November 27, 2011
F1 Update!: Brazil 2011
The skies above looked ugly, big black clouds approaching the Autodromo Juan Carlos Pace seemingly from all directions. It wasn't raining yet, but every driver on the grid and every mechanic in the pit lane had an eye cocked towards the heavens, looking for the first hint of drizzle, downpour or deluge. Would rain be the deciding factor in this, the last race of the season, or would we get a straight-up run to the checkered flag? THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Brazil!
*LIGHTS OUT: As we've come to expect, once the race began Seb Vettel streaked away from his pole position to open a 1.1 second lead over his teammate Mark Webber. After two laps, it was 2.4 seconds and this began to have all the hallmarks of a battle to see who would be the first to finish the race AFTER the Driver's Champion. But all was not well inside the guts of Seb Vettel's RB7.
*INTERLAGOS HATES GEARBOXES: Around Lap 14 we first got evidence that this race was not going to be going all Seb Vettel's way. A radio broadcast from the pit wall said it all: "We need you to short shift into second gear." A couple of laps later came another call: "We have a gearbox problem. Short shift for second and third gears." As the race went on we were treated to more such calls... and Seb Vettel's unintentionally humorous responses. For example, on Lap 25 the team's message was an audibly more urgent "we have a serious gearbox problem, short shift please." In response, Vettel ripped off the fastest lap of the race thus far. Then, finally, the team made it perfectly clear to their World Champion that he had to baby the gearbox if he wanted to finish the race: "Short shift every corner, every lap." If nothing else though, Vettel wanted to race, impending gearbox failure or no, for he replied the way a racer should: "If I do that, I'll fall behind!" Alas, the radio was cut at that point, for we suspect the pit wall's response would have done justice to a pissed-off Marine drill sergeant. While Vettel's situation proved to be the most amusing, his was not the only car to be plagued by a balky gearbox. McLaren's Lewis Hamilton was warned that he had a dying gearbox and that there was nothing he or the team could do about it. A few laps later, an ugly grinding noise announced that the ratios had departed this Earth and headed to gearbox heaven. Force India's Paul diResta and Renault's Red Menace also had gearbox issues but they held together long enough to complete the race with little reduction in speed.
*RAIN. PRECIPITATION. MOISTURE.: As the race began, the FIA's weather prognosticators reported that it was going to rain, it was just a question of when. They had good reason to believe this; you could see rain falling in the city of São Paulo just beyond the Autodromo Juan Carlos Pace's walls. Repeatedly the purveyors of precipitation sent warnings to the teams: "Rain in five minutes." "Rain in 10 minutes." "Rain expected inside of 30 minutes." On Lap 35, Ferrari tweeted that there was going to be rain in just a few minutes... and immediately brought HWMNBN in for a set of dry weather tires. Confusion reigned amongst the Legendary Announce Team. Finally, the masters of moisture gave up, saying that they didn't expect any rain until after the "current checkered flag." As Bob Varsha said, "what, there are more than one?" In the end, the expected rain never did fall and the race proceeded apace.
*TOWARDS THE END: After the Red Bull pit wall blistered the ears of their youthful wunderkind, his Australian teammate began to close in at the rate of a half-second per lap. On Lap 30, the Driver's Champion pulled aside to let Webber go by. A good call, as racing a hobbled car against a teammate's healthy vehicle never ends well. Suddenly everything became much more interesting, for while first place in the Driver's Championship had been locked up a month ago, there was still an active battle for second, third and fourth. The only hope Webber had to finish second was to win the race and for McLaren's Jenson Button to have a breakdown and for HWMNBN to finish fourth or worse. If Button got even one point, he'd be second no matter what the Red Bull driver did. The failure of Hamilton's gearbox gave hope that Button's would suffer a similar fate, but the Ferrari driver seemed to be firmly ensconced in third place.
*AND THEN...: Going into the final round of pit stops, the order was Webber, Vettel (driving a gritty race), HWMNBN and Button. All four drivers put on the harder tires and set sail for the end of the race and the season. It looked like Button would finish second in the Driver's Championship, followed by HWMNBN and Webber... except for one thing. If there was a single overarching problem with the Ferrari F150° Italia all year, it was that it was terrible on the harder tires. If there was one thing that Jenson Button had proven again and again this year, it was that he could make his McLaren MP4/26 work well on any tire compound... and today was no exception. He began to take huge chunks of time out of the Ferrari's lead, leaving no doubt what was about to occur. On Lap 61, Button simply cruised past HWMNBN for the bottom step of the podium, coincidentally handing third place in the Driver's Championship to Mark Webber. However, the race was not yet over, for as Button dealt with the Spaniard, Seb Vettel began to show signs that his gearbox was making his life a nightmare. He completely blew a turn, taking to the asphalt runoff area to continue the race. If that continued, Button had a slim chance to catch him for second place.
*THE END: While Button was snipping a half-second off of the gap to Vettel per lap, the lead was much too great. Mark Webber swept across the line for his first (and only) victory of the year, followed some 17 seconds later by Vettel's limping Red Bull. Button was next to cross the finish line 11 seconds later, followed by HWMNBN with a similar gap.
*FINAL DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS: Vettel, Button, Webber, HWMNBN, Hamilton, Felipe Massa. Curiously, Grizzly Nick Heidfeld, who hadn't driven since Round 11 in Hungary, still finished in 11th place.
*FINAL CONSTRUCTOR'S CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS: Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault, Force India, Sauber, Toro Rosso, Williams, Lotus, HRT, Virgin. If you took all the points from third through 12th and added them together, you'd have a total of 772 points. Red Bull alone had 650.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Seb Vettel. At one point in the race, he radioed to his pit wall that he felt "like Senna in '91." In that particular Brazilian Grand Prix, Ayrton Senna won the race despite having only first, second and sixth gears. Here, Vettel kept his crippled gearbox going well enough to not only finish second, but finish second easily. While we still don't know exactly how bad his gearbox damage was, the increasingly strident calls from his race engineer suggested it wasn't good. A sterling drive for the two-time World Champion in difficult circumstances.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. Really, how can you not give it to them? They finished 1-2, they coaxed an ill car for some 60 laps across the finish line (when their biggest rivals couldn't get one of theirs to last 10 laps from when the problem became apparent), and heck, they just squashed the sport all season long. Just tip your cap to them and move on to next year.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: In Formula 1, particularly in the age of DRS and KERS, a pass can come at any time two cars are close enough. There are certain places and times, though, that a pass just doesn't occur. In the S-Curves at Suzuka, for example, or Turn 1 at Monaco. It just isn't done. Another of that sort is Turns 6 and 7 here at Brazil. Fast right-hand sweepers of decreasing radius, blowing those will ruin the entire middle sector of Interlagos, if it doesn't pitch you off into the Brazilian terrain. So of course it's ridiculous to expect to be passed there, and it's even more unlikely that you'll have to defend against a pass on the outside of the turns. So on Lap 11, when HWMNBN closed in on Jenson Button heading down the short chute to Turn 6, Button probably felt pretty good.
...and then the Ferrari, tires apparently covered in stickum, Krazy Glue and honey, swooped to the outside of Button and blew the metaphorical doors off the McLaren. A heckuva pass in a very unlikely spot!
*MOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: Rule #1 when performing a tire change: tighten down the wheel nut. Rule #2: make sure you follow rule #1.
Thanks, Virgin Racing. We knew we could count on you to give us a laugh today, and you didn't disappoint. The wheel nut's bid for freedom gave us a chuckle during a tense race. Here's your Mooooo!
*DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*LIGHTS OUT: As we've come to expect, once the race began Seb Vettel streaked away from his pole position to open a 1.1 second lead over his teammate Mark Webber. After two laps, it was 2.4 seconds and this began to have all the hallmarks of a battle to see who would be the first to finish the race AFTER the Driver's Champion. But all was not well inside the guts of Seb Vettel's RB7.
*INTERLAGOS HATES GEARBOXES: Around Lap 14 we first got evidence that this race was not going to be going all Seb Vettel's way. A radio broadcast from the pit wall said it all: "We need you to short shift into second gear." A couple of laps later came another call: "We have a gearbox problem. Short shift for second and third gears." As the race went on we were treated to more such calls... and Seb Vettel's unintentionally humorous responses. For example, on Lap 25 the team's message was an audibly more urgent "we have a serious gearbox problem, short shift please." In response, Vettel ripped off the fastest lap of the race thus far. Then, finally, the team made it perfectly clear to their World Champion that he had to baby the gearbox if he wanted to finish the race: "Short shift every corner, every lap." If nothing else though, Vettel wanted to race, impending gearbox failure or no, for he replied the way a racer should: "If I do that, I'll fall behind!" Alas, the radio was cut at that point, for we suspect the pit wall's response would have done justice to a pissed-off Marine drill sergeant. While Vettel's situation proved to be the most amusing, his was not the only car to be plagued by a balky gearbox. McLaren's Lewis Hamilton was warned that he had a dying gearbox and that there was nothing he or the team could do about it. A few laps later, an ugly grinding noise announced that the ratios had departed this Earth and headed to gearbox heaven. Force India's Paul diResta and Renault's Red Menace also had gearbox issues but they held together long enough to complete the race with little reduction in speed.
*RAIN. PRECIPITATION. MOISTURE.: As the race began, the FIA's weather prognosticators reported that it was going to rain, it was just a question of when. They had good reason to believe this; you could see rain falling in the city of São Paulo just beyond the Autodromo Juan Carlos Pace's walls. Repeatedly the purveyors of precipitation sent warnings to the teams: "Rain in five minutes." "Rain in 10 minutes." "Rain expected inside of 30 minutes." On Lap 35, Ferrari tweeted that there was going to be rain in just a few minutes... and immediately brought HWMNBN in for a set of dry weather tires. Confusion reigned amongst the Legendary Announce Team. Finally, the masters of moisture gave up, saying that they didn't expect any rain until after the "current checkered flag." As Bob Varsha said, "what, there are more than one?" In the end, the expected rain never did fall and the race proceeded apace.
*TOWARDS THE END: After the Red Bull pit wall blistered the ears of their youthful wunderkind, his Australian teammate began to close in at the rate of a half-second per lap. On Lap 30, the Driver's Champion pulled aside to let Webber go by. A good call, as racing a hobbled car against a teammate's healthy vehicle never ends well. Suddenly everything became much more interesting, for while first place in the Driver's Championship had been locked up a month ago, there was still an active battle for second, third and fourth. The only hope Webber had to finish second was to win the race and for McLaren's Jenson Button to have a breakdown and for HWMNBN to finish fourth or worse. If Button got even one point, he'd be second no matter what the Red Bull driver did. The failure of Hamilton's gearbox gave hope that Button's would suffer a similar fate, but the Ferrari driver seemed to be firmly ensconced in third place.
*AND THEN...: Going into the final round of pit stops, the order was Webber, Vettel (driving a gritty race), HWMNBN and Button. All four drivers put on the harder tires and set sail for the end of the race and the season. It looked like Button would finish second in the Driver's Championship, followed by HWMNBN and Webber... except for one thing. If there was a single overarching problem with the Ferrari F150° Italia all year, it was that it was terrible on the harder tires. If there was one thing that Jenson Button had proven again and again this year, it was that he could make his McLaren MP4/26 work well on any tire compound... and today was no exception. He began to take huge chunks of time out of the Ferrari's lead, leaving no doubt what was about to occur. On Lap 61, Button simply cruised past HWMNBN for the bottom step of the podium, coincidentally handing third place in the Driver's Championship to Mark Webber. However, the race was not yet over, for as Button dealt with the Spaniard, Seb Vettel began to show signs that his gearbox was making his life a nightmare. He completely blew a turn, taking to the asphalt runoff area to continue the race. If that continued, Button had a slim chance to catch him for second place.
*THE END: While Button was snipping a half-second off of the gap to Vettel per lap, the lead was much too great. Mark Webber swept across the line for his first (and only) victory of the year, followed some 17 seconds later by Vettel's limping Red Bull. Button was next to cross the finish line 11 seconds later, followed by HWMNBN with a similar gap.
*FINAL DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS: Vettel, Button, Webber, HWMNBN, Hamilton, Felipe Massa. Curiously, Grizzly Nick Heidfeld, who hadn't driven since Round 11 in Hungary, still finished in 11th place.
*FINAL CONSTRUCTOR'S CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS: Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault, Force India, Sauber, Toro Rosso, Williams, Lotus, HRT, Virgin. If you took all the points from third through 12th and added them together, you'd have a total of 772 points. Red Bull alone had 650.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Seb Vettel. At one point in the race, he radioed to his pit wall that he felt "like Senna in '91." In that particular Brazilian Grand Prix, Ayrton Senna won the race despite having only first, second and sixth gears. Here, Vettel kept his crippled gearbox going well enough to not only finish second, but finish second easily. While we still don't know exactly how bad his gearbox damage was, the increasingly strident calls from his race engineer suggested it wasn't good. A sterling drive for the two-time World Champion in difficult circumstances.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. Really, how can you not give it to them? They finished 1-2, they coaxed an ill car for some 60 laps across the finish line (when their biggest rivals couldn't get one of theirs to last 10 laps from when the problem became apparent), and heck, they just squashed the sport all season long. Just tip your cap to them and move on to next year.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: In Formula 1, particularly in the age of DRS and KERS, a pass can come at any time two cars are close enough. There are certain places and times, though, that a pass just doesn't occur. In the S-Curves at Suzuka, for example, or Turn 1 at Monaco. It just isn't done. Another of that sort is Turns 6 and 7 here at Brazil. Fast right-hand sweepers of decreasing radius, blowing those will ruin the entire middle sector of Interlagos, if it doesn't pitch you off into the Brazilian terrain. So of course it's ridiculous to expect to be passed there, and it's even more unlikely that you'll have to defend against a pass on the outside of the turns. So on Lap 11, when HWMNBN closed in on Jenson Button heading down the short chute to Turn 6, Button probably felt pretty good.
...and then the Ferrari, tires apparently covered in stickum, Krazy Glue and honey, swooped to the outside of Button and blew the metaphorical doors off the McLaren. A heckuva pass in a very unlikely spot!
*MOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: Rule #1 when performing a tire change: tighten down the wheel nut. Rule #2: make sure you follow rule #1.
Thanks, Virgin Racing. We knew we could count on you to give us a laugh today, and you didn't disappoint. The wheel nut's bid for freedom gave us a chuckle during a tense race. Here's your Mooooo!
*DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
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November 13, 2011
F1 Update!: Abu Dhabi 2011
The grid formed up under a bright but setting sun for the penultimate race of the season with the familiar sight of Red Bull's Seb Vettel on pole. However, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button obviously had the measure of the RB7. On this track where passing is a rarity, the run to the first turn could be decisive. Which car would lead the field? THIS is your F1U! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi.
*SHOCK: The lights went out, releasing the Thundering Herd to charge down to Turn 1. In what had to be the least surprising outcome ever, Vettel not only held the lead into the first bend, but quickly showed that everything we had thought about the McLaren's advantage over the Red Bull was false. As the Red Bull powered into and through the turn, it opened a four or five car-length advantage over Hamilton and we here at F1U! threw up our hands in disgust. And then...
We still haven't heard exactly what caused Vettel's right-rear tire to deflate, sending the Red Bull into a spin just as he turned into Turn 2. It may have hit a carbon-fiber shard left over from the earlier GP2 race. When the car accelerated off the line, it may have had enough grip to torque the tire off the rim. It may have had a slow puncture even before the race began. Whatever the reason, by the time Vettel got his car back on track for the slow, difficult crawl back to the pits, tire flailing at the rear bodywork the whole time, the entire field had gotten past. By the time he made it to his pit stall and officially completed his first lap, the field had mostly finished the second. Mechanics swarmed the Champion's car, but a fast and thorough inspection of the right-rear made it clear that the damage inflicted by the shredded rubber was too bad to allow the RB7 to continue. Seb Vettel had retired from a race for the first time this season.
*AWE: With Sebby out of the picture, the mantle of "dominating leader" fell to Lewis Hamilton. By the end of the first lap, he had a 2.5 second lead over the Ferrari of HWMNBN who got into a scrap with Jenson Button for second place, aiding Hamilton's attempt to pull away. Once things settled down, it became clear that the McLaren would not be headed in any way. Farther back, Jenson Button fell to 4th place, passed by Mark Webber, when his KERS unit failed. While he was eventually able to get it working again, for the rest of the race he would wind up having to reset it every two or three laps. Back up at the front, it was obvious that we were looking at a strategy race.
*PITS: With Lewis Hamilton able to open a lead but not able to run away and hide, any excess time spent in the pits would be crucial. Of course, pit stops have always been important in F1, but it's been rare this season for the pit crews to be decisive. At a track where a pass was difficult to pull off, and even harder to make stick, time lost or gained in the pits would be a bonus beyond horsepower's abilities to create... or make up. As it turned out, that's exactly what occurred: cars that had quick stops were able to maintain their positions, and those with poor stops lost position. When Button had a good first stop but Red Bull had an uncharacteristically slow one for Mark Webber, Webber fell out of the race for third place. As it turned out, he never recovered, even with the team switching him onto a three-stop strategy... with the third stop, for the mandatory run on the harder of the two tire compounds, coming on the final lap. On the second round of stops, HWMNBN stayed out two laps longer than Hamilton, trying to open up enough of a gap to jump the McLaren for the lead. Any sort of gap he had been able to create was thrown away by a methodical, safe... and slow... stop from the Ferrari mechanics. Where McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull routinely spit out stops in the 3.5 second range or even faster, it took Ferrari 4.5 seconds to service HWMNBN. Going into the stop, he had maybe a 50/50 chance to keep the lead. Coming out, Hamilton had easily gone past, regaining the lead and holding it for the rest of the race.
*ENDING: The rest of the race was somewhat anticlimactic. Hamilton took his third victory of the season by over eight seconds over HWMNBN. Jenson Button had managed to keep his recalcitrant KERS unit functional enough to take third, some 20-odd seconds behind the leader. Mark Webber looked like he was going to have a tough time finishing fourth; his lead over 5th place Felipe Massa was right on the edge of the "pit delta", the amount of time it took to drive into the pits, get serviced, then rejoin the race. The delta time was 20 seconds, and he had almost exactly that much of a lead. But then Massa made the matter moot by spinning and handing Webber 15 seconds to play with. Somewhere in the Red Bull compound, a bemused Seb Vettel could only wonder what could have been...
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: HWMNBN. Hamilton had the better car, the better pit crew, and the better strategy. Yet he just could not dispose of the Ferrari driver, who hung grimly just off the tail of the McLaren, never letting him get free and clear. All of this was done with a Ferrari that wasn't as fast or nimble as his opponent. Probably one of the most impressive drives for second I've seen in a long time.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: McLaren. When Sebby went away, the boys from Woking knew they had a chance to play Bigfoot... and they took it. Even a balkly KERS unit in one of their cars didn't prevent them from getting both drivers on the podium.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: To be honest, it's hard to give this award today. There just wasn't all that much passing of note. We suppose we'll have to give it to both Mark Webber and Jenson Button, for their duel on Lap 3. Button led the pair into the long long straightaway. Webber got to use the DRS and just barely managed to get past the McLaren when they swooped into the chicane. However, there were TWO DRS zones today, and now Button got to use it to counter-attack... and immediately blew Webber's metaphorical doors off. Highly entertaining, but not exactly dramatic. A tepid "Meh" to the Abu Dhabi track, and a "meh" MotR.
*MOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: Another "meh" for this award. There just wasn't that much bad driving occurring. The most bovine maneuver had to be Felipe Massa's spin when he had a chance to finish fourth.
To be fair, he did have some damage to the right element of his front wing from running over some debris, and he was on the harder tires. A spin is a spin, however, and it did kill any hope he had of his best finish of the season, so Felipe Massa: A Moooooo is you!
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*SHOCK: The lights went out, releasing the Thundering Herd to charge down to Turn 1. In what had to be the least surprising outcome ever, Vettel not only held the lead into the first bend, but quickly showed that everything we had thought about the McLaren's advantage over the Red Bull was false. As the Red Bull powered into and through the turn, it opened a four or five car-length advantage over Hamilton and we here at F1U! threw up our hands in disgust. And then...
We still haven't heard exactly what caused Vettel's right-rear tire to deflate, sending the Red Bull into a spin just as he turned into Turn 2. It may have hit a carbon-fiber shard left over from the earlier GP2 race. When the car accelerated off the line, it may have had enough grip to torque the tire off the rim. It may have had a slow puncture even before the race began. Whatever the reason, by the time Vettel got his car back on track for the slow, difficult crawl back to the pits, tire flailing at the rear bodywork the whole time, the entire field had gotten past. By the time he made it to his pit stall and officially completed his first lap, the field had mostly finished the second. Mechanics swarmed the Champion's car, but a fast and thorough inspection of the right-rear made it clear that the damage inflicted by the shredded rubber was too bad to allow the RB7 to continue. Seb Vettel had retired from a race for the first time this season.
*AWE: With Sebby out of the picture, the mantle of "dominating leader" fell to Lewis Hamilton. By the end of the first lap, he had a 2.5 second lead over the Ferrari of HWMNBN who got into a scrap with Jenson Button for second place, aiding Hamilton's attempt to pull away. Once things settled down, it became clear that the McLaren would not be headed in any way. Farther back, Jenson Button fell to 4th place, passed by Mark Webber, when his KERS unit failed. While he was eventually able to get it working again, for the rest of the race he would wind up having to reset it every two or three laps. Back up at the front, it was obvious that we were looking at a strategy race.
*PITS: With Lewis Hamilton able to open a lead but not able to run away and hide, any excess time spent in the pits would be crucial. Of course, pit stops have always been important in F1, but it's been rare this season for the pit crews to be decisive. At a track where a pass was difficult to pull off, and even harder to make stick, time lost or gained in the pits would be a bonus beyond horsepower's abilities to create... or make up. As it turned out, that's exactly what occurred: cars that had quick stops were able to maintain their positions, and those with poor stops lost position. When Button had a good first stop but Red Bull had an uncharacteristically slow one for Mark Webber, Webber fell out of the race for third place. As it turned out, he never recovered, even with the team switching him onto a three-stop strategy... with the third stop, for the mandatory run on the harder of the two tire compounds, coming on the final lap. On the second round of stops, HWMNBN stayed out two laps longer than Hamilton, trying to open up enough of a gap to jump the McLaren for the lead. Any sort of gap he had been able to create was thrown away by a methodical, safe... and slow... stop from the Ferrari mechanics. Where McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull routinely spit out stops in the 3.5 second range or even faster, it took Ferrari 4.5 seconds to service HWMNBN. Going into the stop, he had maybe a 50/50 chance to keep the lead. Coming out, Hamilton had easily gone past, regaining the lead and holding it for the rest of the race.
*ENDING: The rest of the race was somewhat anticlimactic. Hamilton took his third victory of the season by over eight seconds over HWMNBN. Jenson Button had managed to keep his recalcitrant KERS unit functional enough to take third, some 20-odd seconds behind the leader. Mark Webber looked like he was going to have a tough time finishing fourth; his lead over 5th place Felipe Massa was right on the edge of the "pit delta", the amount of time it took to drive into the pits, get serviced, then rejoin the race. The delta time was 20 seconds, and he had almost exactly that much of a lead. But then Massa made the matter moot by spinning and handing Webber 15 seconds to play with. Somewhere in the Red Bull compound, a bemused Seb Vettel could only wonder what could have been...
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: HWMNBN. Hamilton had the better car, the better pit crew, and the better strategy. Yet he just could not dispose of the Ferrari driver, who hung grimly just off the tail of the McLaren, never letting him get free and clear. All of this was done with a Ferrari that wasn't as fast or nimble as his opponent. Probably one of the most impressive drives for second I've seen in a long time.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: McLaren. When Sebby went away, the boys from Woking knew they had a chance to play Bigfoot... and they took it. Even a balkly KERS unit in one of their cars didn't prevent them from getting both drivers on the podium.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: To be honest, it's hard to give this award today. There just wasn't all that much passing of note. We suppose we'll have to give it to both Mark Webber and Jenson Button, for their duel on Lap 3. Button led the pair into the long long straightaway. Webber got to use the DRS and just barely managed to get past the McLaren when they swooped into the chicane. However, there were TWO DRS zones today, and now Button got to use it to counter-attack... and immediately blew Webber's metaphorical doors off. Highly entertaining, but not exactly dramatic. A tepid "Meh" to the Abu Dhabi track, and a "meh" MotR.
*MOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: Another "meh" for this award. There just wasn't that much bad driving occurring. The most bovine maneuver had to be Felipe Massa's spin when he had a chance to finish fourth.
To be fair, he did have some damage to the right element of his front wing from running over some debris, and he was on the harder tires. A spin is a spin, however, and it did kill any hope he had of his best finish of the season, so Felipe Massa: A Moooooo is you!
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
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October 30, 2011
F1 Update!: India 2011
A hot, smoggy day greeted the F1 Circus as they formed up on the Buddh International Circuit's grid. Would polesitter Seb Vettel continue his domination of the year, or would he let his teammate by in an attempt to get him second place in the driver's championship? Or would the Ferraris and McLarens make the question moot? THIS is your F1U! for the inaugural Grand Prix of India!
*EVERYTHING NEW IS OLD AGAIN: Once the lights went out and the race began, it was exactly like most of the previous races this season. Seb Vettel got a good start, pulled away and never looked back. At the end of Lap 1, his lead was 1.3 seconds and nobody ever got any closer. By the end of Lap 8, it was over 8 seconds.
*BLUNDERING HERD: The first turn saw a shower of carbon fiber, front wings and bodywork like we haven't seen all season. Five cars had various degrees of damage as the back half of the field approached the braking zone, and a sixth, the Lotus of Jarno Trulli went for a spin in Turn 3, provoked by a nudge from behind. We here at F1U! aren't exactly sure just why such carnage occurred today as the first turn is plenty wide, but there it is. It was entertaining, if nothing else.
*THE TRACK: In another era, it's clear that the Buddh International Circuit would be another processional circuit. However, with two DRS zones and KERS, there was some fun racing back in the midpack. Hermann Tilke got lucky with this one. As long as the rules stay the way they are, India will be a race to look forward to. That long long looooooong straightaway looks like it has the ability to kill a powertrain, however. Two cars suffered failures as they ran down the 4000' length of tarmac: one dead gearbox and one blown engine. The curbs also reached up and broke Felipe Massa's suspension again, though this time the left front.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Seb Vettel led his 711th lap of the season today. Not only is that a record, it's also more laps than Jenson Button has led in his entire career... and yes, that includes his 2009 Championship season. More than that, Vettel today earned himself a rare F1 Grand Slam. He won from pole position, led every lap, and set fast lap of the race. In a season of great drives from the young German, this was probably his best.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: McLaren clinched second place in the Constructor's Championship with the combination of Jenson Button's second-place finish and Lewis Hamilton's 7th. In a year that was so dominated by one team, that's quite the accomplishment for the team from Woking.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: Not always do the best moves of a race happen up towards the front of the field, and today was a perfect example of that fact. On Lap 14, the surging Toro Rosso of DJ Squire was hunting down the hometown Force India of Adrian Sutil. When the two cars crossed the DRS detection marker before the long straight, DJ Squire was about a half-second back. Opening the flap on the rear wing let the Toro Rosso pull close, but it didn't really seem like he had the speed to make the pass as they approached the braking zone.
Despite what we thought, DJ Squire pulled his steed to the outside of the Force India and held off on the braking for as long as he could.
Keeping the Toro Rosso under control into the fast sweep, DJ Squire just barely managed to pull ahead of the Force India, forcing Adrian Sutil to back down.
While it was only for 9th place, it was still an impressive move, and without a doubt the best of the day. It just wasn't as... exciting as some have been. This isn't a negative.
*MOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: Because "exciting" is exactly what you don't want when you're making a pass at 150mph On Lap 24, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton had the Ferrari of Felipe Massa right where he wanted it. That the two of them had made contact five previous times this season probably should have given Hamilton some pause, but heading into Turn 5 he still had some KERS juice remaining while Massa did not. He used it and tried to get underneath the red car...
...and Massa tried to guillotine the McLaren, which had his front tires in front of the Ferrari's rears. Massa went for a slide and a spin, Hamilton went to the pits for a new nose. Massa was later given a drive-through penalty for his rather bovine attempt to keep Hamilton behind him, and his later suspension failure seemed like a case of just desserts. Congratulations, Felipe, this Mooooooo-ooove's all yours.
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*EVERYTHING NEW IS OLD AGAIN: Once the lights went out and the race began, it was exactly like most of the previous races this season. Seb Vettel got a good start, pulled away and never looked back. At the end of Lap 1, his lead was 1.3 seconds and nobody ever got any closer. By the end of Lap 8, it was over 8 seconds.
*BLUNDERING HERD: The first turn saw a shower of carbon fiber, front wings and bodywork like we haven't seen all season. Five cars had various degrees of damage as the back half of the field approached the braking zone, and a sixth, the Lotus of Jarno Trulli went for a spin in Turn 3, provoked by a nudge from behind. We here at F1U! aren't exactly sure just why such carnage occurred today as the first turn is plenty wide, but there it is. It was entertaining, if nothing else.
*THE TRACK: In another era, it's clear that the Buddh International Circuit would be another processional circuit. However, with two DRS zones and KERS, there was some fun racing back in the midpack. Hermann Tilke got lucky with this one. As long as the rules stay the way they are, India will be a race to look forward to. That long long looooooong straightaway looks like it has the ability to kill a powertrain, however. Two cars suffered failures as they ran down the 4000' length of tarmac: one dead gearbox and one blown engine. The curbs also reached up and broke Felipe Massa's suspension again, though this time the left front.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Seb Vettel led his 711th lap of the season today. Not only is that a record, it's also more laps than Jenson Button has led in his entire career... and yes, that includes his 2009 Championship season. More than that, Vettel today earned himself a rare F1 Grand Slam. He won from pole position, led every lap, and set fast lap of the race. In a season of great drives from the young German, this was probably his best.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: McLaren clinched second place in the Constructor's Championship with the combination of Jenson Button's second-place finish and Lewis Hamilton's 7th. In a year that was so dominated by one team, that's quite the accomplishment for the team from Woking.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: Not always do the best moves of a race happen up towards the front of the field, and today was a perfect example of that fact. On Lap 14, the surging Toro Rosso of DJ Squire was hunting down the hometown Force India of Adrian Sutil. When the two cars crossed the DRS detection marker before the long straight, DJ Squire was about a half-second back. Opening the flap on the rear wing let the Toro Rosso pull close, but it didn't really seem like he had the speed to make the pass as they approached the braking zone.
Despite what we thought, DJ Squire pulled his steed to the outside of the Force India and held off on the braking for as long as he could.
Keeping the Toro Rosso under control into the fast sweep, DJ Squire just barely managed to pull ahead of the Force India, forcing Adrian Sutil to back down.
While it was only for 9th place, it was still an impressive move, and without a doubt the best of the day. It just wasn't as... exciting as some have been. This isn't a negative.
*MOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: Because "exciting" is exactly what you don't want when you're making a pass at 150mph On Lap 24, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton had the Ferrari of Felipe Massa right where he wanted it. That the two of them had made contact five previous times this season probably should have given Hamilton some pause, but heading into Turn 5 he still had some KERS juice remaining while Massa did not. He used it and tried to get underneath the red car...
...and Massa tried to guillotine the McLaren, which had his front tires in front of the Ferrari's rears. Massa went for a slide and a spin, Hamilton went to the pits for a new nose. Massa was later given a drive-through penalty for his rather bovine attempt to keep Hamilton behind him, and his later suspension failure seemed like a case of just desserts. Congratulations, Felipe, this Mooooooo-ooove's all yours.
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
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October 17, 2011
F1 Update!: Korea 2011
A low, heavy sky and thin sunlight greeted the Thundering Herd as it
formed up on the grid. Reports were that rain was in the near future.
Would it affect the race for the Constructor's Championship? Would the
McLaren Resurgence continue? Would we ever hear from Ferrari again?
And now that he had wrapped up the Driver's Championship, whither
Vettel? THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Korea!
*LIGHTS OUT: It's a very short
dash from the front of the grid to the Turn 1 / Turn 2 pairing at Korea,
something on the order of 150m. This favors the driver that can make a
clean getaway off the line, as that counts just as much as raw
acceleration on a short run. Despite a fairly aggressive move from Seb
Vettel, sitting second on the grid, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton held pride
of place into the first turn and down the endless straight to Turn 3.
It wasn't until Turn 4, at the end of the next straightaway, that Vettel
managed to take the lead from his rival. From there, it became just
another Seb Vettel sort of race: get clear of the field by at least a
second before DRS usage was activated on Lap 3, then run away and hide.
And that's exactly what he did, though the lead in the first part of
the race wasn't more than five seconds or so.
*CUE THE RAIN: The men on the pit walls had a few anxious moments as the windows for the first pit stops began to open, as the sky began to spit rain here and there around the circuit. Do you gamble on intermediate rubber, or stay on slicks and hope that the rain goes away? Everybody rolled the dice to stay on slicks, and the rain, never more than a sprinkling around Turn 4, disappeared as quickly as it came. Didn't stop the F1U! crew from cackling evilly though, as we hoped a good frogswallower would develop.
*SAFETY DANCE CAR: When Renault's Red Menace decided that braking was for wimps on Lap 16, turning the rear of Slappy Schumacher's Mercedes into so much oatmeal in the process (see "Mooooo-oooove of the Race", below), a Safety Car was called out to allow the track workers to remove the debris. After the restart on Lap 21, it looked like we were going to have a race again. Vettel stayed ahead of Hamilton, but the lead was just a touch over a second... and the McLaren began to (agonizingly) slowly reel the Red Bull in. However, Vettel's teammate Mark Webber also began to reel in the two of them.
*HELLO, GOODBYE: On Lap 33,
Webber went all furious koala on Hamilton, hanging onto back of the
McLaren driver all the way around the circuit. The two put on a
tremendous exhibition of wheel-to-wheel racing from Turn 3, ending only
when they came to the technical section around Turn 7. However, this
tete-a-tete let Vettel drive off into the distance, adding three seconds
to his lead in one lap. After the second round of pitstops, the
Driver's Champion's lead had ballooned to 10 seconds and the race was,
for all intents and purposes, over. Hamilton and Webber pitted
together, came out together, and their battle continued on Lap 34 (see
"Move of the Race", below). Vettel was unchallenged for the remaining
20 laps and took his 10th win of the season, followed by Hamilton,
Webber, Button and HWMNBN.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Seb Vettel
has already won the 2011 Driver's Championship, but it's clear that he
isn't content to rest on his laurels. All he did was take the lead in
Turn 4 and then keep a fast Lewis Hamilton behind him until the safety
car came out. After the safety car period ended, he ran away and hid to
blow the rest of the field off the track. Pretty much the perfect race
for the two-time champ.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull.
Both drivers on the podium with a 1-3 finish, and clinching their second
Constructor's Championship? Yeah, not bad. The only thing that kept
this from being a perfect day for the team was a dumb strategy call to
bring Mark Webber in at the same time as Lewis Hamilton that may have
cost them a 1-2. Still and all, if that's the worst thing that happened
to Red Bull today, they'll probably live with it.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: McLaren's
Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull's Mark Webber had themselves an epic duel
today, one that lasted from the Safety Car period to the end of the
race. On Lap 33 the two pitted nose-to-tail and came out the same way
to begin Lap 34. Surprisingly, the Red Bull couldn't get close enough
to pass at the end of the DRS zone, and it looked like that was that for
this lap... until Hamilton locked up his brakes heading into Turn 5,
and the furious koala pounced.
He
took the inside line away from the McLaren into Turn 6, and again, it
all looked over. Surely the furious koala would pull away and set sail
after his teammate.
But no! The McLaren dangled a piece of bamboo in front of the koala and
squeezed him over into the next turn, retaking second place.
A simply exquisite piece of racing from both men, an exchange that earns them a rare shared MotR!
*MOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE:
Slappy Schumacher was cruising towards a solid points-paying finish.
To be sure, he had a hard-charging HWMNBN behind him, and Renault's Red
Menace was looking awfully racy, but as the race neared the half-way
point Slappy had to be feeling pretty good about the way his day was
going. Heading down to Turn 4, The Red Menace and HWMNBN were dueling
hard, with the Ferrari driver apparently not planning on braking until
he reached Pyongyang. The Red Menace held off on braking as long as he
could, then stomped hard on the slow-down pedal. The brakes did their
job well enough to lock up the front tires and the Renault was suddenly
uncontrollable... with Slappy right in his way.
Both cars were taken out of the race, and The Red Menace nearly collected HWMNBN in the process. Nicely done, Red! Here's another Mooooooo-oooove for your collection!
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
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October 09, 2011
F1 Update!: Japan 2011
A sunny afternoon greeted the F1 Circus as the cars made their way to the grid. Would Jenson Button be able to extend the fight for the Driver's Championship for another race? Or would polesitter Seb Vettel score the single point he needed to lock it up today? THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Japan!
*THE RACE: Over the years, Suzuka International Race Course has given us some great races, including quite a few that have decided championships. While we here at F1U! wouldn't classify the 2011 entry as a "great race," it certainly had its share of moments. When the lights went out, Red Bull's Vettel made a clean getaway from the first spot on the grid... but McLaren's Jenson Button had a better one, pulling nearly even with the reigning Driver's Champion before the cars had gone more than twenty meters. It then became a drag race down to the first turn, a drag race that Vettel seemed to think he was going to lose, as he began to squeeze the Glare with Wheels closer and closer to the grass on the inside of the straight. Eventually the Brit was shoved so far over that he raised a big cloud of dirt when his right-side wheels left the tarmac, a maneuver that let his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, sneak past for second place as the Thundering Herd entered the first turn. Unlike the rest of the season to date however, Vettel did not go flying off into the distance, leaving the competition fighting for second place. Instead the two McLaren drivers hung grimly onto his rear wing, Hamilton just out of DRS activation range of the leader and Button a couple of seconds behind Hamilton.
