On May 30 2011 08:10 jello_biafra wrote: Button got screwed over royally and Vettel had one hell of a lucky day, Button was a lot more good humoured about the whole thing with him at the end than I would have been lol.
Entertaining race though, just a shame it had to end with a restart from the safety car, those last few laps were set to be epic.
I laughed pretty hard at the Hamilton-Massa incident in the tunnel, camera cuts to Massa's car and it's all fucked up and we all instantly know that Hamilton screwed him over in some way lol.
This is what happens when you try going around the outside in the tunnel on the marbles, it was Massa's fault 100%
On May 30 2011 00:15 NikonTC wrote: How can one man be so bloody lucky. Take it to the casino Vettel, i want to see the best driver win not the most fortunate >.>
lolwhat?
staying in front of Alonso for 15 rounds with fucked up tires is luck ?
His tyres were not fucked up. The prime tyres last ~45 laps according to their testing. Vettel was on lap 48. His tyres were ABOUT to become fucked up and "drop off the cliff" as the drivers put it. Try to pay attention to the information you're given. BBC commentary explain all this very well, so I shouldn't have to.
Then explain to me why the Button / Alonso were 2+ secs faster each round. He did a pretty good job at not destroying his tires the 40 rounds before, you should look into this too.
You don't have access to the quality of information that the UK audience does. You have my sympathy but not my agreement
im not saying youre wrong or something, im just saying he did a pretty good job this race. the same as in Barcelona, where he defended Hamilton like a boss. I dont know if he would have won the race 100 % under normal circumstances but to blame it purely on luck would be wrong.
But he should lose a few races in the future, I want the awesome last race finish like last season again
I dont think anyone is saying he didn't race a good race, he qualified at blistering pace and was on top all weekend. That said the crash obviously played right into his hands, it was the only reason he held onto pole. Surely the fact that Button / Alonso were lapping faster and faster each lap proves how robbed we were of the last 10 laps.
No it wasn't the only reason why he won the race. That's just speculation, stop it. If he and the team didn't think that they could stay first until the end, they would have changed the tires much earlier.
Or they could hold on to their p1 and try and drive insanely defensively for the rest of the race, from testing it was p much apparent that the soft tyres become incredibly bad around the 45th lap, iirc it was lap 16 when Vettel put em on (and I'm 100% sure his team wouldn't have put him on softs for the rest of the race at lap 16) meaning lap 58 when the crash occured (iirc) meaning he had maybe 5-10 more laps at race pace max. If the drop is as big as people make it out to be, Vettel would not have been able to hold his p1 from the far faster 2 behind him. You're being obtuse if you think he would've held them off without a newer set of super softs. F1 although based a large amount of driver skill, at some points comes down to sheer maths, and the times that Vettel would've posted after the drop wouldn't have been enough to keep off a blistering Alonso.
Sorry but that's just wrong. There isn't a sudden time were the tires become incredibly bad, they get worse over time. There are many factors which influence how bad the tires become, including the driving style of the driver. Vettel was already much slower than Alonso and Button, but he was still able to hold them off. Of course he could have made a mistake in the last laps, so he had a little bit luck that the accident occurred, but that wasn't the decisive factor.
After each win of Vettel you hear (especially from people from England) that he only won because of luck or the better car and that the worse driver won again. It's getting ridiculous. He had bad luck with the pit stop, maybe that was the reason why he didn't change his tires anymore and why it was so close in the end. Who knows?
While that is true of most tyres, it isnt true of these pirelli's. They absolutely fall off "the cliff" (a drivers expression to describe these tyres) in an instant. It is what has happened to Sutil today, he went from doing 21's to 25's immediately. If you had watched the races this season you would have seen it many times for many drivers. As for Vettel, he was lucky today with that red flag. His other wins were not down to luck, but he IS driving the best car on the grid. Are you denying that? All he really has to do is be consistent and beat Webber, who isnt top tier (sorry to offend the germans but Vettel is not the best driver).
Vettel was not going to be passed in the remaining six laps without making a mistake. There are two reasonable passing areas on the track and both require the following car to have good traction out of a fairly slow corner. The onboards from Alonso revealed he absolutely did not have a significant rear wheel traction advantage over Vettel. While the life of the Pirelli tyres can accurately be described as a falling off a cliff, it isn't that abrupt. You pretty much have to argue that Vettel's tyres were going to start dieing completely in the next lap or two.
