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Quiet One

Melbourne Practice, Qualy And Stuff Like That

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Id go as far as to say Webber has the worst starts in the whole grid.

And I would agree with you 100%. AT least Romain only crashes one of every two starts. Webber is much more consistent.

Free piece of advice for RBR. Next time, point his car the other way. He'll be leading the race in no time.

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This was a pretty good race for me. Even though Jenson languished in the bottom of the points, Kimi (who I also like a lot) did fantastic. And I liked seeing Sutil doing so well. Might stop him from glassing someone in the post-race party.

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What a race!

That's a great way to get things started.

All sorts of intrigue with the strategy today, and we had six different drivers leading the race. I love races like this, trying to figure out where it will all sort out with the different approaches.

If the Force India is easy on tires, they might be this year's Sauber with the surprise podium finishes (Sauber, by the way...why did Hülkenberg retire? I heard no mention of the team all race). They were certainly best-of-the-rest today, and even better than McLaren. Hamilton was, as ever, exciting to watch. The Mercedes has clear deficiencies, but hopefully they will improve over the course of 2013, rather than get worse like they did last year. Vergne almost looked like he'd be someone to praise, but it fell off at the end. Sergio Pérez has yet to score a point since announcing his McLaren deal last summer. I'm disappointed with the Williams, as I want to see Bottas and Maldonado really get a chance up there. I think both are very exciting prospects.

Lotus and Räikkönen starting with a win is great. I'd love for them to sneak in and add another contender for the title, especially if McLaren aren't going to start well (too early to write them off in the way people tried to write Ferrari off this race last year).

Felipe Massa had a decent day. He didn't go well enough when he was leading, though, and lost the spots to Alonso and Vettel. I think that he's back to being the best number two in the business, though, given how he ran at the end of 2012 and how it's carried into 2013. Massa's biggest weakness has always been the start of the season. I assume, and it's just a pure assumption, that he struggles to get acclimated to a new car (alternative explanations could be a loss of focus in the off-season, or just being crap at Albert Park and Sepang. I think struggling with a new car is most likely, personally. Massa's a committed guy and wouldn't let himself slip if it would hurt the team, and he's put in some good ones on these circuits). To get some solid points for Ferrari in the WCC, rather than cost them tons, is just the best thing he can do. I have no idea how he's going to win a race this year, but man, that'd be cool.

If not? Hey, it'll still be cool. F1 is great, and it's back! We even have a Grand Prix in just seven days!

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Hulkenberg never started the race due to a hydraulic problem. Shame, would have been interesting to have seen what he could do. Wouldn't have bet against him doing even better that Sutil did either, but hey, that's what happens sometimes.

Bianchi surprised me. Apparently his fastest lap was only four thousandths of a second slower than Vettel's fastest. Almost lapped his team mate too.

Interesting race too. Thought Vettel would run away with it, but was surprised when the Ferraris started to close him in. Great job by Raikkonen for making that strategy work perfectly too. If Lotus has the budget to keep bringing upgrades to the car, he'll be a championship contender without doubt.

Webber...what the heck is going on with his starts? It seems like he can never get the thing off the line, other than at Monaco. Would love to know what's going on.

McLaren, the less said the better. After losing Hamilton, Lowe, Vodafone, and now their car appearing to be a bit of a dog...have to say that things don't look good for them going forwards. But still, a long way to go in this championship. Plenty of time for them to get their house back in order.

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Thanks for the information on Hülkenberg. Force India and Sauber could have a nice battle this year. I do think that Force India's driver lineup is more complete, though. Hülkenberg will bear most of the load for Sauber with Gutiérrez being a rookie. Sutil and di Resta are both solid, and Sutil really made it all work after being out of an F1 car for a year. We'll have to see if he can do more of that. If the car is easy enough on the tires to allow for it, Sutil might be able to put in more good results, and he's really talented in the wet, if we see those circumstances at some point this year (maybe next week, as The Shadow points out). Hopefully, the past is behind him. I know there's some feeling that he shouldn't be there because of what he did. Mistakes are unfortunate, but you don't lose your right to live after you make one, so at some point, it has to all move forward again. If he stands on his merits as a driver, he's more than welcome here, in my opinion. So far, he looks fine.

