will win the next two races; therefore clinching the title before Brazil. Alonso will do well to take it to Brazil. However, I really don't like Alonso and Hamilton saying that Vettel's success is purely down to superior machinery,

I am not sure what the Hamilton's comments were, but I am pretty sure that all Alonso said was that they are not just  racing Seb, but Seb and Newey.Problem is, most sites only quote the first part of the sentence where he says "Now we are fighting against a Newey car". The rest of the reply clearly explain his POV, which I think ialso explains why everybody 'fails' to recognize that Vettel is the next big thing despite breaking becords at a Schmacheresque pace. It's a sad story of overpowered cars...the same thing that happened with Schumacher, btw.

What Alonso adds afterwards is the  very obvious thing that if it were down to Vettel's greatness then Webber should not have improved as much as he did (which is in fact more than Vettel did...coming from nowhere to secure three P2 starts in as many races and after 6 races with no finishes above 5th and as low as 20th.)

Three front grid lockouts from RBR show that the car has vastly improved. Differences of half a second per lap in practice qualifying and race being so common from them, it's hard to see were Vettel is doing the big difference, apart of being obviously better than Mark *sigh*

Look at Schumi now, there's a lesson there on what happens when you don't have a 2004 Ferrari under your arse. At least Schumi had the chance of proving himself in the 90s.

Don't get me wrong (or any of the 'not so thrilled about Vettel' crowd), Seb is good, no doubt about it. Alonso says exactly that, btw. I would even agree if you said that 'good' is an understatement and 'great' would be fairer. Just not as great as the numbers show. He isn't winning just because of the past races. He has always given his best to stay in touch with Alonso in the championship, otherwise he wouldn't have been there now. Some of his drives from the mid grid were pretty good this year, something we all doubted he could do. He rarely makes mistakes, and when he does he can amend them quite as fast. All of those are  very commendable qualities and without a doubt, he is one of the trio of champions that emerged in this superseason, just not the one that shone the most this year, and IMO not even the second. The first is, of course Alonso (hey, I am an Alonso fan, what do you expect from me? ) and the second being Hamilton, although I think that is more open to objections (Vettel being more regular in his performances and Hamilton making his usual mix between 'brilliant' and 'abysmal', although clearly geared towards the first ones this year)

Just my opinion.

Villathomas, on 28 October 2012 - 08:17 PM, said:

Frustrated for Kimi Raikkonen today though, Had a quick car, but the new 'Coanda' exhaust power reduction made him unable to do anything. I feel Lotus could've done more this year to give him a better shot at the title.

Kimi vs Massa was the weirdest act of cold war I've ever seen on a track. Kimi was never farther away than a second from Massa, at least not for long yet unable to even make a dive except in a single ocasion on 60 laps? Last time I've seen such a puzzling performance was my guy against Petrov on that infamous 2010 last race.
BTW Massa in one of his best performances in a long long time. Not because he did much in terms of actual results, but for a guy so emotionally fragile as to break over a single order on the radio for 2 years, being able to cope with a menacing Lotus occupying all your mirrors for the whole race, yet not putting a single foot wrong is quite a huge accomplishment

[Ikyrotz]

Quiet One, on 28 October 2012 - 09:17 PM, said:

Kimi vs Massa was the weirdest act of cold war I've ever seen on a track. Kimi was never farther away than a second from Massa, at least not for long yet unable to even make a dive except in a single ocasion on 60 laps? Last time I've seen such a puzzling performance was my guy against Petrov on that infamous 2010 last race.

I think it's quite obvious: Ferrari was over 10 km/h faster on the straights. It's pretty much impossible to overtake then (even with DRS) unless the car in front of you makes a mistake, and like you pointed out, kudos to Massa for not making a mistake.

[Quiet One]

Ikyrotz, on 29 October 2012 - 06:21 AM, said:

I think it's quite obvious: Ferrari was over 10 km/h faster on the straights. It's pretty much impossible to overtake then (even with DRS) unless the car in front of you makes a mistake, and like you pointed out, kudos to Massa for not making a mistake.

Yes, that part I understood. I mean that it was strange from Kimi not to feint a dive in for an overtake, or do one of those manoeuvres used to unsettle the guy in front into some driving error. After all, it was Massa ahead, that guy from the "Massa's kerbs" precisely at India, maybe Massa would have coped with the pressure, but history says otherwise

I just found it strange that Kimi didn't try to force that error.

[Rainmaster]

Andres is right about Kimi, but of course without the option of a radio call Felipe can be hard to get past

Very boring race, this one. But glad to see Vettel drove the wheels off a recalcitrant car and crushed his inferior competitors once again.