Button would have won the race had he 1 stopped. He didn't and so he gave up track position and put his fate in somebody elses hands. Putting your fate in the hands of Vettel in a Red Bull is statistically a poor decision if you're a competitor of his.
As for Hamilton, I think having your country set as "England" or "United Kingdom" is just about the only way you can think him the victim in either of his incidents. You can't throw your car up the inside of somebody, make it half way or less, then complain they turned in. That isn't how passing works.
On May 30 2011 09:44 Aristodemus wrote: While that is true of most tyres, it isnt true of these pirelli's. They absolutely fall off "the cliff" (a drivers expression to describe these tyres) in an instant. It is what has happened to Sutil today, he went from doing 21's to 25's immediately. If you had watched the races this season you would have seen it many times for many drivers. As for Vettel, he was lucky today with that red flag. His other wins were not down to luck, but he IS driving the best car on the grid. Are you denying that? All he really has to do is be consistent and beat Webber, who isnt top tier (sorry to offend the germans but Vettel is not the best driver).
Of course the tires can "fall of the cliff", but there isn't a lap 45 limit (like bmml said). Why does every driver and team say in the interviews that they don't know how long the tires will hold and that they hope for the best. Someone of Red Bull said in an interview after the race that Vettel's tires were still good enough to end the race as first.
I've never said that Vettel is the best, it's probably Alonso. If you think it's Hamilton, it's pretty much because of your nationality or the British television. In the German television Vettel get's the most hype, in England it's Hamilton, in Spain it's Alonso, that's normal, but no one can really argue objectively that one is better than the other.
On May 30 2011 00:15 NikonTC wrote: How can one man be so bloody lucky. Take it to the casino Vettel, i want to see the best driver win not the most fortunate >.>
lolwhat?
staying in front of Alonso for 15 rounds with fucked up tires is luck ?
His tyres were not fucked up. The prime tyres last ~45 laps according to their testing. Vettel was on lap 48. His tyres were ABOUT to become fucked up and "drop off the cliff" as the drivers put it. Try to pay attention to the information you're given. BBC commentary explain all this very well, so I shouldn't have to.
Then explain to me why the Button / Alonso were 2+ secs faster each round. He did a pretty good job at not destroying his tires the 40 rounds before, you should look into this too.
You don't have access to the quality of information that the UK audience does. You have my sympathy but not my agreement
im not saying youre wrong or something, im just saying he did a pretty good job this race. the same as in Barcelona, where he defended Hamilton like a boss. I dont know if he would have won the race 100 % under normal circumstances but to blame it purely on luck would be wrong.
But he should lose a few races in the future, I want the awesome last race finish like last season again
I dont think anyone is saying he didn't race a good race, he qualified at blistering pace and was on top all weekend. That said the crash obviously played right into his hands, it was the only reason he held onto pole. Surely the fact that Button / Alonso were lapping faster and faster each lap proves how robbed we were of the last 10 laps.
No it wasn't the only reason why he won the race. That's just speculation, stop it. If he and the team didn't think that they could stay first until the end, they would have changed the tires much earlier.
Or they could hold on to their p1 and try and drive insanely defensively for the rest of the race, from testing it was p much apparent that the soft tyres become incredibly bad around the 45th lap, iirc it was lap 16 when Vettel put em on (and I'm 100% sure his team wouldn't have put him on softs for the rest of the race at lap 16) meaning lap 58 when the crash occured (iirc) meaning he had maybe 5-10 more laps at race pace max. If the drop is as big as people make it out to be, Vettel would not have been able to hold his p1 from the far faster 2 behind him. You're being obtuse if you think he would've held them off without a newer set of super softs. F1 although based a large amount of driver skill, at some points comes down to sheer maths, and the times that Vettel would've posted after the drop wouldn't have been enough to keep off a blistering Alonso.
Sorry but that's just wrong. There isn't a sudden time were the tires become incredibly bad, they get worse over time.