One thing to note about Räikkönen: he was the fastest driver on-track at the end of the first stint. The Ferraris were catching the Red Bull, but he was catching them all. That all occurred when the front-runners were all on the super soft compound for the same number of laps. I assume a lot of that is down to the Lotus being soft on the tires, but the pace was there. On the same strategy as everyone else, I'm not sure Räikkönen and Lotus wouldn't have had a shot at the win. I also wouldn't discount Lotus' ability to develop the car. They didn't lose any ground in 2012; in some races at the end of the year, they looked like they had improved. On other tracks, it wasn't quite the case, but still. Budget isn't everything, as we know, so I wouldn't say Lotus will fall off just yet. Still, always helps to strike early. They have the driver, they have the tire wear advantage so far, and the car can run with Red Bull and Ferrari. Excellent.

On McLaren...they have a sponsor lined up for 2014 already, so Vodafone's not a worry. The team confirmed that the new sponsor will be announced in December, so it's already there. Telmex being the popular rumor, though I'm not sure if Vodafone would have anything in the contract to prevent them being immediately replaced by a competitor. That said, it's possible McLaren were the ones who ended the relationship with Vodafone, if this new sponsor was a better partner. I wouldn't read into that too much. Hamilton's obviously a loss, but hey, they'll rebuild. I'll rag on Pérez for being in a bad streak, but the guy's good on his day. They have a good piece going forward, and maybe something happens with Honda engines or whatever. New starts take a while, and maybe we expected Mercedes' new start would take longer than McLaren's, and now the opposite is happening. Who knows? McLaren is a professional team. It's a great team. They won't be down for long, and if they lose the WCC this year, well, they always do, anyway. :P

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Enduring memory of the race: kimi's Lotus in JPS colours striking sparks on the straights. An accidental homage, but a nice one

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Very strong in the race, to me it's going to come down as who wins the development battle between RBR and Ferrari.... Lotus is the dark horse, can they pull it off during the course of the season with less budget???

This is the worry for me.

With regards to extrapolations, Melbourne has always beena special case. A cold, wet Melbourne even more so.

Yup. I think the Red Bull in particular did not appreciate these conditions, and the Lotus' tyre advantage might have been increased...but now I am doing something worse than extrapolating, I am just guessing :P

Id go as far as to say Webber has the worst starts in the whole grid.

True. Add to that the fact he's always (except for his debut) been terrible at his home race, and that probably explains why his start was not just his usual bad one, but completely awful.

Felipe Massa had a decent day. He didn't go well enough when he was leading, though, and lost the spots to Alonso and Vettel. I think that he's back to being the best number two in the business, though, given how he ran at the end of 2012 and how it's carried into 2013. Massa's biggest weakness has always been the start of the season. I assume, and it's just a pure assumption, that he struggles to get acclimated to a new car (alternative explanations could be a loss of focus in the off-season, or just being crap at Albert Park and Sepang. I think struggling with a new car is most likely, personally. Massa's a committed guy and wouldn't let himself slip if it would hurt the team, and he's put in some good ones on these circuits). To get some solid points for Ferrari in the WCC, rather than cost them tons, is just the best thing he can do. I have no idea how he's going to win a race this year, but man, that'd be cool.

If not? Hey, it'll still be cool. F1 is great, and it's back! We even have a Grand Prix in just seven days!

Don't be too hard on him. He made a good start here. Admittedly, Alonso looked a bit faster than him when he was behind, but he couldn't get close enough to actually try and pass. Massa/Ferrari just got the strategy wrong which was either a small error on Massa's/Massa's engineer's part not to follow Alonso into the pits on the following lap, or, dare I say it, a way of Ferrari getting their faster driver ahead. With an optimal strategy for Massa, he might have made the podium. Of course, without Alonso being held up (if he actually was) by Massa, who knows where he might have been? (probably still 2nd, actually)

Thanks for the information on Hülkenberg. Force India and Sauber could have a nice battle this year. I do think that Force India's driver lineup is more complete, though. Hülkenberg will bear most of the load for Sauber with Gutiérrez being a rookie. Sutil and di Resta are both solid, and Sutil really made it all work after being out of an F1 car for a year. We'll have to see if he can do more of that. If the car is easy enough on the tires to allow for it, Sutil might be able to put in more good results, and he's really talented in the wet, if we see those circumstances at some point this year (maybe next week, as The Shadow points out). Hopefully, the past is behind him. I know there's some feeling that he shouldn't be there because of what he did. Mistakes are unfortunate, but you don't lose your right to live after you make one, so at some point, it has to all move forward again. If he stands on his merits as a driver, he's more than welcome here, in my opinion. So far, he looks fine.

