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HandyNZL

The Unofficial Officially Official Unofficial Official Sepang Grand Prix Thread Of The 2010 Grand Prix Of Malaysia In Malaysia

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Well, Nathan has nudged me for the Sepang report. Luckily tickets for flights to Malaysia on such short notice are readily available, and all I had to pay extra was my daughters stash of Easter Eggs...so hopefully everyone is happy that a little girl is going without chocolate this Easter so her daddy can wing his way to the scene of monsoons and ice creams.

This year expects to deliver yet another fantastic dialogue from Martin and Jonathan. It also expects to deliver yet another car crossing the finish line before all others.

The questions that will be asked this weekend:

Will Nico continue to set the pace against MS or will the old dog learn a new trick?

Will Hamster bounce back against Button, or will he still be a grinchy grump in the c#ckpit?

Will Alonso play second fiddle to Massa, being that this is Massa's favourite Malaysian track?

Will both Trulli and Kovi make it to the finish line?

What lap will the Virgins run out of fuel?

Can Chandhok manage a second race distance, and if so, how many laps behind will he be?

Will Kubica make it inside the top five this race? Will Petrov make it to half way?

Has Kobyashi-san packed more than one front wing for the weekend? Has de la Rosa realised he is racing yet?

Can Vettel break anything else on lusty liz this weekend? She is obviously is not into being ridden hard...

Which STR will take up a starring role in holding up grumpy old men?

Can the other Nico finish his first race, and can the other old man of the grid find his zimmer frame in time for the race start?

Can Force India convert some pace into a points haul?

Will a little girl get some chocolate?

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What driver will win the Most Embarrasing, c#cky, Funny... pit radio Award?

Massa, Hamilton, Alonso... respectively?

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What driver will win the Most Embarrasing, c#cky, Funny... pit radio Award?

Massa, Hamilton, Alonso... respectively?

Alonso and Hami tied in it again! damn.....why the sometimes leave us fans to fight over who is the best.. :P

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My concern for this race is that RBR may "sugest" Vetel to drive a more conservative race in order to bring the car home, that would be a "good" advise from the team given that they want to stop comments like those from Lauda but it would not be good for the competition or the show, he has been the dominant driver in the first two race and given that(as far as I know) no big development is expected from any team in this race, he is suppose to keep the upper hand once again that is, if he is allow to drive the way he've been doing.

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Yeahhh! I have such high expectations for this weekend!!!!! I can't wait until...oh, Handy's doing the report?

Meh, I'd rather watch some football.

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All I know is Webber could do with a good weekend, and Hamilton could do with re-asserting his authority over Button before he gains too much momentum.

I see Vettel on pole again, and if he happens to break down again it will be criminally bad luck and poor reliability from Red Bull*.

*and why am I seeing mutterings about Vettel's driving style causing the break downs? This was barely an acceptable excuse for poor reliability in decades past, it certainly isn't in modern F1 where every tenth counts more so than ever. Do people really expect Vettel not to push when he is a leading a race?! The scope is not there to drive like an Alain Prost these days, nor is it needed with such durable tyres. If people need to focus their blame for RB's poor reliability on a single person, then perhaps Adrian Newey is a better place to look (he has previous, after all).

Mild rant over.

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All I know is Webber could do with a good weekend, and Hamilton could do with re-asserting his authority over Button before he gains too much momentum.

Agree, Mark isn't the best when the pressure is on reasons for this are and tell me if I'm smoking crack but here they are: Seemed to drop off the Championship chase last year when he was in reach of Jenson, and now this year nothing short of a poor showing in Bahrain and Melbourne. Bahrian poor qualy lap in Q3 while Seb puts the thing on pole with a great lap whilst Mark messes it up to start 6th. Then the pressure of his home race, seemed to send him crazy in the race all set off by Red Bull being slow to react to get off the inters.

Time to step up and be counted.

*and why am I seeing mutterings about Vettel's driving style causing the break downs?

Mike's favourite subject!!!!

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Here goes again:

Will Nico continue to set the pace against MS or will the old dog learn a new trick? - Nico to pwn the old timer

Will Hamster bounce back against Button, or will he still be a grinchy grump in the c#ckpit? - You never know with Hamilton, 1 week he'll hate Whitmarsh, the next he'll be humping his leg.

Will Alonso play second fiddle to Massa, being that this is Massa's favourite Malaysian track? - What other Malaysian tracks are there??