On the whole "dominant car" thing which is coming up again. My main issue with these arguments, even as someone who thinks Alonso is the best driver in F1, is that I still think Vettel would give him such a hard time in the same car. If Alonso is a 9.5 then Vettel is, to me, at worst an 9. It's not like Timo Glock is going to win the title. That would be annoying if he just happened to luck into a completely dominant car. It's not even as annoying as if say Webber was going to win it or Massa or Button. There's an incredibly small difference between Alonso and Vettel and Hamilton, and either of them winning it is absolutely fine by me because they are the best three drivers.

To me, the amount that Vettel winning a title over Alonso is annoying is directly proportionate to the amount I think Alonso is better than Vettel, and that is a very small amount. But this all comes down to whether you think we have three top drivers in F1 (Vet, Ham, Alo), two (usually people would say Alo and Ham), or if you think we have one top driver in an absolute class of one at the front (Alonso in this case), as you might argue Casey Stoner has been in MotoGP or maybe Fangio was in the 50's, or Usain Bolt is, etc. Personally, I don't think Alonso is in a class of one at all even if I think he has had the best performance level this season, but if you thought that, I would understand why you'd be annoyed at this year or Vettel's records. Other than that, I don't get it. Don't be annoyed by the fact Vettel is winning; he's a really good driver. Be annoyed by the fact Ferrari are not working to their best potential, hiring the best designers, making sure their wind tunnel works, motivating their staff by hiring a decent number 2 driver, etc. Place the frustration with the right people (and that's exactly what Alonso is doing with his Newey quote, btw, sending a message to Ferrari).

Edited by Rainmaster, 30 October 2012 - 01:57 PM.

[Quiet One]

Rainmaster, on 30 October 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

Andres is right about Kimi, but of course without the option of a radio call Felipe can be hard to get past

Very boring race, this one. But glad to see Vettel drove the wheels off a recalcitrant car and crushed his inferior competitors once again.



On the whole "dominant car" thing which is coming up again. My main issue with these arguments, even as someone who thinks Alonso is the best driver in F1, is that I still think Vettel would give him such a hard time in the same car. If Alonso is a 9.5 then Vettel is, to me, at worst an 9. It's not like Timo Glock is going to win the title. That would be annoying if he just happened to luck into a completely dominant car. It's not even as annoying as if say Webber was going to win it or Massa or Button. There's an incredibly small difference between Alonso and Vettel and Hamilton, and either of them winning it is absolutely fine by me because they are the best three drivers.

To me, the amount that Vettel winning a title over Alonso is annoying is directly proportionate to the amount I think Alonso is better than Vettel, and that is a very small amount. But this all comes down to whether you think we have three top drivers in F1 (Vet, Ham, Alo), two (usually people would say Alo and Ham), or if you think we have one top driver in an absolute class of one at the front (Alonso in this case), as you might argue Casey Stoner has been in MotoGP or maybe Fangio was in the 50's, or Usain Bolt is, etc. Personally, I don't think Alonso is in a class of one at all even if I think he has had the best performance level this season, but if you thought that, I would understand why you'd be annoyed at this year or Vettel's records. Other than that, I don't get it. Don't be annoyed by the fact Vettel is winning; he's a really good driver. Be annoyed by the fact Ferrari are not working to their best potential, hiring the best designers, making sure their wind tunnel works, motivating their staff by hiring a decent number 2 driver, etc. Place the frustration with the right people (and that's exactly what Alonso is doing with his Newey quote, btw, sending a message to Ferrari).

Frustration is with regards the entertainment value, not Vettel's success (IMHO) which I tried to recognize in each of my posts (albeit grudgingly so )

[Rainmaster]

Oh I know you rightly differentiate between entertainment and worthiness, don't get me wrong. And it wasn't aimed at you in particular. It's just a matter of the tone of posts after a Vettel win and I wanted to make my position clear. Sometimes it sounds like Vettel winning a third championship would be some kind of massive injustice to driving standards and the sport, and I just wanted to point out that at worst imo he's the third best driver in this very talented grid. And if he is the third best driver I still don't think that's an absolute, I still think he's better than Alonso and Hamilton in different areas, so it's very close. Also there's a big perception difference in say Alonso and Vettel's performances and actions. For example, imagine swapping Alonso and Vettel's seats this year so Alonso was in the Red Bull and Vettel in the Ferrari. You might find you had people talking about how Red Bull's recent run of form was a result of Alonso's technical development skills and motivational abilities; no such talk for Vettel, though. Obviously, I am not making that argument but just thinking that perhaps our perception of them from the outset is inaccurate and it's very difficult to get away from that.

Time will tell in the end.