I'm afraid you are wrong. There is indeed a "cliff" that the tyres drop off when the reach the end of their life. Pirelli designed the tyres that way to provide more exciting racing. The drop is HUGE (see china). I'm a little puzzled as to why you are unaware of this fact. I'm so glad we have thorough commentary teams in the UK that explain this stuff in detail.
decent report. pretty much sums up the grand prix, hamilton unfortunate and made very silly comments after the race, vettel fortunate, button/alonso robbed of victory. fans robbed of great end to a grand prix.
No offence to your country's commentary team, but I'd highly recommend watching the BBC coverage one weekend. If you find the time, watch the friday free practice sessions as well, because the BBC even has a team that commentates those (which i'm not sure other nations coverage does?) and you learn a lot.
The UK coverage is in NO WAY biased towards Hamilton, and we have two ex-drivers as our main commentary team who in fact routinely get accused of being too harsh on Hamilton, and were pretty scathing of him during the race yesterday. So you're wrong there too.
Totally agree with NikonTC. Now I just want to throw this out there - Hamilton making silly comments. He does this after every race saying that everyone is a worse driver compared to him and that it's ONLY because their cars are better which is BS. He is an incredibly sore loser.
On May 30 2011 15:50 Lachrymose wrote: As for Hamilton, I think having your country set as "England" or "United Kingdom" is just about the only way you can think him the victim in either of his incidents. You can't throw your car up the inside of somebody, make it half way or less, then complain they turned in. That isn't how passing works.
Yeah just ignore the evidence and assume bias.
"If you no longer go for a gap, then you're no longer a racing driver"- Aryton Senna Hamilton puts his car on the apex and gives the other driver a choice, yield or crash into me. Exactly as Senna would have done and exactly as Schumi would have done (and did do on lap1).
Massa made a mistake, he came off the racing live and tried to dive infront of Hamilton. Unfortunately there was another car in front of him so Massa has nowhere to go. It's not Hamilton's fault that Massa can't run wide and so hits him. It's AT LEAST 50/50. So why does Massa not get a penalty too? Then the Maldonado one is even worse. DRS gets Hamilton side by side along the pit straight. He chooses the inside line and Maldonado just runs into him. That one was especially ludicrous.
I tell you what Senna would've hated modern F1 and would've been even more annoyed than Hamilton was today.
I don't think I've defended Hamilton once and would like to not be accused of such bias due to my country of origin, admitadely if Kubica was racing this year I'd be massively biased towards him but hes Kubica ^^.
Also it isn't with the Pirellis from everything I've heard / seen this season the tyres do completely drop at a certain point, with tyres which have "dropped off" adding 4+ seconds per lap. I completely believe this would've been enough for Alonso (and probably Button) to overtake Vettel, admitadely we haven't seen much of Vettels defending this season due to him having the far superior car and being able to basically speed away from other front runners so maybe I'm wrong.
That said I don't think anyone of the top drivers can defend a 4-5 second disadvantage for 5~ laps (thats guesstimating that Vettels tyres were 52 laps old at the red flag and would have had to hold on for over 60 laps for him to stay ahead).
EDIT: while writing this I realised that the red flag was at lap 69, not 58 like I previously thought. This could mean that Vettel may have been able to hold but either way I 100% believe we were robbed of the event the whole race was building up to and I that Alonso and Button would've gotten through if the tyres work how I've been told they do.
It isn't at least 50/50. In that hairpin the racing line is the outside. A wide entry and late apex is/can be the racing line. An early apex is never the racing line. Massa was on the racing line. Hamilton was off the racing line.
The gap Hamilton dived into was not big enough for a formula 1 car. He, while taking the shorter, more direct route which arrives at the apex earlier (for a slower overall corner - hence not racing line) still only made it midway along Massa's sidepod. This is not reasonably close enough to have a dive and make the other guy yeild. This is driving into sombody.
You can clearly see how far back he is. You can clearly see an F1 car does not having the steering lock to make a line like that, he rides into the side of Massa the whole way around the corner. I'm not ignoring the evidence and assuming bias, the evidence is very damning. The only explaination for thinking he is innocent or it's 50/50 is bias.
Against Maldonado Hamilton again dives at an apex, again, an apex that is always going to disappear. When contact is made Hamilton (despite, again, taking the shortest route to the apex) makes contact to the sidepod. This time however the contact is at the back of the sidepod right in front of the rear wheel of Maldonado. This is absolutely not far enough alongside for people to be yeilding. It is absolutely diving and leaves Maldonado nowhere to go.