Will both Trulli and Kovi make it to the finish line? - Nah Virgin FTW!!

What lap will the Virgins run out of fuel? - 50, by which time they'll lose their rear wing.

Can Chandhok manage a second race distance, and if so, how many laps behind will he be? - 6

Will Kubica make it inside the top five this race? Will Petrov make it to half way? - Yes & yes.

Has Kobyashi-san packed more than one front wing for the weekend? Has de la Rosa realised he is racing yet? - No & no :(

Can Vettel break anything else on lusty liz this weekend? She is obviously is not into being ridden hard... - No comment.

Which STR will take up a starring role in holding up grumpy old men? - Jaime to star in Eddie's new show, alongside Jezza/

Can the other Nico finish his first race, and can the other old man of the grid find his zimmer frame in time for the race start? - Hope so & yes.

Can Force India convert some pace into a points haul? - Yes if it rains.

Will a little girl get some chocolate? - Of course, unless Kimi is there in which he'll smack the poor child in the face cuasing her chocolate bar to fall causing the girl to have a tantrum.

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*and why am I seeing mutterings about Vettel's driving style causing the break downs? This was barely an acceptable excuse for poor reliability in decades past, it certainly isn't in modern F1 where every tenth counts more so than ever. Do people really expect Vettel not to push when he is a leading a race?! The scope is not there to drive like an Alain Prost these days, nor is it needed with such durable tyres. If people need to focus their blame for RB's poor reliability on a single person, then perhaps Adrian Newey is a better place to look (he has previous, after all).

I remember drivers being too hard on the tyres/brakes that ultimately caused a mechanical failure but I don't think it's been Vettel's case. RBR6 problems have nothing to do with Vettel's driving style but in case he were outdriving the car and breaking it, which it seems Webber is not doing, then the problem is the car being too weak. Raikkonen had problems on that matter in McLaren although he sometimes pushed harder than required as it happened in Nurburgring 2005.

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Wheeeeeeee!!! Its Handy!

Loving this thread already! To answer if a little girl will get some chocolate... are you offering me sweeties, mr stranger? My mum said never to take sweets off a stranger. My mum also said that Santa Claus wasn't real. What a bitch, eh!

So, looking forward to your unofficially official report. Thank you, that is all.

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I wanted a comletely dry weekend this time. mad.gif

Give me a wet GP any day, variable conditions even better. Just as long as it’s not torrential storms like what stopped the 2009 GP mid race.

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Pre Race News:

The weather is calm, a few sirrius clouds in the sky, but mainly blue skies overhead, and the sun is setting in the west. At least that whats outside my window as I type...as for Malaysia...well...I'm no there am I, so how am I supposed to know? Hrmmm??? Maybe I could use this new fan dangled inter webby thing and oogle the weather or something - I hear it's possible in this "information age" I've been hearing we're living in. If it's the damn information age, how come kids of today haven't been informed that "dat" and "dis" are not words?

It looks as though Friday is going to be thunderstorms. Saturday is thunderstorms. Sunday is thunderstorms. Monday is a few thunderstorms. Tuesday is thunderstorms. Chances are we will bear witness to a race to the dinner line queue at the start/finish line once again, to hopefully be sitting at the front as the clock ticks down to 2-hours, to claim 12.5 points.

Can anyone stand Jonathan prattling on again for an hour or so about nothing much in particular? If not, join the queue of lemmings over there and we can all jump off a cliff together.

Considering that it is going to be wet, your intrepid reporter has collated another itinerary for your viewing pleasure.

For those of you in Australia, you won't want to miss out on a thrilling installment of Two and a Half Men on Nine, followed by Getaway, so you can see what an exotic location overseas might actually look like in the sunshine.

Heading further west, to our number one Kimi fan, Bradley, South African TV has Agape III on SABC 1 - no idea what that is myself, but it's on not long after Ben 10. Perhaps Bradley Boy can fill us in...

For those hanging out in China, you can tune into your preferred government censored television programming of your choice. Just don't go Googling anything...you might find yourself up for execution for dabbling in the information age for yourself.

In the "motherland", with all her bad fashion taste, mothball smells and blue hair, you can tune into BBC 2 and find out what Prince d#ck has in his stinky stocking, or just wait till 7pm when the BBC's other channels start showing anything....pfft...call that technologically advanced? But then again, you guys did come up with a myriad of engines that no matter how good you make your gasket seals, no matter how good you torque your bolts, you still have a pool of oil on the garage floor...