*ABRASIVENESS: As had become clear during the first two days of the race weekend, the tires Pirelli had brought to the track (medium and soft compounds) were proving to be terribly vulnerable to the abrasive surface of the Suzuka Circuit. The prime tire was lasting around 20 laps, the options about half that, depending on the driver. Lewis Hamilton, who's never been thought to have a smooth flowing driving style, drove the rubber right off his options in eight laps, earning a slow leak on his right-rear tire in the process. With his car becoming less and less controllable, he backed off the throttle and let his teammate into second, five seconds behind the leader. He'd pit and come back out in sixth place, never to be involved in the outcome again. This began a general run into the pits by the field. While Vettel continued to hold the lead after the first pit cycle, it may have been significant that Button, the generally acknowledged master of tire conservation, stayed out for a lap longer than the Red Bull driver. When Button came back out, the lead had dropped to 2.5 seconds.
*AND THEN...: Seb Vettel stayed out in front for another 10 laps until his second set of soft tires quietly sighed and gave up the ghost. He brought his RB7 in for his second stop on Lap 20, secure in the knowledge that his mechanics were the most consistent in F1, always getting him in-and-out in about 3.4 seconds. Except not this time. It's not like the Red Bull driver's stop was a bad one, right around four seconds. Most other teams would be perfectly content with taking four seconds to change four tires. Jenson Button swept into the pitlane on the next lap. When his McLaren came back onto the circuit, he was a couple of car-lengths ahead of Vettel, leapfrogging the Red Bull driver on the pit rotation.
A half-second doesn't seem like much, but in F1, it's all the time in the world.
*CHECKERED FLAG: From then on, the question became "would Vettel even try to pass for the lead?" Quickly enough, the question became moot as Button slowly pulled away from the Red Bull driver, opening up a two-second lead. When Vettel pitted on Lap 34 for his run to the end on the medium rubber, he lost another place on the pit rotation, this time to Ferrari's HWMNBN. Coming up quickly behind Vettel was his Red Bull teammate, Mark Webber, but there was no way the team was going to let them do anything stupid. A quick radio call from the pit wall to both Red Bull drivers on Lap 47, in effect telling them both not to take any risks, made it clear that they wanted Vettel on the podium. But could HWMNBN catch Button? At one point he got the lead down to 1.1 seconds, but Button had simply been conserving fuel. The moment there was any sign of a threat, on Lap 51, he ripped off the fast lap of the race and then took the checkered flag. HWMNBN finished 1.1 seconds behind, with Vettel a second behind him. Jenson Button had won the race, but by virtue of his third place finish, Vettel had won the 2011 Driver's Championship.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Jenson Button may not have had a car that was faster than the Red Bull, but it was just as quick. In effect, this turned the race into a straight battle between drivers, one that Button won. He took better care of his tires while keeping his speed high, drove a flawless race, and took a well-deserved win. That it wasn't enough to keep the championship alive wasn't his fault.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. One championship down, one to go. Neither driver made any particular errors. Heck, we didn't even get to see a Mark Webber Lousy Start©. The pit stop that may have cost Vettel the victory was good enough for just about any other situation... just not this one at this time.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: The least likely place to pass at Suzuka is the infamous 130R. To try a move on the fastest point of the circuit while you're entering a flat-out sweeper requires either massive attachments or massive brain damage. Mark Webber pulled it off early in the race, but his victim (HWMNBN) was on old tires while the Aussie was on brand new rubber... hardly a fair fight. On Lap 46 though, Adrian F'n Sutil was fighting Gandalf Kobayashi for 9th place. Both were on similarly worn tires, both cars were solid midpackers, and both drivers have more-or-less equal skills. When Sutil made his attempt on Gandalf by going to the inside (and getting squeezed in the process), our first thought was "brain damage."
Full throttle onto the dirty side of the track at 185mph into a fast left-handed sweeper next to an insane Japanese driver on his home soil. This is not the recipe for a long and happy life.
Nevertheless, Sutil took his Force India into the turn and kept it firmly planted in place despite not being on the optimal racing line through 130R. He took the position and we here at F1U! immediately awarded him the MotR award. We still think it's an example of "brain damage," though.
*MOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: For the most part, this was a cleanly driven race. Yes there was contact between Webber and Slappy Schumacher... and (wow, what a shock) Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa (again), but neither of those incidents were particularly egregious. So instead, we're giving it to the front-right tire changer for Toro Rosso.
I suppose it's not a great feeling when your tire just rolls off the hub in the middle of the race... but it did earn the airgunner a Mooooo! That's a fair trade, right?
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*THE RACE: Over the years, Suzuka International Race Course has given us some great races, including quite a few that have decided championships. While we here at F1U! wouldn't classify the 2011 entry as a "great race," it certainly had its share of moments. When the lights went out, Red Bull's Vettel made a clean getaway from the first spot on the grid... but McLaren's Jenson Button had a better one, pulling nearly even with the reigning Driver's Champion before the cars had gone more than twenty meters. It then became a drag race down to the first turn, a drag race that Vettel seemed to think he was going to lose, as he began to squeeze the Glare with Wheels closer and closer to the grass on the inside of the straight. Eventually the Brit was shoved so far over that he raised a big cloud of dirt when his right-side wheels left the tarmac, a maneuver that let his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, sneak past for second place as the Thundering Herd entered the first turn. Unlike the rest of the season to date however, Vettel did not go flying off into the distance, leaving the competition fighting for second place. Instead the two McLaren drivers hung grimly onto his rear wing, Hamilton just out of DRS activation range of the leader and Button a couple of seconds behind Hamilton.
*ABRASIVENESS: As had become clear during the first two days of the race weekend, the tires Pirelli had brought to the track (medium and soft compounds) were proving to be terribly vulnerable to the abrasive surface of the Suzuka Circuit. The prime tire was lasting around 20 laps, the options about half that, depending on the driver. Lewis Hamilton, who's never been thought to have a smooth flowing driving style, drove the rubber right off his options in eight laps, earning a slow leak on his right-rear tire in the process. With his car becoming less and less controllable, he backed off the throttle and let his teammate into second, five seconds behind the leader. He'd pit and come back out in sixth place, never to be involved in the outcome again. This began a general run into the pits by the field. While Vettel continued to hold the lead after the first pit cycle, it may have been significant that Button, the generally acknowledged master of tire conservation, stayed out for a lap longer than the Red Bull driver. When Button came back out, the lead had dropped to 2.5 seconds.
*AND THEN...: Seb Vettel stayed out in front for another 10 laps until his second set of soft tires quietly sighed and gave up the ghost. He brought his RB7 in for his second stop on Lap 20, secure in the knowledge that his mechanics were the most consistent in F1, always getting him in-and-out in about 3.4 seconds. Except not this time. It's not like the Red Bull driver's stop was a bad one, right around four seconds. Most other teams would be perfectly content with taking four seconds to change four tires. Jenson Button swept into the pitlane on the next lap. When his McLaren came back onto the circuit, he was a couple of car-lengths ahead of Vettel, leapfrogging the Red Bull driver on the pit rotation.
A half-second doesn't seem like much, but in F1, it's all the time in the world.
*CHECKERED FLAG: From then on, the question became "would Vettel even try to pass for the lead?" Quickly enough, the question became moot as Button slowly pulled away from the Red Bull driver, opening up a two-second lead. When Vettel pitted on Lap 34 for his run to the end on the medium rubber, he lost another place on the pit rotation, this time to Ferrari's HWMNBN. Coming up quickly behind Vettel was his Red Bull teammate, Mark Webber, but there was no way the team was going to let them do anything stupid. A quick radio call from the pit wall to both Red Bull drivers on Lap 47, in effect telling them both not to take any risks, made it clear that they wanted Vettel on the podium. But could HWMNBN catch Button? At one point he got the lead down to 1.1 seconds, but Button had simply been conserving fuel. The moment there was any sign of a threat, on Lap 51, he ripped off the fast lap of the race and then took the checkered flag. HWMNBN finished 1.1 seconds behind, with Vettel a second behind him. Jenson Button had won the race, but by virtue of his third place finish, Vettel had won the 2011 Driver's Championship.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Jenson Button may not have had a car that was faster than the Red Bull, but it was just as quick. In effect, this turned the race into a straight battle between drivers, one that Button won. He took better care of his tires while keeping his speed high, drove a flawless race, and took a well-deserved win. That it wasn't enough to keep the championship alive wasn't his fault.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. One championship down, one to go. Neither driver made any particular errors. Heck, we didn't even get to see a Mark Webber Lousy Start©. The pit stop that may have cost Vettel the victory was good enough for just about any other situation... just not this one at this time.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: The least likely place to pass at Suzuka is the infamous 130R. To try a move on the fastest point of the circuit while you're entering a flat-out sweeper requires either massive attachments or massive brain damage. Mark Webber pulled it off early in the race, but his victim (HWMNBN) was on old tires while the Aussie was on brand new rubber... hardly a fair fight. On Lap 46 though, Adrian F'n Sutil was fighting Gandalf Kobayashi for 9th place. Both were on similarly worn tires, both cars were solid midpackers, and both drivers have more-or-less equal skills. When Sutil made his attempt on Gandalf by going to the inside (and getting squeezed in the process), our first thought was "brain damage."
Full throttle onto the dirty side of the track at 185mph into a fast left-handed sweeper next to an insane Japanese driver on his home soil. This is not the recipe for a long and happy life.
Nevertheless, Sutil took his Force India into the turn and kept it firmly planted in place despite not being on the optimal racing line through 130R. He took the position and we here at F1U! immediately awarded him the MotR award. We still think it's an example of "brain damage," though.
*MOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: For the most part, this was a cleanly driven race. Yes there was contact between Webber and Slappy Schumacher... and (wow, what a shock) Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa (again), but neither of those incidents were particularly egregious. So instead, we're giving it to the front-right tire changer for Toro Rosso.
I suppose it's not a great feeling when your tire just rolls off the hub in the middle of the race... but it did earn the airgunner a Mooooo! That's a fair trade, right?
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
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September 25, 2011
F1 Update!: Singapore 2011
It was 92° and humid as the cars formed up on the grid for race start. Would the heat cool off the red-hot Seb Vettel, who could clinch the World Driver's Championship this race? Or would the cold-silver McLaren of Lewis Hamilton, lined up next to the polesitter, ruin the party? Or perhaps the fire-red Ferrari of HWMNBN could start nibbling at Vettel's nigh-on insurmountable lead. THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Singapore!
*LIGHTS OUT!: As the race began, all the usual tropes about the start of F1 races applied. The Red Bull of Seb Vettel made a good start and immediately began to pull away from the field. His teammate had another installment of the Mark Webber Lousy Start© series, giving Lewis Hamilton a chance to get past. When the Australian defended his position by drifting to his left, he left the door open on the right-hand side for both McLaren's Jenson Button and HWMNBN to streak by into second and third respectively. While it was a blisteringly exciting beginning to the race, from then on it was all Vettel, all the time.
*DOMINATION: By the end of the second lap, the lead was already 3.5 seconds over Button. By the end of Lap 6, it was 8.2 seconds. By Lap 15, Vettel's lead was nearly 12 seconds over the Briton, and nearly 30 seconds over the Force India of Paul di Resta, who was in third place by virtue of not yet having stopped for tires. When both Vettel and Button pitted for tires on the same lap and Red Bull's crew got their man out in 3.2 seconds, it was clear that the race was over; the only remaining question was "would Vettel clinch the championship today?"
*AS IT TURNS OUT: Earlier in the week, we here at F1U! said that is Vettel won and HWMNBN finished off the podium, Vettel would eliminate the Spaniard from contention and thereby clinch the championship. While the first part of the equation was undoubtedly true, it didn't take into account Jenson Button. While Vettel opened up a 20-second lead on the McLaren driver at one point, as long as Button finished second, the driver's championship could not be clinched. Appearing to realize that, Mark Webber began to close up the gap to the McLaren, but at no point managed to get closer than five seconds to the Glare on Wheels.
*ENDING: While the race was surely over by the first turn, that doesn't mean there wasn't some glimmers of hope for those who aren't rooting for Sebastian Newmacher Vettel. With some ten laps to go, the Red Bully's lead over Jenson Button was roughly ten seconds. With six laps to go, it was 8.6 seconds and dropping rapidly. At first we here at F1U! thought that Vettel had just "dialed it back" to conserve fuel or to limit wear on the engine... but then we realized that Button had just ripped off the fast lap of the race. Then he did it again. Vettel may have slowed, but the British pilot had the bit in his teeth and was pushing hard. When he was balked by backmarkers with five laps to go, it looked like the game was up; he lost nearly two seconds in the first sector of the track alone. Once past the slowboys however, Button again gave it the beans and the gap to the leader continued to drop. While it seemed awfully unlikely that the McLaren would catch the Red Bull, it sure looked like it was going to occur. Three laps to go, 3.7 seconds... two laps, two seconds... when Seb Vettel swept across the line, Jenson Button was only 1.7 seconds behind. That's pretty amazing, considering that Vettel had nearly thirty seconds in-hand at one point in the race. Mark Webber, who apparently ran the tires off his car in his attempt to catch up to the rocket-powered Button, finished a distant third, nearly thirty seconds adrift of the McLaren. Ferrari's HWMNBN was fourth, some 25 seconds behind the Australian. Fifth went to Lewis Hamilton over a minute back of the winner. Sixth went to Force India's Paul di Resta, who, while 111.067 seconds behind Vettel, was the last man unlapped.
*STANDINGS (AND FALLINGS): Seb Vettel has eliminated everybody from contention from the Driver's Championship... save for Jenson Button, holding on by the proverbial skin of his teeth. With five races remaining in the 2011 season, there are a maximum 125 standing points available. Seb Vettel's lead... is 124 points. If Button wins every race from here on out, and Vettel finished lower than 10th in every race, Button will win the championship. If anything else occurs, if the Red Bull driver manages to come in 10th in one of the next five races, the season is over. So while we can't quite hose down Seb Vettel with champagne yet, the bottles are standing by.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Seb Vettel led from lights to flag today, yet he's not getting the DotR award. Jenson Button was in second place by the first turn and stayed there the rest of the race, in the process showing his teammate just who's in charge at McLaren... and he's not getting the DotR either. No, today's Driver of the Race is going to Force India's Paul di Resta, who drove the hell out of his steed and finished a brilliant sixth after losing fifth place to a pissed-off Lewis Hamilton on Lap 55 (of 61). Good tire strategy, mixed with a shedload of pace and a Button-like ability to protect his tires from excess abuse, kept him on the first screen of the SPEED leaderboard all day long. The rookie has been impressive all season, but today he did it towards the front of the field and got to show his skills to the world. DotR material for sure.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: We here at F1U! so want to give this to Force India. This was the first time all season both of their cars were in the points (6th and 8th), and as just mentioned, di Resta's drive was helped along by the team's excellent tire strategy. But we just can't do it. Red Bull gets it with their 1st-3rd result, a pit crew that's second to none, the perfect chassis, you name it, they got it. FIndia gets an honorable mention though.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: On Lap 10, Mark Webber blew the doors off of HWMNBN for third place in a pass that we here at F1U! were sure would be the MotR. We were wrong, because 24 laps later he again passed the Ferrari driver for third place. Except this time, it was even more amazing because of how and where he did it. The field was jumbled by the Safety Car that had just gone in as Lap 34 began. HWMNBN was just ahead of Webber as they came through Turn 9, but a mess of slower cars were in front of the two as they approached the tricky Turn 10, the "Singapore Sling" left-right-left corner best known for being Gandalf Kobayashi's launching pad both in practice and in Quals. As they approached the braking zone for the turn, Webber slipped to the inside of the Ferrari and decided that he didn't need to actually brake.
The Spaniard, apparently caught by surprise by Webber's decision to forgo the clampers, made no immediate attempt to make life hard for the Aussie.
As they got to the point of no return, Webber threw out the anchor, dragged his feet, did everything but put the RB7 into reverse, to slow down... and did it all without a puff of tire smoke. HWMNBN, his jaw bouncing off his lap, could only watch in amazement.
But it would all go to naught if the Red Bull overextended himself into the turn and got too much curb at Gandalf's Launching Pad. Didn't happen. Webber looked like he was on rails as he went through the most dangerous point on the track, completing the pass with style and finesse... and earning the MotR in the process.
*MOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: At the end of the race, we were going to give the Moo to Slappy Schumacher for his use of Sauber driver Sergio Perez' car as a take-off ramp.
No. Instead, we're giving this to the driver who is rapidly becoming one of the most clumsy in the field: 2008 World Driver's Champion Lewis Hamilton. In today's incident, he was harrying Felipe Massa for position on Lap 13. Either because he misjudged where his front wing was, or out of sheer cussedness, Hamilton wound up applying a liberal dose of carbon fiber to the Ferrari's rear tire in a maneuver that was completely unneeded. He was faster than Massa and could have passed him at nearly any point on the circuit the next lap.
The result? A punctured right rear for Massa, which disintegrated on his way back to the pits. This dropped him down to 16th, never to be seen again.
On the other hand, Hamilton lost the entire left-side element of his front wing. Despite this, he stayed out for another lap in a car with a distinct lean to the right.
He also earned himself a drive-through penalty and some after-race sarcasm from Massa. He wound up finishing fifth. Just think what might have happened if he had controlled himself a little better... a podium? Second? For ruining both Massa's race and your own, Lewis, here's your Mooooooooo.
*SELECTED DRIVER'S QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*LIGHTS OUT!: As the race began, all the usual tropes about the start of F1 races applied. The Red Bull of Seb Vettel made a good start and immediately began to pull away from the field. His teammate had another installment of the Mark Webber Lousy Start© series, giving Lewis Hamilton a chance to get past. When the Australian defended his position by drifting to his left, he left the door open on the right-hand side for both McLaren's Jenson Button and HWMNBN to streak by into second and third respectively. While it was a blisteringly exciting beginning to the race, from then on it was all Vettel, all the time.
*DOMINATION: By the end of the second lap, the lead was already 3.5 seconds over Button. By the end of Lap 6, it was 8.2 seconds. By Lap 15, Vettel's lead was nearly 12 seconds over the Briton, and nearly 30 seconds over the Force India of Paul di Resta, who was in third place by virtue of not yet having stopped for tires. When both Vettel and Button pitted for tires on the same lap and Red Bull's crew got their man out in 3.2 seconds, it was clear that the race was over; the only remaining question was "would Vettel clinch the championship today?"
*AS IT TURNS OUT: Earlier in the week, we here at F1U! said that is Vettel won and HWMNBN finished off the podium, Vettel would eliminate the Spaniard from contention and thereby clinch the championship. While the first part of the equation was undoubtedly true, it didn't take into account Jenson Button. While Vettel opened up a 20-second lead on the McLaren driver at one point, as long as Button finished second, the driver's championship could not be clinched. Appearing to realize that, Mark Webber began to close up the gap to the McLaren, but at no point managed to get closer than five seconds to the Glare on Wheels.