"Drive off the track of I'm crashing into you" is not passing. If you want the inside line you have to get alongside somebody - wheel to wheel, if you're hitting the middle of their car you're not close enough to claim the inside.
*edit* I don't know if it needs to be noted or not, but in the tunnel Hamilton was 100% in the right and Massa wrecked his car himself being an idiot. I'm speaking purely about the hairpin vs Massa and turn one vs Maldonado.
"The tunnel of danger" never understand why drivers think about risking the outside line in the tunnel, that's the place you should always chill unless you want to crash, I hope Monaco is never removed from the calendar as it's always an interesting race though it can be ruined by one accident moreso than any other race.
Really glad that Sutil managed to get 7th place, don't think he would've gotten that high if it wasn't for his crash as he had so many cars behind him while his tyres were pretty much dead, but the first thing I thought when Sutil went out there and Alguesari(sp?) went into Petrov and the wall was Belgium 1998, but thankfully that didn't happen.
Also think that Di Resta could've gotten into the points if it wasnt for his mistake that lead to the penalty.
staying in front of Alonso for 15 rounds with fucked up tires is luck ?
His tyres were not fucked up. The prime tyres last ~45 laps according to their testing. Vettel was on lap 48. His tyres were ABOUT to become fucked up and "drop off the cliff" as the drivers put it. Try to pay attention to the information you're given. BBC commentary explain all this very well, so I shouldn't have to.
Then explain to me why the Button / Alonso were 2+ secs faster each round. He did a pretty good job at not destroying his tires the 40 rounds before, you should look into this too.
You don't have access to the quality of information that the UK audience does. You have my sympathy but not my agreement
im not saying youre wrong or something, im just saying he did a pretty good job this race. the same as in Barcelona, where he defended Hamilton like a boss. I dont know if he would have won the race 100 % under normal circumstances but to blame it purely on luck would be wrong.
But he should lose a few races in the future, I want the awesome last race finish like last season again
I dont think anyone is saying he didn't race a good race, he qualified at blistering pace and was on top all weekend. That said the crash obviously played right into his hands, it was the only reason he held onto pole. Surely the fact that Button / Alonso were lapping faster and faster each lap proves how robbed we were of the last 10 laps.
No it wasn't the only reason why he won the race. That's just speculation, stop it. If he and the team didn't think that they could stay first until the end, they would have changed the tires much earlier.
Or they could hold on to their p1 and try and drive insanely defensively for the rest of the race, from testing it was p much apparent that the soft tyres become incredibly bad around the 45th lap, iirc it was lap 16 when Vettel put em on (and I'm 100% sure his team wouldn't have put him on softs for the rest of the race at lap 16) meaning lap 58 when the crash occured (iirc) meaning he had maybe 5-10 more laps at race pace max. If the drop is as big as people make it out to be, Vettel would not have been able to hold his p1 from the far faster 2 behind him. You're being obtuse if you think he would've held them off without a newer set of super softs. F1 although based a large amount of driver skill, at some points comes down to sheer maths, and the times that Vettel would've posted after the drop wouldn't have been enough to keep off a blistering Alonso.
Sorry but that's just wrong. There isn't a sudden time were the tires become incredibly bad, they get worse over time.
I'm afraid you are wrong. There is indeed a "cliff" that the tyres drop off when the reach the end of their life. Pirelli designed the tyres that way to provide more exciting racing. The drop is HUGE (see china). I'm a little puzzled as to why you are unaware of this fact. I'm so glad we have thorough commentary teams in the UK that explain this stuff in detail.
decent report. pretty much sums up the grand prix, hamilton unfortunate and made very silly comments after the race, vettel fortunate, button/alonso robbed of victory. fans robbed of great end to a grand prix.
No offence to your country's commentary team, but I'd highly recommend watching the BBC coverage one weekend. If you find the time, watch the friday free practice sessions as well, because the BBC even has a team that commentates those (which i'm not sure other nations coverage does?) and you learn a lot.