Over in the Altered States of America, you can watch Cowboy Bebop on the Cartoon Network, and reveal in the historical reflections of the wild west in a modern day cartoon. If that is not your thing, be sure not to miss CSI: Miami on A&E, or Doctor Who on the BBC US station.

Till later me hearties....Captain Feathersword over and unders....ciao

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Will Nico continue to set the pace against MS or will the old dog learn a new trick?

Will Hamster bounce back against Button, or will he still be a grinchy grump in the c#ckpit?

Will Alonso play second fiddle to Massa, being that this is Massa's favourite Malaysian track?

Will both Trulli and Kovi make it to the finish line?

What lap will the Virgins run out of fuel?

Can Chandhok manage a second race distance, and if so, how many laps behind will he be?

Will Kubica make it inside the top five this race? Will Petrov make it to half way?

Has Kobyashi-san packed more than one front wing for the weekend? Has de la Rosa realised he is racing yet?

Can Vettel break anything else on lusty liz this weekend? She is obviously is not into being ridden hard...

Which STR will take up a starring role in holding up grumpy old men?

Can the other Nico finish his first race, and can the other old man of the grid find his zimmer frame in time for the race start?

Can Force India convert some pace into a points haul?

Will a little girl get some chocolate?

I quite literally laughed out loud. Twice. I can't wait for your report!

*and why am I seeing mutterings about Vettel's driving style causing the break downs? This was barely an acceptable excuse for poor reliability in decades past, it certainly isn't in modern F1 where every tenth counts more so than ever. Do people really expect Vettel not to push when he is a leading a race?! The scope is not there to drive like an Alain Prost these days, nor is it needed with such durable tyres. If people need to focus their blame for RB's poor reliability on a single person, then perhaps Adrian Newey is a better place to look (he has previous, after all).

Fascinating. You have the solution right there in your post but you apparently can't connect it. Shall I help you out? Ok. My argument has always been that you need to gain as much points as you can to win the championship. That means that if you're driving a Newey car you must realize (as we all do) that it's fragile and you only get points if you finish the race. That means that you if you don't need to drive the wheels off, then don't. Now I'm not saying that Vettel is causing the problems, but then again, he might be.

When you say 'This was barely an acceptable excuse for poor reliability in decades past' you are being foolish. There are literally hundreds of articles and books out there with quotes from drivers and teams of any decade you care to name that would say you must take care of your machine as much as you must push it. Good drivers, like Alonso and Mikey the Schu (to name two on the current grid) know this full well and you have 9 championships between them as proof.

And every tenth counting....true, but in what race did Vettel really need to push harder? He had a comfortable lead in both races and could have backed off his pace a bit. Vettel has already lost 38 points because of reliability issues (issues that Webber, strangely enough, hasn't had). The jury is still out on Vettel, but the prosecution is looking strong....

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I quite literally laughed out loud. Twice. I can't wait for your report!

Fascinating. You have the solution right there in your post but you apparently can't connect it. Shall I help you out? Ok. My argument has always been that you need to gain as much points as you can to win the championship. That means that if you're driving a Newey car you must realize (as we all do) that it's fragile and you only get points if you finish the race. That means that you if you don't need to drive the wheels off, then don't. Now I'm not saying that Vettel is causing the problems, but then again, he might be.

When you say 'This was barely an acceptable excuse for poor reliability in decades past' you are being foolish. There are literally hundreds of articles and books out there with quotes from drivers and teams of any decade you care to name that would say you must take care of your machine as much as you must push it. Good drivers, like Alonso and Mikey the Schu (to name two on the current grid) know this full well and you have 9 championships between them as proof.

And every tenth counting....true, but in what race did Vettel really need to push harder? He had a comfortable lead in both races and could have backed off his pace a bit. Vettel has already lost 38 points because of reliability issues (issues that Webber, strangely enough, hasn't had). The jury is still out on Vettel, but the prosecution is looking strong....

Let us get a little perspective on the Vettel situation. Of course he is in no way responsible for the problems he has had so far this season. How could he have caused a spark plug to fail? And the brake failure, with about half the race to go, I don't think so. What were his brakes made out of tissue paper? He was leading the race comfortably with no need to put the car under any undue stress and was probably already driving with care to get the car home. If anyone was going to have problems it would have been Webber as he was racing other drivers and trying to outbrake them. These were just two freak incidents and nothing to do with Vettel.