One thing to note about Räikkönen: he was the fastest driver on-track at the end of the first stint. The Ferraris were catching the Red Bull, but he was catching them all. That all occurred when the front-runners were all on the super soft compound for the same number of laps. I assume a lot of that is down to the Lotus being soft on the tires, but the pace was there. On the same strategy as everyone else, I'm not sure Räikkönen and Lotus wouldn't have had a shot at the win. I also wouldn't discount Lotus' ability to develop the car. They didn't lose any ground in 2012; in some races at the end of the year, they looked like they had improved. On other tracks, it wasn't quite the case, but still. Budget isn't everything, as we know, so I wouldn't say Lotus will fall off just yet. Still, always helps to strike early. They have the driver, they have the tire wear advantage so far, and the car can run with Red Bull and Ferrari. Excellent.

On McLaren...they have a sponsor lined up for 2014 already, so Vodafone's not a worry. The team confirmed that the new sponsor will be announced in December, so it's already there. Telmex being the popular rumor, though I'm not sure if Vodafone would have anything in the contract to prevent them being immediately replaced by a competitor. That said, it's possible McLaren were the ones who ended the relationship with Vodafone, if this new sponsor was a better partner. I wouldn't read into that too much. Hamilton's obviously a loss, but hey, they'll rebuild. I'll rag on Pérez for being in a bad streak, but the guy's good on his day. They have a good piece going forward, and maybe something happens with Honda engines or whatever. New starts take a while, and maybe we expected Mercedes' new start would take longer than McLaren's, and now the opposite is happening. Who knows? McLaren is a professional team. It's a great team. They won't be down for long, and if they lose the WCC this year, well, they always do, anyway. tongue.png

Good points all round. On Kimi's pace: he also seemed to have the ability to respond at the end of the race, too. As for Vodafone, seems it was their decision to end the deal not Macca's. Apparently they've been terminating a lot of these deals in other sports, going for a different marketing campaign.

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Kimi won, Kimi won, lalala...

Wait, I guess I'm late for that -.-'

Maybe I'll get here earlier for Malaysia... :D

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One thing to note about Räikkönen: he was the fastest driver on-track at the end of the first stint. The Ferraris were catching the Red Bull, but he was catching them all. That all occurred when the front-runners were all on the super soft compound for the same number of laps. I assume a lot of that is down to the Lotus being soft on the tires, but the pace was there. On the same strategy as everyone else, I'm not sure Räikkönen and Lotus wouldn't have had a shot at the win. I also wouldn't discount Lotus' ability to develop the car. They didn't lose any ground in 2012; in some races at the end of the year, they looked like they had improved. On other tracks, it wasn't quite the case, but still. Budget isn't everything, as we know, so I wouldn't say Lotus will fall off just yet. Still, always helps to strike early. They have the driver, they have the tire wear advantage so far, and the car can run with Red Bull and Ferrari. Excellent.

Actually they did lose ground with the summer break last year. Kimi was happy with the car up to that point. Lotus did then develop the car, but at a slower rate then their rivals

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Don't be too hard on him. He made a good start here. Admittedly, Alonso looked a bit faster than him when he was behind, but he couldn't get close enough to actually try and pass. Massa/Ferrari just got the strategy wrong which was either a small error on Massa's/Massa's engineer's part not to follow Alonso into the pits on the following lap, or, dare I say it, a way of Ferrari getting their faster driver ahead. With an optimal strategy for Massa, he might have made the podium. Of course, without Alonso being held up (if he actually was) by Massa, who knows where he might have been? (probably still 2nd, actually)

Would it surprise you if I disagreed with you? :P

The Massa number 2 status is too lazy an explanation and with that argument Alonso will never be considered as superior than Massa. Nope, saying "yes, when they both are allowed to race as equals and he still comes in front" does not work, precisely because we have no way of telling when they are allowed to race and when they aren't. Let me show you:

1) Massa qualified in front of Alonso, ergo he is better than Alonso. Alonso finishes ahead of Massa, ergo, Massa was forced to let Alonso through. Damn if you do, damn if you don't and all that.