*ENDING: While the race was surely over by the first turn, that doesn't mean there wasn't some glimmers of hope for those who aren't rooting for Sebastian Newmacher Vettel. With some ten laps to go, the Red Bully's lead over Jenson Button was roughly ten seconds. With six laps to go, it was 8.6 seconds and dropping rapidly. At first we here at F1U! thought that Vettel had just "dialed it back" to conserve fuel or to limit wear on the engine... but then we realized that Button had just ripped off the fast lap of the race. Then he did it again. Vettel may have slowed, but the British pilot had the bit in his teeth and was pushing hard. When he was balked by backmarkers with five laps to go, it looked like the game was up; he lost nearly two seconds in the first sector of the track alone. Once past the slowboys however, Button again gave it the beans and the gap to the leader continued to drop. While it seemed awfully unlikely that the McLaren would catch the Red Bull, it sure looked like it was going to occur. Three laps to go, 3.7 seconds... two laps, two seconds... when Seb Vettel swept across the line, Jenson Button was only 1.7 seconds behind. That's pretty amazing, considering that Vettel had nearly thirty seconds in-hand at one point in the race. Mark Webber, who apparently ran the tires off his car in his attempt to catch up to the rocket-powered Button, finished a distant third, nearly thirty seconds adrift of the McLaren. Ferrari's HWMNBN was fourth, some 25 seconds behind the Australian. Fifth went to Lewis Hamilton over a minute back of the winner. Sixth went to Force India's Paul di Resta, who, while 111.067 seconds behind Vettel, was the last man unlapped.
*STANDINGS (AND FALLINGS): Seb Vettel has eliminated everybody from contention from the Driver's Championship... save for Jenson Button, holding on by the proverbial skin of his teeth. With five races remaining in the 2011 season, there are a maximum 125 standing points available. Seb Vettel's lead... is 124 points. If Button wins every race from here on out, and Vettel finished lower than 10th in every race, Button will win the championship. If anything else occurs, if the Red Bull driver manages to come in 10th in one of the next five races, the season is over. So while we can't quite hose down Seb Vettel with champagne yet, the bottles are standing by.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Seb Vettel led from lights to flag today, yet he's not getting the DotR award. Jenson Button was in second place by the first turn and stayed there the rest of the race, in the process showing his teammate just who's in charge at McLaren... and he's not getting the DotR either. No, today's Driver of the Race is going to Force India's Paul di Resta, who drove the hell out of his steed and finished a brilliant sixth after losing fifth place to a pissed-off Lewis Hamilton on Lap 55 (of 61). Good tire strategy, mixed with a shedload of pace and a Button-like ability to protect his tires from excess abuse, kept him on the first screen of the SPEED leaderboard all day long. The rookie has been impressive all season, but today he did it towards the front of the field and got to show his skills to the world. DotR material for sure.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: We here at F1U! so want to give this to Force India. This was the first time all season both of their cars were in the points (6th and 8th), and as just mentioned, di Resta's drive was helped along by the team's excellent tire strategy. But we just can't do it. Red Bull gets it with their 1st-3rd result, a pit crew that's second to none, the perfect chassis, you name it, they got it. FIndia gets an honorable mention though.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: On Lap 10, Mark Webber blew the doors off of HWMNBN for third place in a pass that we here at F1U! were sure would be the MotR. We were wrong, because 24 laps later he again passed the Ferrari driver for third place. Except this time, it was even more amazing because of how and where he did it. The field was jumbled by the Safety Car that had just gone in as Lap 34 began. HWMNBN was just ahead of Webber as they came through Turn 9, but a mess of slower cars were in front of the two as they approached the tricky Turn 10, the "Singapore Sling" left-right-left corner best known for being Gandalf Kobayashi's launching pad both in practice and in Quals. As they approached the braking zone for the turn, Webber slipped to the inside of the Ferrari and decided that he didn't need to actually brake.
The Spaniard, apparently caught by surprise by Webber's decision to forgo the clampers, made no immediate attempt to make life hard for the Aussie.
As they got to the point of no return, Webber threw out the anchor, dragged his feet, did everything but put the RB7 into reverse, to slow down... and did it all without a puff of tire smoke. HWMNBN, his jaw bouncing off his lap, could only watch in amazement.
But it would all go to naught if the Red Bull overextended himself into the turn and got too much curb at Gandalf's Launching Pad. Didn't happen. Webber looked like he was on rails as he went through the most dangerous point on the track, completing the pass with style and finesse... and earning the MotR in the process.
*MOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: At the end of the race, we were going to give the Moo to Slappy Schumacher for his use of Sauber driver Sergio Perez' car as a take-off ramp.
No. Instead, we're giving this to the driver who is rapidly becoming one of the most clumsy in the field: 2008 World Driver's Champion Lewis Hamilton. In today's incident, he was harrying Felipe Massa for position on Lap 13. Either because he misjudged where his front wing was, or out of sheer cussedness, Hamilton wound up applying a liberal dose of carbon fiber to the Ferrari's rear tire in a maneuver that was completely unneeded. He was faster than Massa and could have passed him at nearly any point on the circuit the next lap.
The result? A punctured right rear for Massa, which disintegrated on his way back to the pits. This dropped him down to 16th, never to be seen again.
On the other hand, Hamilton lost the entire left-side element of his front wing. Despite this, he stayed out for another lap in a car with a distinct lean to the right.
He also earned himself a drive-through penalty and some after-race sarcasm from Massa. He wound up finishing fifth. Just think what might have happened if he had controlled himself a little better... a podium? Second? For ruining both Massa's race and your own, Lewis, here's your Mooooooooo.
*SELECTED DRIVER'S QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
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September 11, 2011
F1 Update!: Italy 2011
A bright, beautiful sunshiny day met the F1 Circus as they formed up on the grid at Monza. The Red Bull of Seb Vettel sat on pole for the 10th time this season, but seemed to be down on speed. Would either of the two McLarens be able to disrupt his plans, or would he run away and hide on the fastest track of them all? THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Italy!
*LIGHTS OUT: At the front of the field, the leaders had perfectly acceptable starts, but things were different down towards the back of the grid. HRT's Daniel Ricciardo went into anti-stall, jammed in 3rd gear, then stalled anyway. Since he was starting 23rd, there was nobody to run into the back of him other than his teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi, who managed to get past easily. We'll come back to Liuzzi in a moment. Back up with the leaders, Seb Vettel was passed heading into the first turn. The surprise came from who did the passing. Ferrari's HWMNBN, the hopes and dreams of Italy propelling him forward, sneaked by the Red Bull on the inside and led the Thundering Herd into the first turn. Just for a moment, the cheers of the partisan crowd drowned out the screaming of 23 V8 engines turning at 18000rpm.
*TOTAL CARNAGE: Vitantonio Liuzzi either had God's Own Start or a RATO unit stuffed up the tailpipe of his HRT, for he had passed five cars right off the bat and was heading to the inside of victim number six with a big head of steam. Then two things happened: first, the RATO unit ran out of oomph. Second, victim number six decided that he didn't want to be passed by a HRT, even one with an Italian driver at Monza, and moved over enough that the opening up the inside was no longer there. Liuzzi, being a hot-blooded son of Italy, decided to try and pass anyway and wound up with his right wheels on the grass. The car immediately snapped to the left. Now at this point, a great driver would gather the car up and continue on with maybe a slightly elevated pulse rate. A good driver would save the car, maybe spin, and rejoin the field at the back of the pack, wiser and still racing. But this was Vitantonio Liuzzi. He immediately overcorrected and found himself sideways on the grass, moving around 150mph and not slowing down in the least... just as the Thundering Herd filtered through the first chicane.
Nico Rosberg had to be feeling pretty good about his chances today. He had a car that had shown a good turn of speed through the weekend. Further, he was on an alternate tire strategy from everybody else in the top ten. He had started the race on the prime tire (medium rubber), and if he could manage to stay in contact with the leaders, he'd be able to attack on the option rubber when everybody else switched to the prime late in the race. Meanwhile, Renault's The Red Menace looked like a definite contender for points today as well. As the two of them guided their steeds through the chicane side-by-side, neither of them saw what was bearing down on them from the right side.
Liuzzi slammed into the side of the Renault, which was then driven into the side of the Mercedes. All three cars were ruined and came to a halt in a pile of carbon fiber in the center of the track. Rubens Barrichello's Williams had nowhere to go, but he somehow managed to get whoa'd up in time to avoid becoming the fourth victim of the wreck. He came to a stop completely blocked by the pileup, but he was able to eventually continue. Liuzzi was hit with a five-spot grid penalty for the next race for being a dumbarse causing an accident with his lousy driving. Berndt Maylander was duly summoned to the track, and a three-lap Safety Car period commenced while the Italian track marshals went on strike broomed the carbon fiber off the track.
*GAME ON, RACE OVER: When Maylander pulled over and the race resumed, HWMNBN and Vettel jumped away from the rest of the field, led by Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton has shown that he has no idea how to react on restarts in the past, and he hasn't improved a jot since. Vettel was all over the back of the Ferrari for one lap, during which time the two McLarens and the sole remaining Mercedes managed to close the gap. Then going into Second Lesmos the inevitable happened and the Red Bull passed HWMNBN. By the end of the lap Vettel had over a second on the Ferrari. By the end of three more laps, he had a 10 second lead and the race was functionally over. The only hope the rest of the field had was that the Red Bull pit crew would make a mistake. They didn't, despite the psychic attacks of F1 fans the world over (minus Germany and Austria). The remaining 30-odd laps were merely formalities to discern who would finish second. That honor went to Jenson Button, nearly 10 seconds back after Vettel went into cruise mode with five laps remaining. HWMNBN finished third with Lewis Hamilton all over the back of him. Slappy Schumacher finished fifth.
*THREE INTERESTING STATS: If Seb Vettel wins the next race, he will clinch the Driver's Championship with four races left to go. Sometime during this race, Vettel led his 500th lap of the season. Nobody else has led as many as 100 laps. Finally, the first five finishers were all past World Driver's Champions, with 12 trophies between them (Slappy 7, HWMNBN 2, and one each for Lewis, Jenson and Sebby).
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Seb Vettel. There's no question that Vettel is a good driver, but one knock on him is that he can't race in a crowd. Well, he put the lie to that when he passed HWMNBN for the lead. The best car + one of the best drivers = pure gold.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: McLaren. Even though they made a fundamental error in car setup, running too much rear wing and therefore hamstringing their top speed on the fastest track in F1, the team made it work. The drivers compensated, and the pit crew performed amazingly. At one point, they got Hamilton in-and-out in three seconds flat. Red Bull has claimed that they've done a sub-3.0 second stop in practice, but that's not under race conditions. Three seconds is probably the best you'll see all year. A second/fourth finish is about as good as anybody could hope for these days.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: Seb Vettel saw his race strategy ("Get in the lead, get over a second ahead, cruise to victory") blowing up in his face. One of the toughest drivers to pass, HWMNBN, was in front of him and three drooling silver cars were snapping at his heels. If he didn't get ahead of the Ferrari, he was going to be in trouble fast. So for a lap and change after the Safety Car came in, he harried the Spaniard like there would be no tomorrow. Then going into the Second Lesmos, he saw a narrow opportunity and jumped on it. Difficulty: it was to the outside of the Ferrari. Probably muttering "In God and Adrian Newey I trust," Vettel steered himself into the gap.
Even the incredible amount of downforce generated by the body of the Red Bull couldn't keep Vettel from sliding wide as he pulled alongside the Ferrari, and he put two wheels into the grass.
Remember what happened to Liuzzi back at the start? Vettel simply gathered up the car and continued on as if nothing happened. Then it simply became a drag race down to the Variante Ascari... and Vettel was on the inside.
After this pass for the lead, the race was over. A helluva nice move with a fine example of car control thrown in... yeah, that's a Move of the Race!
*MOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: Since Lap 1 incidents are not eligible for either MotR or Mooo-otR awards, Liuzzi's attempted shortcut across the first chicane can't win this. Eagle-eyed readers might have noticed the complete absence of Seb Vettel's teammate Mark Webber from this F1U!. That's because he took himself out of the race early. At the same time that Vettel was working on HWMNBN, Webber was trying to get past Felipe Massa's Ferrari. Unfortunately, the Australian tried to pass Massa in the first chicane. He was on the outside of the first bend, which would put him to the inside of the second bend, but Massa had the racing line and squeezed Webber hard. Instead of backing out, Webber tried to make it work anyway. He hopped the curb and plonked right into the side of the Ferrari. Massa spun, and Webber's nose went bye-bye.
Keep an eye on that wing endplate marked "Total". Webber continued on, hoping to make it back to the pits to get a new nose. Perfectly logical, the car was still moving and tires didn't seem to be cut... and hey, around Monza not having a nose wing probably helps on the straights! Unfortunately, there are some turns around this circuit, and heading into Parabolica, Webber got a little carried away.
Oh look, there's that endplate again! It was jammed under the chassis, taking even more downforce off the car. Steaming into Parabolica, Webber couldn't get slowed up at all and drove right off the track, through the kittylitter and into the tire barrier. Congrats, Mark Webber, you earned yourself the Mooooo-oooove of the Race by self-inflicted stupidity!
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*LIGHTS OUT: At the front of the field, the leaders had perfectly acceptable starts, but things were different down towards the back of the grid. HRT's Daniel Ricciardo went into anti-stall, jammed in 3rd gear, then stalled anyway. Since he was starting 23rd, there was nobody to run into the back of him other than his teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi, who managed to get past easily. We'll come back to Liuzzi in a moment. Back up with the leaders, Seb Vettel was passed heading into the first turn. The surprise came from who did the passing. Ferrari's HWMNBN, the hopes and dreams of Italy propelling him forward, sneaked by the Red Bull on the inside and led the Thundering Herd into the first turn. Just for a moment, the cheers of the partisan crowd drowned out the screaming of 23 V8 engines turning at 18000rpm.
*TOTAL CARNAGE: Vitantonio Liuzzi either had God's Own Start or a RATO unit stuffed up the tailpipe of his HRT, for he had passed five cars right off the bat and was heading to the inside of victim number six with a big head of steam. Then two things happened: first, the RATO unit ran out of oomph. Second, victim number six decided that he didn't want to be passed by a HRT, even one with an Italian driver at Monza, and moved over enough that the opening up the inside was no longer there. Liuzzi, being a hot-blooded son of Italy, decided to try and pass anyway and wound up with his right wheels on the grass. The car immediately snapped to the left. Now at this point, a great driver would gather the car up and continue on with maybe a slightly elevated pulse rate. A good driver would save the car, maybe spin, and rejoin the field at the back of the pack, wiser and still racing. But this was Vitantonio Liuzzi. He immediately overcorrected and found himself sideways on the grass, moving around 150mph and not slowing down in the least... just as the Thundering Herd filtered through the first chicane.
Nico Rosberg had to be feeling pretty good about his chances today. He had a car that had shown a good turn of speed through the weekend. Further, he was on an alternate tire strategy from everybody else in the top ten. He had started the race on the prime tire (medium rubber), and if he could manage to stay in contact with the leaders, he'd be able to attack on the option rubber when everybody else switched to the prime late in the race. Meanwhile, Renault's The Red Menace looked like a definite contender for points today as well. As the two of them guided their steeds through the chicane side-by-side, neither of them saw what was bearing down on them from the right side.
Liuzzi slammed into the side of the Renault, which was then driven into the side of the Mercedes. All three cars were ruined and came to a halt in a pile of carbon fiber in the center of the track. Rubens Barrichello's Williams had nowhere to go, but he somehow managed to get whoa'd up in time to avoid becoming the fourth victim of the wreck. He came to a stop completely blocked by the pileup, but he was able to eventually continue. Liuzzi was hit with a five-spot grid penalty for the next race for being a dumbarse causing an accident with his lousy driving. Berndt Maylander was duly summoned to the track, and a three-lap Safety Car period commenced while the Italian track marshals went on strike broomed the carbon fiber off the track.
*GAME ON, RACE OVER: When Maylander pulled over and the race resumed, HWMNBN and Vettel jumped away from the rest of the field, led by Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton has shown that he has no idea how to react on restarts in the past, and he hasn't improved a jot since. Vettel was all over the back of the Ferrari for one lap, during which time the two McLarens and the sole remaining Mercedes managed to close the gap. Then going into Second Lesmos the inevitable happened and the Red Bull passed HWMNBN. By the end of the lap Vettel had over a second on the Ferrari. By the end of three more laps, he had a 10 second lead and the race was functionally over. The only hope the rest of the field had was that the Red Bull pit crew would make a mistake. They didn't, despite the psychic attacks of F1 fans the world over (minus Germany and Austria). The remaining 30-odd laps were merely formalities to discern who would finish second. That honor went to Jenson Button, nearly 10 seconds back after Vettel went into cruise mode with five laps remaining. HWMNBN finished third with Lewis Hamilton all over the back of him. Slappy Schumacher finished fifth.
*THREE INTERESTING STATS: If Seb Vettel wins the next race, he will clinch the Driver's Championship with four races left to go. Sometime during this race, Vettel led his 500th lap of the season. Nobody else has led as many as 100 laps. Finally, the first five finishers were all past World Driver's Champions, with 12 trophies between them (Slappy 7, HWMNBN 2, and one each for Lewis, Jenson and Sebby).
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Seb Vettel. There's no question that Vettel is a good driver, but one knock on him is that he can't race in a crowd. Well, he put the lie to that when he passed HWMNBN for the lead. The best car + one of the best drivers = pure gold.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: McLaren. Even though they made a fundamental error in car setup, running too much rear wing and therefore hamstringing their top speed on the fastest track in F1, the team made it work. The drivers compensated, and the pit crew performed amazingly. At one point, they got Hamilton in-and-out in three seconds flat. Red Bull has claimed that they've done a sub-3.0 second stop in practice, but that's not under race conditions. Three seconds is probably the best you'll see all year. A second/fourth finish is about as good as anybody could hope for these days.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: Seb Vettel saw his race strategy ("Get in the lead, get over a second ahead, cruise to victory") blowing up in his face. One of the toughest drivers to pass, HWMNBN, was in front of him and three drooling silver cars were snapping at his heels. If he didn't get ahead of the Ferrari, he was going to be in trouble fast. So for a lap and change after the Safety Car came in, he harried the Spaniard like there would be no tomorrow. Then going into the Second Lesmos, he saw a narrow opportunity and jumped on it. Difficulty: it was to the outside of the Ferrari. Probably muttering "In God and Adrian Newey I trust," Vettel steered himself into the gap.
Even the incredible amount of downforce generated by the body of the Red Bull couldn't keep Vettel from sliding wide as he pulled alongside the Ferrari, and he put two wheels into the grass.
Remember what happened to Liuzzi back at the start? Vettel simply gathered up the car and continued on as if nothing happened. Then it simply became a drag race down to the Variante Ascari... and Vettel was on the inside.
After this pass for the lead, the race was over. A helluva nice move with a fine example of car control thrown in... yeah, that's a Move of the Race!
*MOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: Since Lap 1 incidents are not eligible for either MotR or Mooo-otR awards, Liuzzi's attempted shortcut across the first chicane can't win this. Eagle-eyed readers might have noticed the complete absence of Seb Vettel's teammate Mark Webber from this F1U!. That's because he took himself out of the race early. At the same time that Vettel was working on HWMNBN, Webber was trying to get past Felipe Massa's Ferrari. Unfortunately, the Australian tried to pass Massa in the first chicane. He was on the outside of the first bend, which would put him to the inside of the second bend, but Massa had the racing line and squeezed Webber hard. Instead of backing out, Webber tried to make it work anyway. He hopped the curb and plonked right into the side of the Ferrari. Massa spun, and Webber's nose went bye-bye.
Keep an eye on that wing endplate marked "Total". Webber continued on, hoping to make it back to the pits to get a new nose. Perfectly logical, the car was still moving and tires didn't seem to be cut... and hey, around Monza not having a nose wing probably helps on the straights! Unfortunately, there are some turns around this circuit, and heading into Parabolica, Webber got a little carried away.
Oh look, there's that endplate again! It was jammed under the chassis, taking even more downforce off the car. Steaming into Parabolica, Webber couldn't get slowed up at all and drove right off the track, through the kittylitter and into the tire barrier. Congrats, Mark Webber, you earned yourself the Mooooo-oooove of the Race by self-inflicted stupidity!
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
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F1 Update!: Italy 2011 ARRRRRGGHHHHH!!!!
Because my right thumb touched a button on my new wireless mouse, I just lost my F1U! for Monza. It was nearly done, too, after three hours of work. Excuse me while I nip off and shoot myself.
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September 04, 2011
(Not Quite A) F1 Update!: Belgium 2011
So, some thoughts and notes about the 2011 Grand Prix of Belgium, from the vantage point of a week later.
*For the first time this season, we actually saw Seb Vettel win a race where he had to fight for it. To be sure, he led for much of the day, but it was never one of his "thirty seconds and a cloud of dust" wins. He had tire troubles, probably because he was set up for a wet race and had excessive camber on the fronts. (JARGON ALERT: Camber is when a tire is tilted in or out when you look at it from head-on. Streetcars generally have no camber whatsoever. F1 cars usually have some positive negative camber, where the tops are tilted in just a tad. This helps get heat into the inside edge of the tires in exchange for lowering the amount of tire making contact with the road. Negative Positive camber is just be weird and would probably result in a serious accident within one turn. Apparently it makes turning effort easier, so if there wasn't power steering it might be useful. Or something.)
For whatever reason, Vettel suffered from severe blistering of his front tires, something that practically never happens. You'll see it on the rears, sure, but it's strange to see it on the fronts... and quickly, too. The problem actually started during his pole lap in Quals and Red Bull petitioned the FIA's tech director, Charlie Whiting, to allow him to start on a fresh set of soft tires. Whiting, quite correctly, told Red Bull to get lost. You start on what you qualified on, unless it's completely unsafe... and if it's unsafe, why is it the RB7 is having problems and nobody else is, hmmm? Vettel actually had to pit for a new set of tires on Lap 6 (of 44). He wound up being out of pit sequence of everybody else, which has its good points and bad. Good, obviously, is that you're on fresh tires when everybody else is running on old rubber. The bad is that when everybody else pits, suddenly you're the one on old rubber. The Safety Car brought out by Hamilton's wreck solved that, and Vettel pretty much led from there... but not in the usual dominating fashion.
*Vettel's teammate Mark Webber really needs to learn how to keep revs in his engine when the lights go out. He really upped his game this time around, abandoning his usual patented Lousy Start©s for a variation: the Hideously Awful Start®. He sat third on the grid, but was somewhere around 15th by the time the thundering herd reached La Source. It looked like he was a tiny fish being engulfed by a horde of much larger, faster fish. Only some of the dumbest driving I've ever seen in a first turn prevented him from falling farther back. To call the first turn "total mayhem" would be overstating things a bit, but it wasn't exactly tidy.
Everybody was bouncing off of everybody else, the Lotuses spun each other, NKOTT went out with self-inflicted damage, and Jenson Button suffered damage to his rear wing when Tim O'Glockenspiel forgot how to use the brake pedal. He ALSO suffered damage when debris from someone else "went through (his) front wing and sliced off (his) right mirror."
*In contrast to Mark Webber, Nico Rosberg had one of the best starts of the year. This is odd, because while the cars were sitting on the grid, his Mercedes looked like it was fogging for mosquitoes, what with all the smoke it was putting out. It's not uncommon to see a little bit of smoke come from a F1 car on the grid, but this was something else... more like a destroyer screening a battleship. Still and all, he jumped from fifth on the grid to second by the end of the first turn, then easily blew past Vettel down the Kemmel Straight. It didn't last long, as he was passed by Vettel for the lead on Lap 3 then was swallowed up by the rest of the heavy hitters shortly thereafter, but it was a glorious moment in a lackluster year for the Mercedes team.
*There would be two contenders for the Driver of the Race. Jenson Button had a miserable Quals and started the race from 13th... and ended up third, behind Vettel and Webber, and given a few more laps he could have made a go at 2nd. The other contender would be Mr 20th Anniversary himself, Slappy Schumacher. He started dead last... and ended up fifth. In the end, I'd give it to Button, but more because he had to pass HWMNBN for 3rd place towards the end of the race, no easy task. Schumi had to pass his teammate, who had to conserve fuel, for 5th. Still, great runs for both of them, and if you said that Slappy had a better race, I wouldn't argue.
*The Move of the Race... well, look: in F1, there are many truths. Cars go fast at Monza, slow at Monaco, Hungary is dull unless it rains, so on and so forth. One unspoken truth is that you can't go side-by-side through Eau Rouge. It's too narrow, the compression does odd things to the handling, you stand a great chance of finding yourself in hospital, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So when Mark Webber had a go at HWMNBN in Eau Rouge on Lap 9, you could hear sphincters slamming shut all around the world. They got kinda close to each other.
Now to be fair, HWMNBN had just come out of the pits and was on cold tires, so it's not like there wasn't a big speed differential between the two. In fact, if it were anywhere else, it would have been merely a pass, no big deal. But this was Eau Rouge.
I can only assume that HWMNBN believes he has something left to live for, and Webber does not. Honorable mention goes to the BBC announce team, for they were classic during this pass. David Coulthard's Chin had to be coaxed back to the microphone after, in his words, "having to turn away, I was sure there was to be an almighty coming together." Martin Brundle replied with "Let's watch the replay, maybe from behind a pillow..."
*The Moooooo-ooove of the Race belongs to Lewis Hamilton. He had a serious chance at winning this race, and by not checking his mirrors at the end of the Kemmel Straight, he threw it all away.
He had dispatched Gandalf Kobayashi just prior to Eau Rouge, but down the straight the Sauber got an almighty tow from the McLaren. That, combined with some serious late braking, put Gandalf on the racing line for the turn while Hamilton was just to the inside, not having retaken the line after the pass. Hamilton, obviously not checking to see if it was safe, began to move over to the racing line and ran into Kobayashi. This sent the McLaren pivoting away into the barriers.
It also sent whatever hopes Hamilton had for catching Vettel in the world championship race into the wastebin.
So, that's it from Spa. We've got Monza next week, the standard F1U! format should be back at that time. See ya then!
*For the first time this season, we actually saw Seb Vettel win a race where he had to fight for it. To be sure, he led for much of the day, but it was never one of his "thirty seconds and a cloud of dust" wins. He had tire troubles, probably because he was set up for a wet race and had excessive camber on the fronts. (JARGON ALERT: Camber is when a tire is tilted in or out when you look at it from head-on. Streetcars generally have no camber whatsoever. F1 cars usually have some positive negative camber, where the tops are tilted in just a tad. This helps get heat into the inside edge of the tires in exchange for lowering the amount of tire making contact with the road. Negative Positive camber is just be weird and would probably result in a serious accident within one turn. Apparently it makes turning effort easier, so if there wasn't power steering it might be useful. Or something.)
For whatever reason, Vettel suffered from severe blistering of his front tires, something that practically never happens. You'll see it on the rears, sure, but it's strange to see it on the fronts... and quickly, too. The problem actually started during his pole lap in Quals and Red Bull petitioned the FIA's tech director, Charlie Whiting, to allow him to start on a fresh set of soft tires. Whiting, quite correctly, told Red Bull to get lost. You start on what you qualified on, unless it's completely unsafe... and if it's unsafe, why is it the RB7 is having problems and nobody else is, hmmm? Vettel actually had to pit for a new set of tires on Lap 6 (of 44). He wound up being out of pit sequence of everybody else, which has its good points and bad. Good, obviously, is that you're on fresh tires when everybody else is running on old rubber. The bad is that when everybody else pits, suddenly you're the one on old rubber. The Safety Car brought out by Hamilton's wreck solved that, and Vettel pretty much led from there... but not in the usual dominating fashion.
*Vettel's teammate Mark Webber really needs to learn how to keep revs in his engine when the lights go out. He really upped his game this time around, abandoning his usual patented Lousy Start©s for a variation: the Hideously Awful Start®. He sat third on the grid, but was somewhere around 15th by the time the thundering herd reached La Source. It looked like he was a tiny fish being engulfed by a horde of much larger, faster fish. Only some of the dumbest driving I've ever seen in a first turn prevented him from falling farther back. To call the first turn "total mayhem" would be overstating things a bit, but it wasn't exactly tidy.
Everybody was bouncing off of everybody else, the Lotuses spun each other, NKOTT went out with self-inflicted damage, and Jenson Button suffered damage to his rear wing when Tim O'Glockenspiel forgot how to use the brake pedal. He ALSO suffered damage when debris from someone else "went through (his) front wing and sliced off (his) right mirror."
*In contrast to Mark Webber, Nico Rosberg had one of the best starts of the year. This is odd, because while the cars were sitting on the grid, his Mercedes looked like it was fogging for mosquitoes, what with all the smoke it was putting out. It's not uncommon to see a little bit of smoke come from a F1 car on the grid, but this was something else... more like a destroyer screening a battleship. Still and all, he jumped from fifth on the grid to second by the end of the first turn, then easily blew past Vettel down the Kemmel Straight. It didn't last long, as he was passed by Vettel for the lead on Lap 3 then was swallowed up by the rest of the heavy hitters shortly thereafter, but it was a glorious moment in a lackluster year for the Mercedes team.
*There would be two contenders for the Driver of the Race. Jenson Button had a miserable Quals and started the race from 13th... and ended up third, behind Vettel and Webber, and given a few more laps he could have made a go at 2nd. The other contender would be Mr 20th Anniversary himself, Slappy Schumacher. He started dead last... and ended up fifth. In the end, I'd give it to Button, but more because he had to pass HWMNBN for 3rd place towards the end of the race, no easy task. Schumi had to pass his teammate, who had to conserve fuel, for 5th. Still, great runs for both of them, and if you said that Slappy had a better race, I wouldn't argue.
*The Move of the Race... well, look: in F1, there are many truths. Cars go fast at Monza, slow at Monaco, Hungary is dull unless it rains, so on and so forth. One unspoken truth is that you can't go side-by-side through Eau Rouge. It's too narrow, the compression does odd things to the handling, you stand a great chance of finding yourself in hospital, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So when Mark Webber had a go at HWMNBN in Eau Rouge on Lap 9, you could hear sphincters slamming shut all around the world. They got kinda close to each other.
Now to be fair, HWMNBN had just come out of the pits and was on cold tires, so it's not like there wasn't a big speed differential between the two. In fact, if it were anywhere else, it would have been merely a pass, no big deal. But this was Eau Rouge.
I can only assume that HWMNBN believes he has something left to live for, and Webber does not. Honorable mention goes to the BBC announce team, for they were classic during this pass. David Coulthard's Chin had to be coaxed back to the microphone after, in his words, "having to turn away, I was sure there was to be an almighty coming together." Martin Brundle replied with "Let's watch the replay, maybe from behind a pillow..."
*The Moooooo-ooove of the Race belongs to Lewis Hamilton. He had a serious chance at winning this race, and by not checking his mirrors at the end of the Kemmel Straight, he threw it all away.
He had dispatched Gandalf Kobayashi just prior to Eau Rouge, but down the straight the Sauber got an almighty tow from the McLaren. That, combined with some serious late braking, put Gandalf on the racing line for the turn while Hamilton was just to the inside, not having retaken the line after the pass. Hamilton, obviously not checking to see if it was safe, began to move over to the racing line and ran into Kobayashi. This sent the McLaren pivoting away into the barriers.
It also sent whatever hopes Hamilton had for catching Vettel in the world championship race into the wastebin.
So, that's it from Spa. We've got Monza next week, the standard F1U! format should be back at that time. See ya then!
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July 31, 2011
F1 Update!: Hungary 2011
In the 25 year history of the Hungarian Grand Prix, there had only been one wet race, 2006. That year, Jenson Button, then driving for BAR Honda, started very far back on the grid and through fine use of his wet-weather tires earned his first Grand Prix victory. Today, despite weather forecasts calling for sunny skies, rain was falling in Budapest as Jenson Button, now driving for McLaren, took to the grid for his 200th Grand Prix start. Would history repeat itself? THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Hungary!
*FALLING SKIES: Indeed, rain was falling lightly as the cars took to the track for their reconnaissance lap to the grid. When the cars rolled off on the parade lap, everybody was on the Intermediate tires... but the rain had stopped, and nobody could say what the weather was going to do next. By the time the parade lap was complete and the drivers were awaiting the extinguishing of the lights, there was already the faintest hint of a dry line on the circuit. For both the men in the cockpits and the men on the pit wall, this was the worst of all possible scenarios.
*AND WE'RE OFF: Red Bull's Seb Vettel led the the two McLarens into the first turn, and us jaded watchers in the F1U! war room pretty much expected him to run away and hide. After all, he's been one of the better wet-weather drivers on the grid in recent years. Meanwhile to nobody's surprise, Vettel's teammate Mark Webber had another of his patented Lousy Starts©, dropping to approximately 94th position... or 8th, if you want to be picky about it.
*BUT...: Not only didn't Vettel gap the field, it very quickly became clear that he was actually holding up the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton! For the first four laps, it looked like the Glare On Wheels was attached to the Red Bull by a tow bar, so firmly was Hamilton stuck to the rear of Vettel. On Lap 4 Hamilton nearly pulled off a pass going down into Turn 2, but had to back down. In the same place on Lap 5, he tried again... and Vettel lost grip on the wet pavement and staggered wide, letting the 2008 World Champion by with nary a shout. In fact, he nearly let the McLaren of Jenson Button, shadowing the two in third place, get by while recovering. By the start of the sixth lap, Hamilton had a 2.5 second lead, and showed no sign of slowing up.
*HOW DRY I AM: On lap 11, with very little to lose Mark Webber became the first driver to risk shedding his galoshes and tried on the super-soft tires. A lap later, so did Button from third, and then everybody else came in the next lap. The order remained Hamilton, Vettel and Button... until Button blew the metaphorical doors off the reigning World Champion to take 2nd place. Meanwhile, in all the scramble and hubbub in the pits, Webber ripped off some blistering laps and wound up in fourth. Gamble won for the Aussie.
*RENAULT FLAMBE: The day had not been going well for Grizzly Nick Heidfeld. Nowhere near the top 10, with no visible hope of improving much, he ducked into the pits for another set of tires. A recalcitrant wheelnut kept him in the box for a long stop... just long enough for the Renault's forward-facing exhaust to begin burning sidepod carbon fiber. As he was released from the stop, smoke and some sparks were visible, and by the time he reached the end of the pitlane, it was clear something was very very wrong. When he pulled over onto the grass, things got even worse.
Heidfeld quickly scrambled out of the car and headed for the hills, unharmed but lightly toasted. As he ran towards the armco, track marshals ran towards the now merrily burning Renault with fire extinguishers. Soon, most of the fire was out, and it became a case of preventing it from restarting. A marshal went around to the left-hand side of the car and hosed down the most obviously burned part of the sidepod...
Reports are that the extinguisher spray hit a superheated aluminum bottle of nitrogen, used to pneumatically actuate the cams in the engine, that through last season was kept inside the monocoque. This year, Renault moved the bottle to the outside of the cockpit, inside the sidepod. The sudden blast of cold fluid, combined with the heat expansion of the nitrogen inside the aluminum bottle, caused the bottle to fail explosively. While debris was scattered some 20 feet onto the track and the marshal suffered some minor leg injuries from carbon fiber shrapnel, all was basically okay. Dramatic, though. (UPDATE: Video can be found here)
*MORE DRAMA: On Lap 45, Hamilton still led Button by some 6.5 seconds, followed by Vettel, HWMNBN and Webber. Nobody else is within 50 seconds of the leader... but there is trouble in the air. Specifically, a light rain shower had begun to fall on the back half of the track. Hamilton looped his car in the sudden slickness, letting his teammate by for the lead, but gets back on the pace before Vettel can catch him. On Lap 50, Button returns the favor by sliding wide in a puddle and Hamilton regained the lead. At this moment, the race seemed poised on a knife's edge. If the rain continued, you'd have to go onto Intermediate tires just to stay on the track... but if it didn't, the slicks would remain the way to go. On Lap 52, Webber again made the call first and went for the Inters.
*SNAKE-EYES: On Lap 53, the McLaren pitwall got on the radio to their drivers: pit for Intermediate tires. Hamilton dove in, but Jenson Button stayed out on the slicks to retake the lead. Suddenly every eye in Budapest was affixed to the skies... would it or wouldn't it continue to rain? In two laps, as HWMNBN made easy work of the galoshes-shod McLaren, it became obvious that Button, not Hamilton, had made the right call. Hamilton went back into the pits for dry tires, then was told he'd have to make a drive-through penalty for his actions during his spin recovery on Lap 45. He would rejoin the race in 6th, never again to be a threat.
*THE END: Button eased off on the final lap, allowing Vettel to close to within 3.5 seconds as they crossed the finish line, but it wasn't really that close. Ferrari's HWMNBN crossed the line 20 seconds later in third. Hamilton, taking advantage of Webber's Red Bull in traffic, managed to finish fourth, nearly 50 seconds adrift, with Webber a second behind him. Some 30 seconds after that came Felipe Massa's Ferrari, some two years after he was nearly killed at this track.
*OH, ONE MORE THING: The Hungarian Grand Prix saw the title hopes of 17 drivers dashed. The only people mathematically in contention now are the drivers of the Red Bulls, McLarens, Ferraris and Nico Rosberg.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: The Hungaroring horks up a good race only when it rains. The first time it happened was 2006; Jenson Button won that one too. A superb drive from the 2009 World Champion, who made the right call to stay out despite ominous skies... a call that won him the race.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: McLaren. Red Bull still has the lead in both the Drivers and Constructors championships, but the gap is closing. At least for the moment, it looks like McLaren has caught the leaders on the track, and their drivers are showing that they, not the Red Bull men, are the class of the field. Might make for an interesting second half, that.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: While serving Lap 64, Lewis Hamilton was hotly pursuing Mark Webber for fourth when they came upon Gandalf Kobayashi, who was trying to make a set of tires go some 30 laps... and failing miserably. He'd lost five places in two laps as the two heavy hitters came up behind him.