I am also not buying the Newey builds fast but fragile cars line. True, in the past Newey has been uncompromising in his desire to build a car as light and as aerodynamically efficient as possible, sometimes with the driver a secondary consideration but I don't think those accusations can be levelled at the 2010 car, there is no evidence to suggest so. It's not like Colin Chapman taking washers off the car as he didn't want them to go for a ride. The stats say RBR 4 starts 1 DNF. The case for the defence rests M'lord.

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My argument has always been that you need to gain as much points as you can to win the championship.....

That's just crazy talk. Explain yourself.

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Pre Race News:

The weather is calm, a few sirrius clouds in the sky, but mainly blue skies overhead, and the sun is setting in the west. At least that whats outside my window as I type...as for Malaysia...well...I'm no there am I, so how am I supposed to know? Hrmmm??? Maybe I could use this new fan dangled inter webby thing and oogle the weather or something - I hear it's possible in this "information age" I've been hearing we're living in. If it's the damn information age, how come kids of today haven't been informed that "dat" and "dis" are not words...

...For those of you in Australia, you won't want to miss out on a thrilling installment of Two and a Half Men on Nine... Heading further west, to our number one Kimi fan, Bradley, South African TV has Agape III on SABC 1...

...For those hanging out in China, you can tune into your preferred government censored television programming of your choice... Just don't go Googling anything... In the "motherland", with all her bad fashion taste, mothball smells and blue hair, you can tune into BBC 2 and find out what Prince d#ck has in his stinky stocking...

...Over in the Altered States of America, you can watch Cowboy Bebop on the Cartoon Network, and reveal in the historical reflections of the wild west in a modern day cartoon. If that is not your thing, be sure not to miss CSI: Miami on A&E, or Doctor Who on the BBC US station...

clap3.gif

Following on the heels of the superb work of Andres and Nathan I am convinced you, old bean, are the only possible choice for round 3. Your wit, knowledge and objectivity will carry the day. It's just not fair that you're so damn handsome as well. Looking forward to this.

(By the way, could you please have those funds wired to my account in the Cayman Islands before end of business day 2 April. Thanks, mate.)

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Just one question, did Ferrari fixed their overheating problems? because if not they are going to have problems in this race, that is if the rain doesn't appear like it is expected.

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Tsk tsk.

This young man should be concentrating on getting past the third lap, not third base...

http://en.espnf1.com...037.html?page=1

She's Spanish. She's mine!!! How's our goverment letting those girl reporters leave the country? Jeeez!

Let us get a little perspective on the Vettel situation. Of course he is in no way responsible for the problems he has had so far this season. How could he have caused a spark plug to fail? And the brake failure, with about half the race to go, I don't think so. What were his brakes made out of tissue paper? He was leading the race comfortably with no need to put the car under any undue stress and was probably already driving with care to get the car home. If anyone was going to have problems it would have been Webber as he was racing other drivers and trying to outbrake them. These were just two freak incidents and nothing to do with Vettel.

I am also not buying the Newey builds fast but fragile cars line. True, in the past Newey has been uncompromising in his desire to build a car as light and as aerodynamically efficient as possible, sometimes with the driver a secondary consideration but I don't think those accusations can be levelled at the 2010 car, there is no evidence to suggest so. It's not like Colin Chapman taking washers off the car as he didn't want them to go for a ride. The stats say RBR 4 starts 1 DNF. The case for the defence rests M'lord.

Of course we know the car is fragile, at least Vettel's car was in Bahrain and Australia. Whether it's anything to do with Vettel's driving or not is opinable but I'd say both his team and Vettel should have a more conservative approuch in Malaysia. A fragile car + an agressive approach can lead in another no-points-it-breaks-my-balls weekend.

It seems he did nothing that should produce any problem in an F1 car other than superb driving but don't buy what teams say about any failure. In fact we know already the problem was not a disk braking failure and probably the spark plug failure was another smoke screen. Only they know what actually happened and should know what to do next.

In a scenario of a damn good driver + a fragile car, I would blame the car but the driver has to be aware of it and learn. And of course the team have to learn too.

Just one question, did Ferrari fixed their overheating problems? because if not they are going to have problems in this race, that is if the rain doesn't appear like it is expected.

If they had to solve every Massa's problem then they'd be screwed. tongue.gif

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Fascinating. You have the solution right there in your post but you apparently can't connect it. Shall I help you out? Ok. My argument has always been that you need to gain as much points as you can to win the championship.