2) The fact that Massa was allowed to outqualify Alonso when they could have easily made him qualify behind is one sign (what? They didn't want to but Massa valiantly defied the system with a rebel yell? But wasn't ALonso the omnipotent godfather that can forced the hands of Ron Dennis, Briatore and di Montezemolo and ruined the careers of Kimi, Button, Trulli, Fisichella and Nelsinho? Weren't LdM, SD and FA the unholy alliance that prevented Massa from becoming the next Senna?)

3) Sign number two: Massa being ahead of Alonso even if not being faster than him for a long stint. That alone was enough to make Alonso lose the race. Why didn't they ordered Massa to let Alonso through? It's not as if it would be the first time. If there's some good thing about Ferrari's number 1 and number 2 driver policies is that they never been hypocrites (?) about it. Making some shady strategy calls to benefit one and harm another is a lot less efficient than saying "Alonso is faster than you" which nowadays isn't even frowned upn.

4) Alonso WAS clearly faster than Massa. Not by much, and Massa could have held him up on track indefinitely not just because of the circuit's characteristics but because Massa was racing beautifully so far. What placed Alonso in front of Massa was a strategy that was quite a gamble.In fact, it did stick because Alonso had great in and out laps, whereas Massa did not and was not fast enough when he had clean air ahead for being in P1. Had Massa made it and had it not worked everybody would have yelled "foul" anyways, saying that Massa was given a ridiculous or very risky strategy. . Same as last year when Massa was getting the updates of the car he wa being used as "a guinea pig for parts that didn't work" and when they went to Alonso it was "of course, the latest updates for the number one driver!".

In a nutshell: Massa did great, but Alonso's risky strategy paid off better. Massa said it better and in a shorter way than I did, in fact: he siad it was no team orders, but Alonso winning a gamble.

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Alonso's risky strategy was cool and I wish I could have seen Vettel's face when he realised what had happened. And if it hadn't been Alonso it wouldn't have been as cool. Now if this isn't a reasonable argument... :P

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The Massa number 2 status is too lazy an explanation and with that argument Alonso will never be considered as superior than Massa.

I don't follow this. Massa has number two status because Alonso is superior. I don't think anyone in this universe is convinced that Alonso isn't superior to Massa.

Number two status played no role today, of course. Massa's the best number two in the business. Let's see if Alonso can be the best number one in the business in 2013. Been since 2006 that we could say that pretty conclusively. I'd like to see him win one, because it would just seem right, but it'll be competitive again. Still, last year's effort in this year's car might be just enough to do it, and take the WCC, too, with Massa's rebirth.

I'm just so excited to see it all happen this year. It's a great time to enjoy Formula One!

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I don't follow this. Massa has number two status because Alonso is superior. I don't think anyone in this universe is convinced that Alonso isn't superior to Massa.

Number two status played no role today, of course. Massa's the best number two in the business. Let's see if Alonso can be the best number one in the business in 2013. Been since 2006 that we could say that pretty conclusively. I'd like to see him win one, because it would just seem right, but it'll be competitive again. Still, last year's effort in this year's car might be just enough to do it, and take the WCC, too, with Massa's rebirth.

I'm just so excited to see it all happen this year. It's a great time to enjoy Formula One!

Indeed. Except for Massa being the best number two :lol: Webber is better, and any other otion would have been better than Massa last year. Massa seems to have gone back to his good old self. I hope so. I think the best Massa can give Alonso a run for his money, the question always being how long can Massa keep that level. His starts of season are usually close to Alonso if not better, but he quickly fades out. Of, course, I am quite sure not even the best Massa with anabolics can come closer to actually beating Alonso over a season, but I do think he can outqualify and outrace Alonso more than once over a season, he just has not the "je ne sais quoi" that makes true legends what they are. He is capable of winning a championship in a great car if there are no great contenders and the only one is self destructive as hamilton was in 2008, and even then it was not enough. With a field in which the Vettels, Alonsos, Raikkonen and even Hamiltons have competitive cars Massa's only shot at a championship is if there is a "Comic Relief Champion".