Knowing that Gandalf was there, Hamilton dove to the inside of Webber. Just for an instant, the Red Bull driver was pinned in place, unable to get out from behind the Sauber.
Quick as a flash, Hamilton zipped by Webber for fourth place.
For taking advantage of of the prevailing terrain (the Sauber Rolling Chicane?), we hereby bestow the MotR upon Lewis Hamilton.
*MOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: Yes, we know it was damp and slippery out there. Yes, we understand that the racing surface is different than the surface in the pit lane. Yes, we are also aware that the paint on the pitlane gets even more slippery when it's wet. But c'mon, Custard d'Ambrosio, it's not like you're driving on an olive oil-covered ice rink.
Spinning in the pit lane and sending your crew scrambling for cover? Yes, you'd best believe that's a Mooooooooo-oooo. Way to go!
No driver quotes, as this F1U! is late enough as it is. F1 now enters its summer vacation period, so our next race isn't until the end of August! Oh, but it's a special one... because we'll be in Spa-Francopants! See you then and there!
*FALLING SKIES: Indeed, rain was falling lightly as the cars took to the track for their reconnaissance lap to the grid. When the cars rolled off on the parade lap, everybody was on the Intermediate tires... but the rain had stopped, and nobody could say what the weather was going to do next. By the time the parade lap was complete and the drivers were awaiting the extinguishing of the lights, there was already the faintest hint of a dry line on the circuit. For both the men in the cockpits and the men on the pit wall, this was the worst of all possible scenarios.
*AND WE'RE OFF: Red Bull's Seb Vettel led the the two McLarens into the first turn, and us jaded watchers in the F1U! war room pretty much expected him to run away and hide. After all, he's been one of the better wet-weather drivers on the grid in recent years. Meanwhile to nobody's surprise, Vettel's teammate Mark Webber had another of his patented Lousy Starts©, dropping to approximately 94th position... or 8th, if you want to be picky about it.
*BUT...: Not only didn't Vettel gap the field, it very quickly became clear that he was actually holding up the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton! For the first four laps, it looked like the Glare On Wheels was attached to the Red Bull by a tow bar, so firmly was Hamilton stuck to the rear of Vettel. On Lap 4 Hamilton nearly pulled off a pass going down into Turn 2, but had to back down. In the same place on Lap 5, he tried again... and Vettel lost grip on the wet pavement and staggered wide, letting the 2008 World Champion by with nary a shout. In fact, he nearly let the McLaren of Jenson Button, shadowing the two in third place, get by while recovering. By the start of the sixth lap, Hamilton had a 2.5 second lead, and showed no sign of slowing up.
*HOW DRY I AM: On lap 11, with very little to lose Mark Webber became the first driver to risk shedding his galoshes and tried on the super-soft tires. A lap later, so did Button from third, and then everybody else came in the next lap. The order remained Hamilton, Vettel and Button... until Button blew the metaphorical doors off the reigning World Champion to take 2nd place. Meanwhile, in all the scramble and hubbub in the pits, Webber ripped off some blistering laps and wound up in fourth. Gamble won for the Aussie.
*RENAULT FLAMBE: The day had not been going well for Grizzly Nick Heidfeld. Nowhere near the top 10, with no visible hope of improving much, he ducked into the pits for another set of tires. A recalcitrant wheelnut kept him in the box for a long stop... just long enough for the Renault's forward-facing exhaust to begin burning sidepod carbon fiber. As he was released from the stop, smoke and some sparks were visible, and by the time he reached the end of the pitlane, it was clear something was very very wrong. When he pulled over onto the grass, things got even worse.
Heidfeld quickly scrambled out of the car and headed for the hills, unharmed but lightly toasted. As he ran towards the armco, track marshals ran towards the now merrily burning Renault with fire extinguishers. Soon, most of the fire was out, and it became a case of preventing it from restarting. A marshal went around to the left-hand side of the car and hosed down the most obviously burned part of the sidepod...
Reports are that the extinguisher spray hit a superheated aluminum bottle of nitrogen, used to pneumatically actuate the cams in the engine, that through last season was kept inside the monocoque. This year, Renault moved the bottle to the outside of the cockpit, inside the sidepod. The sudden blast of cold fluid, combined with the heat expansion of the nitrogen inside the aluminum bottle, caused the bottle to fail explosively. While debris was scattered some 20 feet onto the track and the marshal suffered some minor leg injuries from carbon fiber shrapnel, all was basically okay. Dramatic, though. (UPDATE: Video can be found here)
*MORE DRAMA: On Lap 45, Hamilton still led Button by some 6.5 seconds, followed by Vettel, HWMNBN and Webber. Nobody else is within 50 seconds of the leader... but there is trouble in the air. Specifically, a light rain shower had begun to fall on the back half of the track. Hamilton looped his car in the sudden slickness, letting his teammate by for the lead, but gets back on the pace before Vettel can catch him. On Lap 50, Button returns the favor by sliding wide in a puddle and Hamilton regained the lead. At this moment, the race seemed poised on a knife's edge. If the rain continued, you'd have to go onto Intermediate tires just to stay on the track... but if it didn't, the slicks would remain the way to go. On Lap 52, Webber again made the call first and went for the Inters.
*SNAKE-EYES: On Lap 53, the McLaren pitwall got on the radio to their drivers: pit for Intermediate tires. Hamilton dove in, but Jenson Button stayed out on the slicks to retake the lead. Suddenly every eye in Budapest was affixed to the skies... would it or wouldn't it continue to rain? In two laps, as HWMNBN made easy work of the galoshes-shod McLaren, it became obvious that Button, not Hamilton, had made the right call. Hamilton went back into the pits for dry tires, then was told he'd have to make a drive-through penalty for his actions during his spin recovery on Lap 45. He would rejoin the race in 6th, never again to be a threat.
*THE END: Button eased off on the final lap, allowing Vettel to close to within 3.5 seconds as they crossed the finish line, but it wasn't really that close. Ferrari's HWMNBN crossed the line 20 seconds later in third. Hamilton, taking advantage of Webber's Red Bull in traffic, managed to finish fourth, nearly 50 seconds adrift, with Webber a second behind him. Some 30 seconds after that came Felipe Massa's Ferrari, some two years after he was nearly killed at this track.
*OH, ONE MORE THING: The Hungarian Grand Prix saw the title hopes of 17 drivers dashed. The only people mathematically in contention now are the drivers of the Red Bulls, McLarens, Ferraris and Nico Rosberg.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: The Hungaroring horks up a good race only when it rains. The first time it happened was 2006; Jenson Button won that one too. A superb drive from the 2009 World Champion, who made the right call to stay out despite ominous skies... a call that won him the race.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: McLaren. Red Bull still has the lead in both the Drivers and Constructors championships, but the gap is closing. At least for the moment, it looks like McLaren has caught the leaders on the track, and their drivers are showing that they, not the Red Bull men, are the class of the field. Might make for an interesting second half, that.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: While serving Lap 64, Lewis Hamilton was hotly pursuing Mark Webber for fourth when they came upon Gandalf Kobayashi, who was trying to make a set of tires go some 30 laps... and failing miserably. He'd lost five places in two laps as the two heavy hitters came up behind him.
Knowing that Gandalf was there, Hamilton dove to the inside of Webber. Just for an instant, the Red Bull driver was pinned in place, unable to get out from behind the Sauber.
Quick as a flash, Hamilton zipped by Webber for fourth place.
For taking advantage of of the prevailing terrain (the Sauber Rolling Chicane?), we hereby bestow the MotR upon Lewis Hamilton.
*MOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: Yes, we know it was damp and slippery out there. Yes, we understand that the racing surface is different than the surface in the pit lane. Yes, we are also aware that the paint on the pitlane gets even more slippery when it's wet. But c'mon, Custard d'Ambrosio, it's not like you're driving on an olive oil-covered ice rink.
Spinning in the pit lane and sending your crew scrambling for cover? Yes, you'd best believe that's a Mooooooooo-oooo. Way to go!
No driver quotes, as this F1U! is late enough as it is. F1 now enters its summer vacation period, so our next race isn't until the end of August! Oh, but it's a special one... because we'll be in Spa-Francopants! See you then and there!
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July 24, 2011
F1 Update!: Germany 2011
Grey, leaden skies hovered over the Nurb Jr today. Every member of every team kept one eye cocked to the heavens looking for the first hint of rain, and wet weather tires were never far from reach. Would they be needed? THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Germany.
*NOPE: While the clouds overhead kept everybody on their toes all day by squirting tiny amounts of moisture at the racing tarmac, it never progressed to the point where the galoshes had to come out. The hob this played with team strategies was tremendous (as we'll see later). Everybody knew it was coming, everybody was planning for it, and nobody ever got it.
*THE BAD OLD DAYS... NOT SO BAD ONCE IN A WHILE: Judging the 2011 German Grand Prix is somewhat difficult. Those expecting a pass-fest full of excitement and NASCAR-like swapping of places didn't get it, and thus will decry the race at boring. They might even be correct. What we got today was an old-fashioned race of dueling pit strategies, seeing who could make their soft tires last the longest while trying to stay off the hard compound tires Pirelli brought to the track. The hards had two problems this weekend. While they could last forever on the non-abrasive surface at Nurb Jr (Pirelli estimated that they'd be able to go 100 laps), they had no grip whatsoever. The second problem was that the grip was made even worse by the chilly temperatures. It was 54 degrees at race time, and the track surface wasn't much warmer. Getting heat into the tires proved to be awfully difficult today.
*THE START'S THE KEY: In most respects, the race today was decided when the lights went out. Polesitter Mark Webber had another of his patented Lousy Starts©, losing the lead to Lewis Hamilton before the first turn. He would never legitimately hold the lead again. When Seb Vettel spun on Lap 10, he fell from third to fourth place, but 12 full seconds back and would never be a threat. It became a race between Hamilton and Ferrari's HWMNBN, with Webber grimly hanging on, ready to take advantage of any mistake... and maybe drive somebody into one.
*MIDRACE: It became clear that some drivers were banking on rain. Adrian Sutil didn't make his first stop until Lap 24, Jenson Button until Lap 25. Both were as high as fourth place, and both looked to be ready to score some serious points, but Button blew a hydraulic line and had to retire on Lap 36. Up front, Hamilton, HWMNBN and Webber were basically racing in the pit lanes: whichever's mechanics could get them in and out the fastest would win.
*ENDGAME: In the end, nothing could deny Lewis Hamilton his second win of the season. HWMNBN finished less than four seconds behind in second, with Webber almost six seconds adrift of the Ferrari. Behind them however, Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Red Bull's Seb Vettel were in quite a little duel... and an eye-opening one it was. Vettel was obviously faster than the Ferrari, yet he could do nothing with the Brazilian. The media has been saying for quite some time that Seb Vettel is a great driver from the lead, but put him back in the pack and he's merely average, with an amazing penchant for some awfully clumsy driving (see Turkey 2010). As it turned out, Massa led Vettel until the final lap, when the two had to pit and put on hard tires to satisfy the sporting regulations. They came in nose-to-tail, about a half-second separating them. They left the pits with Vettel holding a nearly two second lead over Massa, courtesy of a miserable 5.5-second tire change from Ferrari. They finished over a half-minute behind the winner. Force India's Adrian Sutil, stretching his tires to the limit, brought it home in sixth, almost 90 seconds back. Nobody else was on the same lap.
*AFTERWARD: Shortly after crossing the finish line, the Ferrari of HWMNBN ran out of fuel and coasted to a stop somewhere on the course. Mark Webber, right behind him, decided to stop and give him a lift back to the pit lane.
We here in the US never saw it.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Lewis Hamilton. At the start of the race weekend, Hamilton was quite vocal about his chances: slim-to-none. The car just didn't have the pace. After Quals, he was saying that it was the the best lap he'd ever turned, and that there wasn't anything else in the car... and all he could manage was second place. Hamilton won the race, set fast lap, and led more laps than anybody today. Either he did a fantastic job or his car is better than he thinks. Or both.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: McLaren. When they had to perform, they did. They consistently made the right strategy calls at the right time, their mechanics were flawless, and the drivers made their plans work. That Jenson Button lost hydraulic line knocked him out of the race is the only black mark on a sterling day. Ferrari's mechanics lost Massa a position on the last lap, Red Bull kept Mark Webber out a lap or two too long on his final stop, costing him any chance at second. Only McLaren kept it together.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: On Lap 32, Lewis Hamilton pitted from the lead and came out in 2nd place behind HWMNBN. The gap between the two was very close to the pit lane "delta time," or how long it would take to drive into the pit lane, change tires, then drive off the pit lane. The next lap, the Ferrari driver pulled in for new tires. He got out ahead of the charging McLaren, but the Glare on Wheels had the momentum.
The Ferrari had problems getting the power down; the one drawback of brand new tires is that, until they get heat in them, they aren't particularly sticky. No grip = no power.
Heading into Turn 2, Hamilton put his foot down and began to charge around the outside of the turn... not the easiest way to make a living, particularly when you've got a squirrely Ferrari a foot or so to your left.
Outpowering the red car through the outside of the turn, Hamilton showed all sorts of guts and racing skill. His reward? First place, and the MOTR.
*MOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: On Lap 11, Renault's Grizzly Nick Heidfeld was harassing Toro Rosso's Seb Buemi back in the order. It was clear that Heidfeld was faster and was surely the better driver. All Buemi had in his favor was a lead and an aggressive desire to keep the Renault behind him. When Grizzly Nick made his move to the outside going into a chicane, Buemi threw a block that would have made Merlin Olson proud. However, blocking in F1 shouldn't be a contact sport, and Buemi turned it into one. The result was not pretty.
Buemi ended up with a punctured rear tire and a five gridspot penalty for next week's race in Hungary. Grizzly Nick ended up in the kittylitter with a broken car. If anything good came of this clumsy Mooooo-ooove, it was that we got to see this camera shot:
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*NOPE: While the clouds overhead kept everybody on their toes all day by squirting tiny amounts of moisture at the racing tarmac, it never progressed to the point where the galoshes had to come out. The hob this played with team strategies was tremendous (as we'll see later). Everybody knew it was coming, everybody was planning for it, and nobody ever got it.
*THE BAD OLD DAYS... NOT SO BAD ONCE IN A WHILE: Judging the 2011 German Grand Prix is somewhat difficult. Those expecting a pass-fest full of excitement and NASCAR-like swapping of places didn't get it, and thus will decry the race at boring. They might even be correct. What we got today was an old-fashioned race of dueling pit strategies, seeing who could make their soft tires last the longest while trying to stay off the hard compound tires Pirelli brought to the track. The hards had two problems this weekend. While they could last forever on the non-abrasive surface at Nurb Jr (Pirelli estimated that they'd be able to go 100 laps), they had no grip whatsoever. The second problem was that the grip was made even worse by the chilly temperatures. It was 54 degrees at race time, and the track surface wasn't much warmer. Getting heat into the tires proved to be awfully difficult today.
*THE START'S THE KEY: In most respects, the race today was decided when the lights went out. Polesitter Mark Webber had another of his patented Lousy Starts©, losing the lead to Lewis Hamilton before the first turn. He would never legitimately hold the lead again. When Seb Vettel spun on Lap 10, he fell from third to fourth place, but 12 full seconds back and would never be a threat. It became a race between Hamilton and Ferrari's HWMNBN, with Webber grimly hanging on, ready to take advantage of any mistake... and maybe drive somebody into one.
*MIDRACE: It became clear that some drivers were banking on rain. Adrian Sutil didn't make his first stop until Lap 24, Jenson Button until Lap 25. Both were as high as fourth place, and both looked to be ready to score some serious points, but Button blew a hydraulic line and had to retire on Lap 36. Up front, Hamilton, HWMNBN and Webber were basically racing in the pit lanes: whichever's mechanics could get them in and out the fastest would win.
*ENDGAME: In the end, nothing could deny Lewis Hamilton his second win of the season. HWMNBN finished less than four seconds behind in second, with Webber almost six seconds adrift of the Ferrari. Behind them however, Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Red Bull's Seb Vettel were in quite a little duel... and an eye-opening one it was. Vettel was obviously faster than the Ferrari, yet he could do nothing with the Brazilian. The media has been saying for quite some time that Seb Vettel is a great driver from the lead, but put him back in the pack and he's merely average, with an amazing penchant for some awfully clumsy driving (see Turkey 2010). As it turned out, Massa led Vettel until the final lap, when the two had to pit and put on hard tires to satisfy the sporting regulations. They came in nose-to-tail, about a half-second separating them. They left the pits with Vettel holding a nearly two second lead over Massa, courtesy of a miserable 5.5-second tire change from Ferrari. They finished over a half-minute behind the winner. Force India's Adrian Sutil, stretching his tires to the limit, brought it home in sixth, almost 90 seconds back. Nobody else was on the same lap.
*AFTERWARD: Shortly after crossing the finish line, the Ferrari of HWMNBN ran out of fuel and coasted to a stop somewhere on the course. Mark Webber, right behind him, decided to stop and give him a lift back to the pit lane.
We here in the US never saw it.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Lewis Hamilton. At the start of the race weekend, Hamilton was quite vocal about his chances: slim-to-none. The car just didn't have the pace. After Quals, he was saying that it was the the best lap he'd ever turned, and that there wasn't anything else in the car... and all he could manage was second place. Hamilton won the race, set fast lap, and led more laps than anybody today. Either he did a fantastic job or his car is better than he thinks. Or both.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: McLaren. When they had to perform, they did. They consistently made the right strategy calls at the right time, their mechanics were flawless, and the drivers made their plans work. That Jenson Button lost hydraulic line knocked him out of the race is the only black mark on a sterling day. Ferrari's mechanics lost Massa a position on the last lap, Red Bull kept Mark Webber out a lap or two too long on his final stop, costing him any chance at second. Only McLaren kept it together.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: On Lap 32, Lewis Hamilton pitted from the lead and came out in 2nd place behind HWMNBN. The gap between the two was very close to the pit lane "delta time," or how long it would take to drive into the pit lane, change tires, then drive off the pit lane. The next lap, the Ferrari driver pulled in for new tires. He got out ahead of the charging McLaren, but the Glare on Wheels had the momentum.
The Ferrari had problems getting the power down; the one drawback of brand new tires is that, until they get heat in them, they aren't particularly sticky. No grip = no power.
Heading into Turn 2, Hamilton put his foot down and began to charge around the outside of the turn... not the easiest way to make a living, particularly when you've got a squirrely Ferrari a foot or so to your left.
Outpowering the red car through the outside of the turn, Hamilton showed all sorts of guts and racing skill. His reward? First place, and the MOTR.
*MOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: On Lap 11, Renault's Grizzly Nick Heidfeld was harassing Toro Rosso's Seb Buemi back in the order. It was clear that Heidfeld was faster and was surely the better driver. All Buemi had in his favor was a lead and an aggressive desire to keep the Renault behind him. When Grizzly Nick made his move to the outside going into a chicane, Buemi threw a block that would have made Merlin Olson proud. However, blocking in F1 shouldn't be a contact sport, and Buemi turned it into one. The result was not pretty.