That's more of a fact than an argument, but carry on.

That means that if you're driving a Newey car you must realize (as we all do) that it's fragile and you only get points if you finish the race. That means that you if you don't need to drive the wheels off, then don't. Now I'm not saying that Vettel is causing the problems, but then again, he might be.

Bah! Now that is an argument and it's a poor one. Firstly, how is Vettel to know how hard he will need to push? Has he got the ability to predict the future? i.e. how his tyres will handle later in the race, whether his engine might break again, or whatever may happen. He was pushing hard to build his gap like any racing driver would at that point in the race so that he had a good cushion for later on; which would then give him the option to consider his position later in the race and whether or not to push.

Maybe in past years it was a good strategy to back off early on, wait for the other drivers to mess their tyres up and then push hard and overtake later, there is no scope for that now, you'd lose time in traffic, the tyres are too durable and overtaking is too difficult. Alain Prost would not have liked this era of F1, drivers like Massa wouldn't have liked Prost's era of F1, just the way it is.

Secondly, if Vettel does decide not to push to the limit in races (which we don't know that he isn't doing), then how long is it before it becomes "oh Vettel could have won that race but he seemed to be cruising for the first half of the race"? He can't really win can he?

Lastly, if the argument is to win the title you need to get as many points as possible, then surely it's Vettel's job to push the car to it's potential and it's Newey's (or the team's) job to make sure the car is capable of achieving the maximum. At the moment Vettel is not the part of the equation who is squandering points as he has made no errors, the liability for loss of points lies with Newey and the Red Bull manufacturing processes.

I just can't understand how it is logical to assign blame to a driver for getting the maximum out of his car, and I think the idea of "he shouldn't be pushing because he's driving a Red Bull" is just terrible on so many levels.

When you say 'This was barely an acceptable excuse for poor reliability in decades past' you are being foolish. There are literally hundreds of articles and books out there with quotes from drivers and teams of any decade you care to name that would say you must take care of your machine as much as you must push it. Good drivers, like Alonso and Mikey the Schu (to name two on the current grid) know this full well and you have 9 championships between them as proof.

Okay sure, mechanical sympathy was important in the past. But F1 changed after the advertising boom, more money got injected into the sport, manufacturing processes got more refined as a result. That's why now it is not something a driver can make any real difference in (I mean obviously if I got in the car I might break it pretty quickly by changing gears too early or something, but between professional drivers there is no scope for mechanical sympathy anymore). A car is either reliable or not and that's up to the manufacturing process and the designer.

Back in the day the difference was that if you didn't push to the limit always, you could still win because neither was everybody else, it's a different story now. Really with this line of thinking you are just arguing two ways to the same conclusion, e.g. either Vettel drives on the limit, has a failure and finishes fourth in a race, or alternatively Vettel drivers at 90% (or whatever you are proposing) and still ends up finishing fourth or somewhere down the order. Personally, I don't blame the kid for trying to win. I can't believe you do either, actually, I thought you liked Gilles...

And every tenth counting....true, but in what race did Vettel really need to push harder? He had a comfortable lead in both races and could have backed off his pace a bit. Vettel has already lost 38 points because of reliability issues (issues that Webber, strangely enough, hasn't had). The jury is still out on Vettel, but the prosecution is looking strong....

Well I already stated my case, in my jumbled up thought processes because I can't think all that clearly at the moment.

Sorry for making this post so long btw, if I'd had more time I would have used less words.

Let us get a little perspective on the Vettel situation. Of course he is in no way responsible for the problems he has had so far this season. How could he have caused a spark plug to fail? And the brake failure, with about half the race to go, I don't think so. What were his brakes made out of tissue paper? He was leading the race comfortably with no need to put the car under any undue stress and was probably already driving with care to get the car home. If anyone was going to have problems it would have been Webber as he was racing other drivers and trying to outbrake them. These were just two freak incidents and nothing to do with Vettel.

I am also not buying the Newey builds fast but fragile cars line. True, in the past Newey has been uncompromising in his desire to build a car as light and as aerodynamically efficient as possible, sometimes with the driver a secondary consideration but I don't think those accusations can be levelled at the 2010 car, there is no evidence to suggest so. It's not like Colin Chapman taking washers off the car as he didn't want them to go for a ride. The stats say RBR 4 starts 1 DNF. The case for the defence rests M'lord.

Thank you!

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