(Please, oh please don't let Massa win this championship or people would laugh at me until I die!)

BTW, I don't think George meant what I wrote. But as usual, I use him as a punching bag. It just feels so right! :P

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Apart from a high percentage of people from my home country, who voted on THIS (http://www.ig.com.br/) where right now it says over 5000 people think Massa will win the championship, whereas a bit over 2700 think Vettel will, 950 think Alonso will, and 380 believe Kimi will do it, I believe all the rest of humankind does know Alonso is better than Massa, and probably will always be. Even Massa knows that. He was hired to be a second driver, and that's the only reason why he's still there, cus he plays a decent second driver role. Some abuse allowed here, some positions lost there, great job mate. Ferrari has been so for over a decade now, I don't see why it'd suddenly change.

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I've got to hand it to you Andres, you are great at coming up with non-existent terrible arguments. Only because I don't want to be misrepresented will I reply as this issue is barely worth replying to otherwise, and all the more so because I am sure you must already know all of this. I'll start by saying that if this was a case of team orders (a possibility that it doesn't scare me to entertain tongue.png), it was a very minor one and a completely acceptable one, which is the crucial thing here. With that in mind..

Would it surprise you if I disagreed with you? tongue.png

The Massa number 2 status is too lazy an explanation and with that argument Alonso will never be considered as superior than Massa. Nope, saying "yes, when they both are allowed to race as equals and he still comes in front" does not work, precisely because we have no way of telling when they are allowed to race and when they aren't. Let me show you:

1) Massa qualified in front of Alonso, ergo he is better than Alonso. Alonso finishes ahead of Massa, ergo, Massa was forced to let Alonso through. Damn if you do, damn if you don't and all that.

Well of course this isn't the argument, otherwise you would find it being used all of the time (every time Massa was outqualified and outraced by Alonso). Just because every case of Alonso finishing ahead of Massa isn't a matter of team orders, doesn't mean there won't be some examples where Alonso finishing ahead of Massa will be an example of team orders. All we would be doing here is discussing a (possible) example of team orders - which very rarely comes up so it's obvious nobody is making this sort of "catch all" argument.

2) The fact that Massa was allowed to outqualify Alonso when they could have easily made him qualify behind is one sign (what? They didn't want to but Massa valiantly defied the system with a rebel yell? But wasn't ALonso the omnipotent godfather that can forced the hands of Ron Dennis, Briatore and di Montezemolo and ruined the careers of Kimi, Button, Trulli, Fisichella and Nelsinho? Weren't LdM, SD and FA the unholy alliance that prevented Massa from becoming the next Senna?)

It's barely even a sign and comes nowhere near to being an argument. Obviously, just because there are some instances where driver X is ahead of driver Y on merit in a given session, does not mean there will never be instances where driver X suffers from team orders.

Which is akin to saying: just because Ferrari allowed Massa to outqualify Alonso on merit does not mean that they wouldn't use team orders in a race or at any other time. Which is completely obvious and a matter of historical record. You might as well be saying that "because Massa outqualified Alonso on Saturday, Hockenheim 2010 was not a team order" (those events are independent of each other just as Saturday's qualifying session is independent from Sunday's race).

3) Sign number two: Massa being ahead of Alonso even if not being faster than him for a long stint. That alone was enough to make Alonso lose the race. Why didn't they ordered Massa to let Alonso through? It's not as if it would be the first time. If there's some good thing about Ferrari's number 1 and number 2 driver policies is that they never been hypocrites (?) about it. Making some shady strategy calls to benefit one and harm another is a lot less efficient than saying "Alonso is faster than you" which nowadays isn't even frowned upn.

This is precisely the same as the qualifying example, but dressed up to apply to the race. In each case you are merely pushing away the question, pushing it back and back, first you push it back to qualifying and now you push it back in the race itself. You might as well be pushing it back to the eternal question "why would Ferrari field two cars if sometimes they'll manipulate the order they finish in" - which is ridiculous, irrelevant and gets you nowhere.