Buemi ended up with a punctured rear tire and a five gridspot penalty for next week's race in Hungary. Grizzly Nick ended up in the kittylitter with a broken car. If anything good came of this clumsy Mooooo-ooove, it was that we got to see this camera shot:
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
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July 10, 2011
F1 Update!: Britain 2011
Rules changes that may have been aimed directly at the Red Bull team didn't seem to slow them down at all in Quals. But what would actually occur when the lights went out at Silverstone? Would Ferrari kick Vettel to the curb? Would McLaren make a remarkable comeback from a depressing qualifying stint? Or would the rain come bucketing down like it did during practice, throwing everything into a tizzy? THIS is your F1U! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Great Britain!
*LIGHTS OUT: While it wasn't raining when the race began, just a few minutes before the back half of the track had been in the middle of a downpour. Up at the start/finish line however the track was pretty much dry. The entire field was on Intermediate tires, and with the way the weather had been at Silverstone for the past two days, nobody was sure if they'd have to change to full wets, move to slicks, or stay on the Inters, perhaps as soon as the end of Lap 1. The weather was just that weird. When the lights went out, polesitter Mark Webber made one of his patented Lousy Starts©, allowing his teammate, Seb Vettel, to rocket by him in a repeat of a scene we've seen all too many times this season. Meanwhile, Ferrari's HWMNBN began living right behind the Australian driver, not quite able to get by but not letting his opponent get away. Behind them, everything is thrown into a cocked hat. McLaren's Lewis Hamilton picks up three places at the start, and by the end of the second lap is up to fifth, passing his teammate.
*AND SO ON...: By Lap 10, it's clear that the track is just about ready for the normal slick tires... on the racing line at least. Slappy Schumacher, fresh after discovering that wet pavement is slippery and misplacing his front wing somewhere in the side of Gandalf Kobayashi's Sauber, becomes the first to try the regular tires, followed by half the field on the next lap. A few laps later, both Lotuses are out with problems with their Renault engines. As these may very well be the first engine failures of the entire season, there is immediate thought that the new rules against the "throttle trick" are causing overheating. On Lap 25, Gandalf pulls over, his engine cooked to a lovely shade of golden brown.
*PIT MISFORTUNES: Two weeks ago in Spain, all 24 cars that started the race finished, only the third time in the 61 year history of F1 that has ever occurred (the last time was in 2005). A lot of that can be put down to the sterling work by the pit crews. Not this race. Kobayashi was handed a 10 second stop-and-go penalty for being released unsafely into the pit lane, taking with him a Force India airhose in the process. In an unrelated incident, Force India's Paul diResta on lap 26 stopped for new tires... and discovered that the team had teammate Adrian Sutil's ready for him. The screwed up pitstop cost him nine places, dropping from seventh to 16th. We'll talk about what happened to Jenson Button later. But then came the big mistake. On Lap 27, Vettel pits from the lead with 2nd place HWMNBN a few seconds behind him. Ferrari got their man in and out in a hurry, but the Red Bull mechanics had problems with an airgun. HWMNBN, who was some seconds behind the young German champion at the beginning of the pitstop, sweeps by before the Red Bull driver has all four tires on and takes over the lead.
*CONTINUING DEVELOPMENTS: At this point, the order is HWMNBN, Lewis Hamilton and Seb Vettel. It still stands that was on Lap 32, but the Ferrari driver is a full seven seconds ahead of second place Hamilton, who has Vettel all over his rear wing. Astonishingly, the Red Bull can't get past the obviously slower McLaren, allowing the Ferrari driver to open an 11 second lead in the space of a few laps. Obviously frustrated, the Austrian team called their driver in for a pit stop on Lap 37, hoping that fresh tires and no McLaren in front of them will make a difference. In response, Vettel turns in the lap of the day and when Hamilton came in for tires on the next lap, his mechanics take 0.2 seconds longer than Vettel's; this, combined with the lightning-fast out lap, allows the reigning World Champion to jump Hamilton on the pit exchange. On Lap 40, HWMNBN pits from the lead for the final time, and when he rejoined the race still in the lead, it became clear that the churchbells would be busy in Maranello.
*AND THEN...: All a race driver wants to do is go fast. That's what he does, after all... what else IS there to racing, when it comes right down to it? So imagine what was going through Lewis Hamilton's head on Lap 44. He's in third, having passed Ferrari's Felipe Massa to get there, but he has Mark Webber coming up behind him fast, and Seb Vettel is merely a couple of seconds ahead. Of course he's going to want to run like the wind, right? Then came the call from the pit wall: "Lewis, we need to conserve fuel if we're going to finish the race." It appears that McLaren, gambling on a slower, less fuel-intensive wet race, didn't put enough gas into his car for the surprisingly quick-paced (mostly) dry race they got. Two laps later, Webber cruised by the drastically slower Hamilton, kicking the 2008 Champion off the podium. By Lap 49, another threat emerges: Felipe Massa's Ferrari has gained over seven seconds in three laps and appears to be drooling at the opportunity in front of him.
*THIS IS THE END: Much to everybody's surprise and delight, Hamilton might not have been the only one with fuel problems. Mark Webber was making up time in huge gulps on Seb Vettel, maybe for the same reason the McLaren had slowed, or perhaps because the German's tires had gone off. Whichever reason it was, on Laps 50 and 51, the two teammates begin to go at it hammer and tongs. Only a slightly dangerous blocking maneuver kept the Aussie behind Vettel. Back at the Red Bull pit wall, team principal Christian Horner has a heart attack and dies. Recovering quickly, he immediately says enough of that. The forceful radio call goes out on the final lap: "Mark, maintain the gap." It turned out that Webber had been ignoring similar calls for a few laps to have a go at his teammate, but that final, failed, attempt brought the team's foot down... and with the rules against team orders being removed this season, nothing will happen to the team. Of course, this is the team that last year got quite holier-than-thou when Ferrari told Felipe Massa that "(HWMNBN) is faster than you." "We would never issue team orders under any circumstances," I believe was the gist of Horner's quote back then. Yeah, about that...
*FIN: Whatever little dramas were going on behind him bothered HWMNBN not a whit, as he sailed across the finish line some 16.5 seconds ahead of the two Red Bull drivers for his first win since the 2010 GP of Korea. His teammate however, he was locked in a tooth-and-nail fight for fourth with Hamilton. The McLaren pilot was doing an incredible job of keeping the ridiculously faster Ferrari behind him until the last sequence of turns. Then the Brazilian made his move to the outside of the Brit. The two bumped twice and Massa was forced into the run-off area outside of the final turn. A balls-out sprint ensued, with Hamilton crossing the line 0.024 seconds ahead of Massa for fourth place, bringing to an end a surprisingly eventful race.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: HWMNBN. From hounding Webber at the start to keeping his head as people nicked places off him in the pits, the Spaniard stayed as cool as the other side of the pillow all race, and it paid off in spades with a dominating victory... but one that never really seemed all that dominate. Do it again and we here at F1U! will begin to believe it, though.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Ferrari. From a miserable start to the season to nearly getting a 1-4 result, the red team from Maranello have got to be feeling pretty good right now. Whether their sudden speed is a result of the new rules changes or from improvements in the car is a topic for another day.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: On Lap 14, Jenson Button was hovering just behind Felipe Massa in 6th place as the two raced down the Hangar Straight. Conditions were... um... dicey, to say the least, but that's the sort of track that Button enjoys racing on. Into the 150mph Stowe corner they went, with Button making his move to the outside of the Ferrari.
Massa, despite a slight speed disadvantage, took some umbrage with this attempt and kept pushing the 2009 Champion farther and farther outside, until finally Button wasn't driving on the track at all, but on the painted section just off the circuit.
Somehow, Button managed to keep the car gripping the surface (unlike Gandalf Kobayashi in Friday's P1) as they raced down to Vale. When Massa slid out to the racing line for the turn, Button pounced.
Barbecuing his front-left tire with his late braking, Button zipped past as the two entered Vale, and while Massa attempted a counterattack in Club, the McLaren had too much speed built up and ran away, bringing a truly professional pass to a close. Well done, here's the MotR!
*MOOOOOOO-OOOVE OF THE RACE: It seems appropriate that, given all the pitlane problems the teams had today, that the worst move of the race will be going to a pit crew member. On Lap 40, Jenson Button was coming in for his final set of tires. He was in fifth place, and had an outside shot at a podium position if everything went right. Instead, everything went very very wrong. The front-right air gun seemed to have a problem going from "loosen" to "tighten" as the old tire came off promptly, and the new tire put in place. As the other three tires were bolted down however, the front-right gunner tried to lock the tire on the hub, and couldn't. Immediately, he dropped the gun and began reaching for the backup. The chief mechanic, also known as the "Lollypop Man" for the paddle-shaped "stop/go" board he wields, took the frantic scramble for a new gun to mean that the tire was safely attached, even though the usual notification for that is a neon-glove-covered hand held vertically above the tire. The lollypop was lifted, and away went Button, exactly as he's supposed to do. Before he got out of the pits, though...
Amazingly the tire never came completely off the hub, though only by the barest of margins. He still had to park the car however, and the team was fined after the race for an unsafe release, to the tune of €5000. From 5th to out, and a decent chunk of change to boot? Yep, that's a Moooooo-ooove to the Lollypop Man!
*SELECTED DRIVER'S QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*LIGHTS OUT: While it wasn't raining when the race began, just a few minutes before the back half of the track had been in the middle of a downpour. Up at the start/finish line however the track was pretty much dry. The entire field was on Intermediate tires, and with the way the weather had been at Silverstone for the past two days, nobody was sure if they'd have to change to full wets, move to slicks, or stay on the Inters, perhaps as soon as the end of Lap 1. The weather was just that weird. When the lights went out, polesitter Mark Webber made one of his patented Lousy Starts©, allowing his teammate, Seb Vettel, to rocket by him in a repeat of a scene we've seen all too many times this season. Meanwhile, Ferrari's HWMNBN began living right behind the Australian driver, not quite able to get by but not letting his opponent get away. Behind them, everything is thrown into a cocked hat. McLaren's Lewis Hamilton picks up three places at the start, and by the end of the second lap is up to fifth, passing his teammate.
*AND SO ON...: By Lap 10, it's clear that the track is just about ready for the normal slick tires... on the racing line at least. Slappy Schumacher, fresh after discovering that wet pavement is slippery and misplacing his front wing somewhere in the side of Gandalf Kobayashi's Sauber, becomes the first to try the regular tires, followed by half the field on the next lap. A few laps later, both Lotuses are out with problems with their Renault engines. As these may very well be the first engine failures of the entire season, there is immediate thought that the new rules against the "throttle trick" are causing overheating. On Lap 25, Gandalf pulls over, his engine cooked to a lovely shade of golden brown.
*PIT MISFORTUNES: Two weeks ago in Spain, all 24 cars that started the race finished, only the third time in the 61 year history of F1 that has ever occurred (the last time was in 2005). A lot of that can be put down to the sterling work by the pit crews. Not this race. Kobayashi was handed a 10 second stop-and-go penalty for being released unsafely into the pit lane, taking with him a Force India airhose in the process. In an unrelated incident, Force India's Paul diResta on lap 26 stopped for new tires... and discovered that the team had teammate Adrian Sutil's ready for him. The screwed up pitstop cost him nine places, dropping from seventh to 16th. We'll talk about what happened to Jenson Button later. But then came the big mistake. On Lap 27, Vettel pits from the lead with 2nd place HWMNBN a few seconds behind him. Ferrari got their man in and out in a hurry, but the Red Bull mechanics had problems with an airgun. HWMNBN, who was some seconds behind the young German champion at the beginning of the pitstop, sweeps by before the Red Bull driver has all four tires on and takes over the lead.
*CONTINUING DEVELOPMENTS: At this point, the order is HWMNBN, Lewis Hamilton and Seb Vettel. It still stands that was on Lap 32, but the Ferrari driver is a full seven seconds ahead of second place Hamilton, who has Vettel all over his rear wing. Astonishingly, the Red Bull can't get past the obviously slower McLaren, allowing the Ferrari driver to open an 11 second lead in the space of a few laps. Obviously frustrated, the Austrian team called their driver in for a pit stop on Lap 37, hoping that fresh tires and no McLaren in front of them will make a difference. In response, Vettel turns in the lap of the day and when Hamilton came in for tires on the next lap, his mechanics take 0.2 seconds longer than Vettel's; this, combined with the lightning-fast out lap, allows the reigning World Champion to jump Hamilton on the pit exchange. On Lap 40, HWMNBN pits from the lead for the final time, and when he rejoined the race still in the lead, it became clear that the churchbells would be busy in Maranello.
*AND THEN...: All a race driver wants to do is go fast. That's what he does, after all... what else IS there to racing, when it comes right down to it? So imagine what was going through Lewis Hamilton's head on Lap 44. He's in third, having passed Ferrari's Felipe Massa to get there, but he has Mark Webber coming up behind him fast, and Seb Vettel is merely a couple of seconds ahead. Of course he's going to want to run like the wind, right? Then came the call from the pit wall: "Lewis, we need to conserve fuel if we're going to finish the race." It appears that McLaren, gambling on a slower, less fuel-intensive wet race, didn't put enough gas into his car for the surprisingly quick-paced (mostly) dry race they got. Two laps later, Webber cruised by the drastically slower Hamilton, kicking the 2008 Champion off the podium. By Lap 49, another threat emerges: Felipe Massa's Ferrari has gained over seven seconds in three laps and appears to be drooling at the opportunity in front of him.
*THIS IS THE END: Much to everybody's surprise and delight, Hamilton might not have been the only one with fuel problems. Mark Webber was making up time in huge gulps on Seb Vettel, maybe for the same reason the McLaren had slowed, or perhaps because the German's tires had gone off. Whichever reason it was, on Laps 50 and 51, the two teammates begin to go at it hammer and tongs. Only a slightly dangerous blocking maneuver kept the Aussie behind Vettel. Back at the Red Bull pit wall, team principal Christian Horner has a heart attack and dies. Recovering quickly, he immediately says enough of that. The forceful radio call goes out on the final lap: "Mark, maintain the gap." It turned out that Webber had been ignoring similar calls for a few laps to have a go at his teammate, but that final, failed, attempt brought the team's foot down... and with the rules against team orders being removed this season, nothing will happen to the team. Of course, this is the team that last year got quite holier-than-thou when Ferrari told Felipe Massa that "(HWMNBN) is faster than you." "We would never issue team orders under any circumstances," I believe was the gist of Horner's quote back then. Yeah, about that...
*FIN: Whatever little dramas were going on behind him bothered HWMNBN not a whit, as he sailed across the finish line some 16.5 seconds ahead of the two Red Bull drivers for his first win since the 2010 GP of Korea. His teammate however, he was locked in a tooth-and-nail fight for fourth with Hamilton. The McLaren pilot was doing an incredible job of keeping the ridiculously faster Ferrari behind him until the last sequence of turns. Then the Brazilian made his move to the outside of the Brit. The two bumped twice and Massa was forced into the run-off area outside of the final turn. A balls-out sprint ensued, with Hamilton crossing the line 0.024 seconds ahead of Massa for fourth place, bringing to an end a surprisingly eventful race.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: HWMNBN. From hounding Webber at the start to keeping his head as people nicked places off him in the pits, the Spaniard stayed as cool as the other side of the pillow all race, and it paid off in spades with a dominating victory... but one that never really seemed all that dominate. Do it again and we here at F1U! will begin to believe it, though.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Ferrari. From a miserable start to the season to nearly getting a 1-4 result, the red team from Maranello have got to be feeling pretty good right now. Whether their sudden speed is a result of the new rules changes or from improvements in the car is a topic for another day.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: On Lap 14, Jenson Button was hovering just behind Felipe Massa in 6th place as the two raced down the Hangar Straight. Conditions were... um... dicey, to say the least, but that's the sort of track that Button enjoys racing on. Into the 150mph Stowe corner they went, with Button making his move to the outside of the Ferrari.
Massa, despite a slight speed disadvantage, took some umbrage with this attempt and kept pushing the 2009 Champion farther and farther outside, until finally Button wasn't driving on the track at all, but on the painted section just off the circuit.
Somehow, Button managed to keep the car gripping the surface (unlike Gandalf Kobayashi in Friday's P1) as they raced down to Vale. When Massa slid out to the racing line for the turn, Button pounced.
Barbecuing his front-left tire with his late braking, Button zipped past as the two entered Vale, and while Massa attempted a counterattack in Club, the McLaren had too much speed built up and ran away, bringing a truly professional pass to a close. Well done, here's the MotR!
*MOOOOOOO-OOOVE OF THE RACE: It seems appropriate that, given all the pitlane problems the teams had today, that the worst move of the race will be going to a pit crew member. On Lap 40, Jenson Button was coming in for his final set of tires. He was in fifth place, and had an outside shot at a podium position if everything went right. Instead, everything went very very wrong. The front-right air gun seemed to have a problem going from "loosen" to "tighten" as the old tire came off promptly, and the new tire put in place. As the other three tires were bolted down however, the front-right gunner tried to lock the tire on the hub, and couldn't. Immediately, he dropped the gun and began reaching for the backup. The chief mechanic, also known as the "Lollypop Man" for the paddle-shaped "stop/go" board he wields, took the frantic scramble for a new gun to mean that the tire was safely attached, even though the usual notification for that is a neon-glove-covered hand held vertically above the tire. The lollypop was lifted, and away went Button, exactly as he's supposed to do. Before he got out of the pits, though...
Amazingly the tire never came completely off the hub, though only by the barest of margins. He still had to park the car however, and the team was fined after the race for an unsafe release, to the tune of €5000. From 5th to out, and a decent chunk of change to boot? Yep, that's a Moooooo-ooove to the Lollypop Man!
*SELECTED DRIVER'S QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
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June 26, 2011
F1 Update!: Valencia 2011
The weather in Valencia was gorgeous as the 24 cars took to the grid, but would the sun shine on the polesitter Seb Vettel? Or would someone show him the greyness of loss? THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Europe @ Valencia!
*NOPE: As the lights went out, Red Bull's Seb Vettel leaped from his slot on the grid and headed for the hills. By the end of the first lap, he was well over a second ahead of his teammate Mark Webber, who was being hounded by Ferrari's HWMNBN. From there, it was just a pleasant Sunday drive for the reigning World Champion, who went on to win with a grand total drama amount of zero. 10 seconds behind him was HWMNBN, who was 17 seconds ahead of Mark Webber's ailing RB7. Nearly 20 seconds later, Lewis Hamilton's McLaren sauntered across the lane, followed five seconds later by Ferrari's Felipe Massa. The man currently second in the world championship race, Jenson Button, finished the race in 6th place, exactly one full minute behind Vettel.