The UK coverage is in NO WAY biased towards Hamilton, and we have two ex-drivers as our main commentary team who in fact routinely get accused of being too harsh on Hamilton, and were pretty scathing of him during the race yesterday. So you're wrong there too.
looks like I said it wrong. I meant that there isn't an exact timing when they get really bad (like lap 45), it depends on a lot of factors when they start to drop off ("the cliff").
"decent report. pretty much sums up the grand prix, hamilton unfortunate and made very silly comments after the race, vettel fortunate, button/alonso robbed of victory. fans robbed of great end to a grand prix." That's exactly what I'm talking about: They were robbed of the chance to overtake Vettel, not of victory. The other points are good, but the question is how much luck/bad luck Vettel and Hamilton had. And even if people from BBC criticize Hamilton, they talk more about him than about other drivers, which is of course totally understandable, because it's mostly for people from the UK. The article has also some of the Hamilton hype I meant.
German television is pretty good in regards to Formula 1. All practice sessions are shown and we also have an ex-driver as a commentator (he isn't well known, though) and for example Niki Lauda as an analyst, who especially praised Vettel for that race.
(My English is bad, so it's not easy to argue about that topic)
On May 30 2011 21:39 Lachrymose wrote: It isn't at least 50/50. In that hairpin the racing line is the outside. A wide entry and late apex is/can be the racing line. An early apex is never the racing line. Massa was on the racing line. Hamilton was off the racing line.
You can clearly see how far back he is. You can clearly see an F1 car does not having the steering lock to make a line like that, he rides into the side of Massa the whole way around the corner. I'm not ignoring the evidence and assuming bias
You are since you ignored the reason that Hamilton had to take that line... Massa squeezed him into it. If Massa follows the line that the Red Bull in front of him takes then there is no accident but he doesn't he cuts across leaving Hamilton a passenger to the accident. Hamilton even breaks but there's nowhere for him to go.
On May 30 2011 21:39 Lachrymose wrote: Against Maldonado Hamilton again dives at an apex, again, an apex that is always going to disappear. When contact is made Hamilton (despite, again, taking the shortest route to the apex) makes contact to the sidepod. This time however the contact is at the back of the sidepod right in front of the rear wheel of Maldonado. This is absolutely not far enough alongside for people to be yeilding. It is absolutely diving and leaves Maldonado nowhere to go.
That's the whole point of overtaking. Putting your car on a line so that the car in front has to take a different line. Seriously go watch some older races, this happened 50 times a race and no-one ever got penalised.
Have to admit, as much as I enjoy Hamilton's racing skills when he is on form, he's completely and utterly wrong about that Massa incident. No idea how anyone can defend him for it.
Very disappointed with his maturity and reaction to it after the race as well.
Some of you people just dont understand how overtaking is done, the "racing line" when overtaking is not the optimal line for speed. It is the inside, the apex, essentially blocking your opponent or making him drive around the outside. If you have it, 9 times out of 10 you have the corner. Drivers realise this and yield or turn in and crash. Which is of more benefit? As for me only thinking Hamilton is the best because I am English, well that is just bullshit. You go on to say Alonso is the best, Lewis beat Alonso as his team-mate in his rookie year. Ofcourse there is opinion in this matter, but to dismiss my views as nationalistic bias is foolish. In regard to the two penalties recieved, like klive points out above, every single race there are incidents with contact. McLaren and more recently Hamilton seem to get treated worse than others. Take these examples:- 1. Kobayashi on Sutil
Overtakes because of it, causes massive damage. No penalty.
2. Many other incidents from monaco too, such as DiResta and Schumacher running into the back of D'Ambrosio and Hamilton breaking diffusers.
3. Previous races include Webber taking out Hamilton even though Lewis left him room (something Maldonado did not). No penalty.
Vettel dropping it trying to overtake Jenson and taking him out. No penalty.
4.As well as hundreds of other incidents every season that do not get punished.
Aristodemus, you have very good points there, and I have to agree with you on these, and probably no one will deny you these incidents. I fully agree with you. However, they are, opposed to what you are saying, completely unrelated to the HAM-MAS incident from yesterday. Just because there are many unfair maneuvers which go unpunished doesnt mean Hamilton (or any other driver) should be able to get away with this maneuver. We should talk about all the other reckless driving that has been done instead of Hamiltons then.