In other words all you are doing is avoiding the question: "was it a case of team orders" by asking lots of other questions which all boil down to "why didn't they do it earlier"? Well I'm sorry I don't know why they didn't do it earlier, or in a different way for that matter. I don't know why some people wait 10 years to kill someone they know, but that wouldn't be an argument they didn't do it! My inability to postulate on this matter would not be any sort of evidence. As it happens, we can quite easily (pointlessly) speculate why they waited: maybe they were worried about the backlash for reasons we don't know, maybe they thought Alonso would pass him, maybe they didn't want to screw Massa over so obviously so early when he just regained psychological fitness, maybe God appeared to Stefano in a vision and told him not to, etc etc.

Who cares? It's completely irrelevant. Imagine the scenario that Massa had very obviously moved over and then kept up with Alonso, and we don't hear any radio call or have any other evidence. Now imagine how irrelevant it would be to try and say "it wasn't team orders because they could have done it the lap before".

4) Alonso WAS clearly faster than Massa. Not by much, and Massa could have held him up on track indefinitely not just because of the circuit's characteristics but because Massa was racing beautifully so far. What placed Alonso in front of Massa was a strategy that was quite a gamble.In fact, it did stick because Alonso had great in and out laps, whereas Massa did not and was not fast enough when he had clean air ahead for being in P1. Had Massa made it and had it not worked everybody would have yelled "foul" anyways, saying that Massa was given a ridiculous or very risky strategy. . Same as last year when Massa was getting the updates of the car he wa being used as "a guinea pig for parts that didn't work" and when they went to Alonso it was "of course, the latest updates for the number one driver!".

In a nutshell: Massa did great, but Alonso's risky strategy paid off better. Massa said it better and in a shorter way than I did, in fact: he siad it was no team orders, but Alonso winning a gamble.

This final point is the only realm in which the argument can actually exist, i.e. on the actual facts. AND GUESS WHAT? This is by the far the best part of your post and by far the part that made me doubt my own position when I read it. If your evidence is good I don't know why you had to bring all those annoying arguments! Why? Anyway, now we are dealing in the actual incident instead of irrelevancies and hypotheticals.

I don't question Alonso's strategy, that may well have been a good call from the c#ckpit, that Alonso is perfectly capable of making and Massa perhaps isn't (although calling it a gamble seems like a stretch). I do question Massa's strategy. Whether you say it was an act of design (team orders) or a mistake, I don't actually think is important ironically enough. But what you shouldn't do is have to pretend it wasn't bad for fear of invoking team orders arguments.

After Alonso pitted and Massa enquired about it on the radio (probably wondering when he was supposed to be pitting), Rob Smedley said (roughly) "now you have clear air let's see what you can do" - which was obviously complete nonsense as his tyres were already going, and to me just seemed like a way of Smedley sugaring the pill (he just had that tone of voice, I'm sorry laugh.png). Ferrari must have known that leaving Massa out an extra lap would drop him back, the sector times they were getting from him compared to Alonso and others would easily show that. I remember knowing it at the time. Now I'm not too bad at predicting the race, but I'm not better than the whole Ferrari team! They should have responded to Alonso by pitting the next lap, which by the way would probably have meant Alonso still coming out ahead (which is at least some evidence that perhaps this was more of a mistake than anything else).

Now, whether this is a minor case of team tactics, a driver shortcoming, or a team blunder is difficult to distinguish because we don't know enough. You can say with some certainty that it showed a difference between Massa and Alonso's ability or confidence to dictate strategy, which we knew anyway. You could say with less certainty that perhaps Ferrari knew they could have pitted Massa earlier or responded to Alonso sooner, and it might have been a way of ensuring Massa was out of the way (which would be logical). The only thing that's potentially annoying about this is that if it was a matter of team tactics, it didn't have to be, and if it was a mistake, well mistakes are just stupid anyway. The only difference in our positions is that you would say this is absolutely not a case of team tactics (on the evidence I'd hope, not those crappy arguments above :P), and I would say there isn't enough evidence to say it was a case of team orders. Which ultimately means we agree and can be friends again.

ENDS

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Was it me, or did Vettel get some boos when interviewed on the podium? Alonso seemed to get the most cheers, but I dunno... not sure if Vettel is popular down under.

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Was it me, or did Vettel get some boos when interviewed on the podium? Alonso seemed to get the most cheers, but I dunno... not sure if Vettel is popular down under.

There's apparently a stand dedicated to him... he's very popular down under

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Regarding Ferrari's tactics it was clear that the target was to finish ahead of SV. That was clear from Alonso's reactions after the race.

The joker in the pack was Sutil holding them all up just at the right time with their tyres fading as soon as they caught up to him. When Fernando pitted, it was a gamble to leapfrog the pack while the others were wasting their time queueing in the Force India's dirty air. It would have made sense for Ferrari to split their strategy just in case anything happened to negatively impact that gamble, which is what they did with Massa. Leaving him out to put pressure on Red Bull to make a definitive call for Vettel. Which worked because RB were in essence napping and allowed Ferrari to make their move first.

Ferrari began focusing on Kimi only at the end of the 3rd stint, once it was clear that they had Vettel behind Fernando, but by then it was already begining to be too late to challenge for victory, as was evident towards the final 8 or so laps.

So, in a way, I'd guess it was not really about internal warfare between Fernando and Felipe, but more of trying to keep Vettel in check and taking all contingencies to that effect, even if it may hamper their no. 2 driver.

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I've got to hand it to you Andres, you are great at coming up with non-existent terrible arguments. Only because I don't want to be misrepresented will I reply as this issue is barely worth replying to otherwise, and all the more so because I am sure you must already know all of this. I'll start by saying that if this was a case of team orders (a possibility that it doesn't scare me to entertain tongue.png), it was a very minor one and a completely acceptable one, which is the crucial thing here. With that in mind..

Well of course this isn't the argument, otherwise you would find it being used all of the time (every time Massa was outqualified and outraced by Alonso). Just because every case of Alonso finishing ahead of Massa isn't a matter of team orders, doesn't mean there won't be some examples where Alonso finishing ahead of Massa will be an example of team orders. All we would be doing here is discussing a (possible) example of team orders - which very rarely comes up so it's obvious nobody is making this sort of "catch all" argument.

It's barely even a sign and comes nowhere near to being an argument. Obviously, just because there are some instances where driver X is ahead of driver Y on merit in a given session, does not mean there will never be instances where driver X suffers from team orders.

Which is akin to saying: just because Ferrari allowed Massa to outqualify Alonso on merit does not mean that they wouldn't use team orders in a race or at any other time. Which is completely obvious and a matter of historical record. You might as well be saying that "because Massa outqualified Alonso on Saturday, Hockenheim 2010 was not a team order" (those events are independent of each other just as Saturday's qualifying session is independent from Sunday's race).

This is precisely the same as the qualifying example, but dressed up to apply to the race. In each case you are merely pushing away the question, pushing it back and back, first you push it back to qualifying and now you push it back in the race itself. You might as well be pushing it back to the eternal question "why would Ferrari field two cars if sometimes they'll manipulate the order they finish in" - which is ridiculous, irrelevant and gets you nowhere.

In other words all you are doing is avoiding the question: "was it a case of team orders" by asking lots of other questions which all boil down to "why didn't they do it earlier"? Well I'm sorry I don't know why they didn't do it earlier, or in a different way for that matter. I don't know why some people wait 10 years to kill someone they know, but that wouldn't be an argument they didn't do it! My inability to postulate on this matter would not be any sort of evidence. As it happens, we can quite easily (pointlessly) speculate why they waited: maybe they were worried about the backlash for reasons we don't know, maybe they thought Alonso would pass him, maybe they didn't want to screw Massa over so obviously so early when he just regained psychological fitness, maybe God appeared to Stefano in a vision and told him not to, etc etc.

Who cares? It's completely irrelevant. Imagine the scenario that Massa had very obviously moved over and then kept up with Alonso, and we don't hear any radio call or have any other evidence. Now imagine how irrelevant it would be to try and say "it wasn't team orders because they could have done it the lap before".

This final point is the only realm in which the argument can actually exist, i.e. on the actual facts. AND GUESS WHAT? This is by the far the best part of your post and by far the part that made me doubt my own position when I read it. If your evidence is good I don't know why you had to bring all those annoying arguments! Why? Anyway, now we are dealing in the actual incident instead of irrelevancies and hypotheticals.