So now im not a "massive cock"? Hamiltons frustration is from years of this, not just one race. In fact look at those pictures and i will talk you through what happened. In the first set Lewis moves for the inside (1) while Massa is on his normal line. He then sees Lewis making a move and turns in to block (2) but it is already to late for that, Hamiltons car has nowhere to go now. He does the only thing he can which is take to the curb as much as possible in (3+4) and Massa runs into the back of Webber, which is probably more deserving of a penalty but still not a penalty. The second set just emphasize the same point, tell me, after he decides to make a move what can he do? Should we ban overtaking at the hairpin? No, drivers have to accept they lost position and leave room, something Hamilton always does.
staying in front of Alonso for 15 rounds with fucked up tires is luck ?
His tyres were not fucked up. The prime tyres last ~45 laps according to their testing. Vettel was on lap 48. His tyres were ABOUT to become fucked up and "drop off the cliff" as the drivers put it. Try to pay attention to the information you're given. BBC commentary explain all this very well, so I shouldn't have to.
Then explain to me why the Button / Alonso were 2+ secs faster each round. He did a pretty good job at not destroying his tires the 40 rounds before, you should look into this too.
You don't have access to the quality of information that the UK audience does. You have my sympathy but not my agreement
im not saying youre wrong or something, im just saying he did a pretty good job this race. the same as in Barcelona, where he defended Hamilton like a boss. I dont know if he would have won the race 100 % under normal circumstances but to blame it purely on luck would be wrong.
But he should lose a few races in the future, I want the awesome last race finish like last season again
I dont think anyone is saying he didn't race a good race, he qualified at blistering pace and was on top all weekend. That said the crash obviously played right into his hands, it was the only reason he held onto pole. Surely the fact that Button / Alonso were lapping faster and faster each lap proves how robbed we were of the last 10 laps.
No it wasn't the only reason why he won the race. That's just speculation, stop it. If he and the team didn't think that they could stay first until the end, they would have changed the tires much earlier.
Or they could hold on to their p1 and try and drive insanely defensively for the rest of the race, from testing it was p much apparent that the soft tyres become incredibly bad around the 45th lap, iirc it was lap 16 when Vettel put em on (and I'm 100% sure his team wouldn't have put him on softs for the rest of the race at lap 16) meaning lap 58 when the crash occured (iirc) meaning he had maybe 5-10 more laps at race pace max. If the drop is as big as people make it out to be, Vettel would not have been able to hold his p1 from the far faster 2 behind him. You're being obtuse if you think he would've held them off without a newer set of super softs. F1 although based a large amount of driver skill, at some points comes down to sheer maths, and the times that Vettel would've posted after the drop wouldn't have been enough to keep off a blistering Alonso.
Sorry but that's just wrong. There isn't a sudden time were the tires become incredibly bad, they get worse over time.
I'm afraid you are wrong. There is indeed a "cliff" that the tyres drop off when the reach the end of their life. Pirelli designed the tyres that way to provide more exciting racing. The drop is HUGE (see china). I'm a little puzzled as to why you are unaware of this fact. I'm so glad we have thorough commentary teams in the UK that explain this stuff in detail.
decent report. pretty much sums up the grand prix, hamilton unfortunate and made very silly comments after the race, vettel fortunate, button/alonso robbed of victory. fans robbed of great end to a grand prix.
No offence to your country's commentary team, but I'd highly recommend watching the BBC coverage one weekend. If you find the time, watch the friday free practice sessions as well, because the BBC even has a team that commentates those (which i'm not sure other nations coverage does?) and you learn a lot.
The UK coverage is in NO WAY biased towards Hamilton, and we have two ex-drivers as our main commentary team who in fact routinely get accused of being too harsh on Hamilton, and were pretty scathing of him during the race yesterday. So you're wrong there too.
So, you never listened to the german (or other) broadcast but you're saying the BBC one is the only good one? That's really ignorant. We have the coverage of the whole weekend including all training sessions on 3 (!) TV stations.
Martin Brundle did an interview on his gridwalk with the motorsport director of Pirelli (Paul Hembrey) who said a one stop strategy could be used in Monaco. The gridwalks of Brundle are awesome btw! :D
"It will never be known whether he could have held off Alonso and Button had the race not been stopped." That's taken of your link to the blog.