I don't question Alonso's strategy, that may well have been a good call from the c#ckpit, that Alonso is perfectly capable of making and Massa perhaps isn't (although calling it a gamble seems like a stretch). I do question Massa's strategy. Whether you say it was an act of design (team orders) or a mistake, I don't actually think is important ironically enough. But what you shouldn't do is have to pretend it wasn't bad for fear of invoking team orders arguments.

After Alonso pitted and Massa enquired about it on the radio (probably wondering when he was supposed to be pitting), Rob Smedley said (roughly) "now you have clear air let's see what you can do" - which was obviously complete nonsense as his tyres were already going, and to me just seemed like a way of Smedley sugaring the pill (he just had that tone of voice, I'm sorry laugh.png). Ferrari must have known that leaving Massa out an extra lap would drop him back, the sector times they were getting from him compared to Alonso and others would easily show that. I remember knowing it at the time. Now I'm not too bad at predicting the race, but I'm not better than the whole Ferrari team! They should have responded to Alonso by pitting the next lap, which by the way would probably have meant Alonso still coming out ahead (which is at least some evidence that perhaps this was more of a mistake than anything else).

Now, whether this is a minor case of team tactics, a driver shortcoming, or a team blunder is difficult to distinguish because we don't know enough. You can say with some certainty that it showed a difference between Massa and Alonso's ability or confidence to dictate strategy, which we knew anyway. You could say with less certainty that perhaps Ferrari knew they could have pitted Massa earlier or responded to Alonso sooner, and it might have been a way of ensuring Massa was out of the way (which would be logical). The only thing that's potentially annoying about this is that if it was a matter of team tactics, it didn't have to be, and if it was a mistake, well mistakes are just stupid anyway. The only difference in our positions is that you would say this is absolutely not a case of team tactics (on the evidence I'd hope, not those crappy arguments above tongue.png), and I would say there isn't enough evidence to say it was a case of team orders. Which ultimately means we agree and can be friends again.

ENDS

That's the biggest load of utter tosh I've found in my life! And I didn't even read it!!

Oh, ok, let me read it. Mmmmh...mmmh....uhuh...wait that's...oh, I see...

Errm...ok, somebody could say that you gave me a though dialectical beating. With some minor misconstructions and misunderstandings here and there but obvious in these debates.

Except you didn't.

Ok, I didn't want to do this before but you gave me no other choice.

I play the Pope card.

See? I can't be wrong now! Let me make a phone call. "Francis? Yup, it's me...there's this guy George....yup, bad person, probably an abortionist or something. Yeah, he is harrassing me. Please, send me a couple of your biggest, sturdiest bishops. Thanks, mate!"

ph34r.png

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Alonso would have won this without 'the pianist' doing a 'Bernoldi'.

Vettel munches rubber. This is good.

Webber cannot start. He should finish.

In the process of hiring Hamilton, they have hooked him up to a memory loss machine so he believes his Mercedes will get faster this year and not go backwards in the race.

Perez was invisible.

McLaren's plans are working; They are almost Williams.

Suzi Perry has great thighs and bum.

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Was it me, or did Vettel get some boos when interviewed on the podium? Alonso seemed to get the most cheers, but I dunno... not sure if Vettel is popular down under.

I'm assuming that Mark Webber is popular in Australia, and some fans of Mark Webber would be a bit sour about Sebastian Vettel. Sort of directing frustration about the entire situation at Red Bull on the only person they get a chance to. I doubt they represent the whole very well.

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Alonso would have won this without 'the pianist' doing a 'Bernoldi'.

Vettel munches rubber. This is good.

Webber cannot start. He should finish.

In the process of hiring Hamilton, they have hooked him up to a memory loss machine so he believes his Mercedes will get faster this year and not go backwards in the race.

Perez was invisible.

McLaren's plans are working; They are almost Williams.

Suzi Perry has great thighs and bum.

Suzi Perry has great everything. Ok, she is not the most gorgeous woman alive, but somehow it just works. Alas, it doesn't look like she is allowed to wear the leather outfits for the BBC like she did for the MotoGP, which is a shame.

Anyway, great drive by Kimi. Personally, I think Kimi had the measure of everybody in the race, regardless of anybody being held up at all.

I agree with regards to Lewis, it's like he didn't watch Merc last year :lol:

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