*THE BAD OLD DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN: It wasn't all that long ago that we'd go entire races without seeing anything other than red hot pitstop action!!! We've gotten spoiled, what with all this newfangled passing and excitement and on-track racing for position that we've had this season. It took the efforts of a Valencia street circuit to show us what F1 used to be: mostly unexciting. We here at F1U! are dyed-in-the-firesuit traditionalists, always have been, but we can do without a return to the past in this particular case. F1, get rid of this miserable excuse for a track, please.
*FIRST EVER: F1 has been around for over 60 years. It's seen some amazingly dominant drivers (Schumacher, Senna, St Fangio the Quick), but never before have we seen a run like the one Seb Vettel is on. We're eight races in, and in those he's not finished lower than 2nd in any of them. That's never been done before.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: NKOTT. The Toro Rosso driver started 18th on the grid and finished 8th. He must have done something right.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. In a race that was entirely decided in the pits, Red Bull consistently took tires off and replaced them in amazingly quick times. Late in the race, where a mistake in the pits means lost time that could cost a driver a position or two, they got their men in and out in 3.2 seconds each. Everybody else were around 3.4 or 3.5 seconds. Yes, that's the sort of action we had today... red hot pit stop action!
*MOVE OF THE RACE: When we're watching a race, the F1U! cohort is positioned with notebook in hand, ready to record anything of importance that occurs for easy reference later. For Canada, there were six pages of notes, some with clarifying notations on the back of the previous page. For Monaco, there were four pages. For this race, there were two. Not two pages, two notes. Total. One of them is for the DRS-assisted pass of Webber by HWMNBN on Lap 21 for 2nd place. The other one is for Slappy Schumacher's pass of Adrian Sutil on Lap 15. Neither was particularly exciting, dramatic, or even all that important. Slappy gets the nod because he did his with his front wing dragging on the ground after he ran into The Red Menace as he exited the pits at the beginning of the lap. Yay?
*MOOOOOOOO-OOOVE OF THE RACE: Other than Slappy taking his own nose off on Lap 15 (see above), there really weren't any stupid driver tricks today. So instead, here's Adrian Sutil with a pair of gag glasses.
*(VERY) SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*NOPE: As the lights went out, Red Bull's Seb Vettel leaped from his slot on the grid and headed for the hills. By the end of the first lap, he was well over a second ahead of his teammate Mark Webber, who was being hounded by Ferrari's HWMNBN. From there, it was just a pleasant Sunday drive for the reigning World Champion, who went on to win with a grand total drama amount of zero. 10 seconds behind him was HWMNBN, who was 17 seconds ahead of Mark Webber's ailing RB7. Nearly 20 seconds later, Lewis Hamilton's McLaren sauntered across the lane, followed five seconds later by Ferrari's Felipe Massa. The man currently second in the world championship race, Jenson Button, finished the race in 6th place, exactly one full minute behind Vettel.
*THE BAD OLD DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN: It wasn't all that long ago that we'd go entire races without seeing anything other than red hot pitstop action!!! We've gotten spoiled, what with all this newfangled passing and excitement and on-track racing for position that we've had this season. It took the efforts of a Valencia street circuit to show us what F1 used to be: mostly unexciting. We here at F1U! are dyed-in-the-firesuit traditionalists, always have been, but we can do without a return to the past in this particular case. F1, get rid of this miserable excuse for a track, please.
*FIRST EVER: F1 has been around for over 60 years. It's seen some amazingly dominant drivers (Schumacher, Senna, St Fangio the Quick), but never before have we seen a run like the one Seb Vettel is on. We're eight races in, and in those he's not finished lower than 2nd in any of them. That's never been done before.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: NKOTT. The Toro Rosso driver started 18th on the grid and finished 8th. He must have done something right.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. In a race that was entirely decided in the pits, Red Bull consistently took tires off and replaced them in amazingly quick times. Late in the race, where a mistake in the pits means lost time that could cost a driver a position or two, they got their men in and out in 3.2 seconds each. Everybody else were around 3.4 or 3.5 seconds. Yes, that's the sort of action we had today... red hot pit stop action!
*MOVE OF THE RACE: When we're watching a race, the F1U! cohort is positioned with notebook in hand, ready to record anything of importance that occurs for easy reference later. For Canada, there were six pages of notes, some with clarifying notations on the back of the previous page. For Monaco, there were four pages. For this race, there were two. Not two pages, two notes. Total. One of them is for the DRS-assisted pass of Webber by HWMNBN on Lap 21 for 2nd place. The other one is for Slappy Schumacher's pass of Adrian Sutil on Lap 15. Neither was particularly exciting, dramatic, or even all that important. Slappy gets the nod because he did his with his front wing dragging on the ground after he ran into The Red Menace as he exited the pits at the beginning of the lap. Yay?
*MOOOOOOOO-OOOVE OF THE RACE: Other than Slappy taking his own nose off on Lap 15 (see above), there really weren't any stupid driver tricks today. So instead, here's Adrian Sutil with a pair of gag glasses.
*(VERY) SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
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June 12, 2011
F1 Update!: Montreal 2011
Rain. We've wanted rain to make an appearance in the F1 season. Rain makes every race better. But what happens when you get too much rain? THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Canada!
*SWIMMING POOL: An hour before the start of the race, the skies opened up and dropped half the Atlantic Ocean on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. As the field made its way to the grid, the decision was made to start the race behind the Safety Car. This meant that, by rule, everybody had to start the race on the Full Wet tires, and that every lap turned behind Bernd Maylander would count against the 70-lap total. For five laps, the field perambulated behind the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, the full wet tires creating an obviously dryer line on the track surface. As the thundering herd approached the Hairpin on Lap 3, Maylander turned off the lights on the Safety Car and opened up the 6.2L V-8 engine to pull away while polesitter Seb Vettel slowed down, both to let the the SC get far enough away that the Red Bull would have a clear track for the start, and so he could decide when to step on the gas and gain an advantage over the two Ferraris following. Except two-time World Driver's Champion HWMNBN had a different idea, staying glued to the young German's rear wing in an astonishing display of car control. Everything Vettel did, the Ferrari driver matched for that half of a lap, never getting more than a car length behind yet never in danger of passing the Red Bull, which is a violation of Safety Car rules. Indeed, he did such a good job of anticipating Vettel's tricks that as the two swept down the front straight, HWMNBN's nose was positioned just ahead of the Red Bull's rear tires... probably the best "restart" from behind the Safety Car we've ever seen.
*GREEN FLAG RACING: It didn't last. HWMNBN had to slot in behind Vettel as the two swept through Turns 1 and 2, giving the Red Bull pilot the ability to do what he does best: rocket away into the distance. Behind him, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton bumps into Vettel's teammate Mark Webber in the first turn, sending the Red Bull into a graceful pirouette. No damage to either car, but the Australian dropped to 15th place before he could rejoin the race. For the next few laps, nothing happened as everybody tiptoed around the soggy track, trying to figure out what they could and could not get away with on the Pirelli galoshes. At one point, Hamilton tried to go offline to pass the Mercedes of Slappy Schumacher through the Hairpin, the slowest point of the circuit, and still wound up staggering around like a drunkard. On the next lap, Vettel, despite having nobody in front of him and therefore with no spray from other cars in his face, completely blew his braking into Turn 7 and had to cut across the grass, just pointing out how messy the track was. Despite this, he still had a clear four-second lead over the the second place Ferrari of HWMNBN, and looked like he wasn't ever going to be caught. But this is Canada, birthplace of the Safety Car... surely something would happen to bring Bernd Maylander back out.
*THE NUMBER ONE RULE OF RACING...: "Don't wreck your teammate." That's what everybody says is the first rule of racing. You can wreck yourself, you can punt other cars into the next country over, but if you so much as breathe funny on your teammate, you're opening yourself up to a world of criticism. So it should come as no surprise that Lewis Hamilton, frustrated by Seb Vettel's utter domination of the 2011 season to date and recently voted "Most Likely To Drive Like His Hair Is On Fire, If He Had Any Hair, Which He Doesn't", would do something dumb. On Lap 8, as the McLarens driven by Jenson Button and Hamilton swept down the front straight, Hamilton tried to get by his teammate to the inside. Button moved over to make it a challenge, and instead of playing it cool, Hamilton decided to barge on through. As Hamilton drove onto the grass, the two McLarens touched. Button drove on, screaming into his radio "...what is he, crazy?!??!". On the other hand, his teammate's car smacked into the inside wall, sending the various team's signboard holders scrambling for cover as he scraped by them. His left rear wheel deranged, he tried to make it around back around to the pits, but only made it a few turns before he had to stop on track. Out came the Safety Car for the second time.
*GREEN AGAIN: This time, Bernd Maylander led the race for five laps as the marshals disposed of the broken McLaren. Behind him, Seb Vettel led HWMNBN, and Felipe Massa, while Jenson Button came around and into the pits for a quick checkover and to become the first to switch to Intermediate tires. Once the Safety Car came in, the leading three blast away from the rest of the pack, while Vettel once again shows that he's got the better car, putting 1.5 seconds between him and the Ferraris in one lap. Button, on the other hand, begins to rip off laps nearly two seconds faster than anybody on the full wets but is hit with a drive-through penalty for speeding behind the Safety Car. Whoops. He serves the penalty and rejoins in 15th. There's a mass exodus to the pit lane as teams decide it's safe to put on Intermediate tires. By Lap 18 however, Vettel leads Massa by nearly seven seconds. Gandalf Kobayashi follows the Ferrari, but is still on the full wet tires. Mark Webber and HWMNBN round out the top five.
*AND THEN...: On Lap 20, the skies decide to drop the other half of the Atlantic Ocean on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Once again, Bernd Maylander brought out the Safety Car, leading to yet another mad scramble for the pits and full wet tires. Vettel manages to get in and out while remaining in the lead, but Massa loses 2nd to Gandalf, who doesn't need to pit; he's still on the rubber he started with. Then, much to everybody's surprise, the rain got even harder. Even though he was the leader and therefore had nobody but Maylander in front of him, Seb Vettel radios in that he can't see a darn thing, while Jenson Button complains that he's aquaplaning down the track. On Lap 25, some bright spark realizes that the track is undriveable and throws the red flag, halting the race.
*IT FELL, AND FELL, AND FELL SOME MORE...: The field came to a halt on the front straight, with everybody supposed to stop in the grid spot that equated to their position: First place in the first grid slot, second in the second slot, and so on. Felipe Massa, apparently unable to count to "three", just sort of stopped where he felt like, leading Rob Smedley, his head engineer, to call to him over the radio: "...is it so hard, Felipe?" Cue peals of laughter amongst the Legendary Announce Team. And with that began the longest red flag period in Formula 1 history. For two hours and 14 minutes, the field sat on the grid, umbrellas over the cockpits and tarps over the backs of the cars as the rain continued to pelt down. After a couple of recaps of what had gone on so far, the Legendary Announce Team was reduced to showing clips of past races, praising Montreal to the heavens, and making shadow puppets. Oh, and Rhianna visited the McLaren pits. Cue plenty of "Umbrella ella ella ella" jokes. What F1 needs for rain delays is what baseball has: players sliding headlong into big puddles. We here are F1U! would pay good money to see Slappy bellyflop like that.
*FINALLY: After two hours of watching Canadians with brooms trying to push water off the track, they finally decided to restart the race behind the Safety Car. Once again, we were treated to the sight of Bernd Maylander leading the 23 most expensive, technically advanced race cars in the world... in a street-legal car you could, in theory, walk into a Mercedes dealer and buy. For ten laps we get this pleasure, full wet tires pumping the rain off the racing line and accomplishing more in a few minutes than the Squeegee Patrol managed in two hours. But all good things come to an end, and on Lap 35 the SLS AMG turned off its lights and let Seb Vettel take over the field. Immediately, a quarter of the field dove into the pits to make the switch to Inters. On Lap 36, Jenson Button pits to do the same, his fourth stop of the day if you include his earlier drive-through penalty. He rejoins just behind HWMNBN, and is obviously faster than the Ferrari driver.
*OH COME ON: On Lap 37, Seb Vettel is still on the full wet tires, still cranking out quick laps, but he's intentionally driving off the racing line, trying to keep the rubber wet and cool. It's obvious that he's going to need to pit soon, which would throw the entire field into a cocked hat. And then Button tried to pass HWMNBN in the first chicane. The two cars collide, sending the Ferrari into a spin that ends up with the Spaniard high-centered on the curb. And once again, Bernd Maylander takes to the track! Button limps around to the pits, is pronounced fit to continue, but rejoins dead last on the grid. Meanwhile, Seb Vettel took advantage of the Safety Car to change to Inters and rejoin without losing first place. This time, the SC comes in on Lap 41, with Vettel still leading Gandalf and Massa.
*RACING, WHAT A CONCEPT: Surprisingly, we go for 13 laps before anything weird happens. The racing line was dry enough for people to try slicks, and they worked well: nearly three seconds a lap faster than either of the two types of galoshes. It was on these that Button began working his way up the field, taking 10th place on Lap 49, and coming on like a freight train. On Lap 54, Felipe Massa found his way blocked by the HRT of Narain Kittylitter as he chased after Gandalf and Sebby. Going off the dry line to get past, the Ferrari snapped viciously into the wall on the right side of the track, sending the car's front wing off into the forest and actually damaging the nosecone in the process. He'd continue, but would be out of the running. Button makes yet another pitstop for tires, his sixth of the day.
*WHO HERE IS SURPRISED, RAISE YOUR HAND: A lap later, Grizzly Nick Heidfeld bangs into the back of Gandalf. The Renault's front wing detaches, slips under the front tires, and virtually explodes as the uncontrollable car plows into the wall. And once again, the Safety Car is summoned, this time because of all the carbon fiber debris scattered across the track. The standings at this point are Vettel, Slappy Schumacher, Mark Webber... and Jenson Button, having the drive of his life at this point. The Safety Car stays on the track until Lap 61, but not without incident. On Lap 59, before the entire field had been gathered up by the Mighty Maylander, track marshals ran out to start picking up debris from Heidfeld's front wing. One of the marshals, apparently wearing super-soft shoes or unfamiliar with the concept of gravity, took a header... right in front of the fast-approaching Sauber of Gandalf Kobayashi.
Only fast braking and a quick swerve saved us from a Montreal Marshal Massacre.
*THIS TIME FOR SURE: With nine laps to go, the race restarted. Webber and Slappy immediately begin fighting each other tooth and nail for second place, letting Vettel fly away unfettered. Jenson Button is right there behind the two, looking for an opening. On Lap 65, the Red Bull driver, under pressure from the McLaren, blows the final chicane and lets Button past. A lap later, Button barely notices when he go by the Mercedes and into second, so great is his advantage. However, he's a few seconds behind Vettel.
*AND THEN...: On Lap 67, Button turns the fastest lap of the race at 1:17.5, a full second-and-a-half faster than Vettel. On Lap 68, he does it again. And again on Lap 69. Just like that, it's the final lap and Button is less than a second behind the reigning World Driver's Champion. Suddenly, it's Monaco all over again: Vettel has the lead, Button has fresher tires. Button is driving as if he's on rails, while the Red Bull is slipping all over the place. Into Turn 7, the inevitable happens and Sebby slides juuuuuust a bit wide, his tires giving up altogether. He gets into the wet part of the track, and suddenly he's fighting to keep from spinning while Button sweeps past, taking the lead for the first time today. From dead last on Lap 50. A few turns later, the McLaren takes the checkered flag a full two seconds ahead of Vettel, winning in four hours, 14 minutes, 39 seconds: the longest race in F1 history. Seb comes in second, followed by Webber, Slappy, and the Red Menace. Behind the Renault, Felipe Massa and Gandalf are sprinting for the finish line, with the Ferrari beating the Sauber for 6th place by five-hundreds of a second, ending the drama of a fantastic race.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Jenson Button. SIX pit stops, one drive-through penalty, and still going from last to first in 20 laps? Oh yeah, driver of the race, right there.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. Okay, they didn't win, but second-third is still a pretty good result, particularly when your closest rival only has one car finish, further solidifying your position in the Constructor's Championship.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: On Lap 51, Slappy Schumacher was in 4th place, behind a dueling Gandalf and Felipe Massa. Coming out of a turn, Schumi began a pass on Massa just as the Sauber driver slid a bit wide. Massa took advantage by passing Gandalf while being passed by the Mercedes driver, a brilliant bit of opportunistic driving by the seven-time World Champion, and a small example of his past talents. It drew a "Holy Sh*t!" from the F1U! team, a jaded bunch of plonkers, that's how good it was.
*MOOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: (please see "The Number One Rule of Racing..." above)
Good jorb, Lewis. Still, you got to hang out with Rhianna... that's gotta count for something. Here's your Mooooooooo-oooove.
*SELECTED DRIVERS QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*SWIMMING POOL: An hour before the start of the race, the skies opened up and dropped half the Atlantic Ocean on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. As the field made its way to the grid, the decision was made to start the race behind the Safety Car. This meant that, by rule, everybody had to start the race on the Full Wet tires, and that every lap turned behind Bernd Maylander would count against the 70-lap total. For five laps, the field perambulated behind the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, the full wet tires creating an obviously dryer line on the track surface. As the thundering herd approached the Hairpin on Lap 3, Maylander turned off the lights on the Safety Car and opened up the 6.2L V-8 engine to pull away while polesitter Seb Vettel slowed down, both to let the the SC get far enough away that the Red Bull would have a clear track for the start, and so he could decide when to step on the gas and gain an advantage over the two Ferraris following. Except two-time World Driver's Champion HWMNBN had a different idea, staying glued to the young German's rear wing in an astonishing display of car control. Everything Vettel did, the Ferrari driver matched for that half of a lap, never getting more than a car length behind yet never in danger of passing the Red Bull, which is a violation of Safety Car rules. Indeed, he did such a good job of anticipating Vettel's tricks that as the two swept down the front straight, HWMNBN's nose was positioned just ahead of the Red Bull's rear tires... probably the best "restart" from behind the Safety Car we've ever seen.
*GREEN FLAG RACING: It didn't last. HWMNBN had to slot in behind Vettel as the two swept through Turns 1 and 2, giving the Red Bull pilot the ability to do what he does best: rocket away into the distance. Behind him, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton bumps into Vettel's teammate Mark Webber in the first turn, sending the Red Bull into a graceful pirouette. No damage to either car, but the Australian dropped to 15th place before he could rejoin the race. For the next few laps, nothing happened as everybody tiptoed around the soggy track, trying to figure out what they could and could not get away with on the Pirelli galoshes. At one point, Hamilton tried to go offline to pass the Mercedes of Slappy Schumacher through the Hairpin, the slowest point of the circuit, and still wound up staggering around like a drunkard. On the next lap, Vettel, despite having nobody in front of him and therefore with no spray from other cars in his face, completely blew his braking into Turn 7 and had to cut across the grass, just pointing out how messy the track was. Despite this, he still had a clear four-second lead over the the second place Ferrari of HWMNBN, and looked like he wasn't ever going to be caught. But this is Canada, birthplace of the Safety Car... surely something would happen to bring Bernd Maylander back out.
*THE NUMBER ONE RULE OF RACING...: "Don't wreck your teammate." That's what everybody says is the first rule of racing. You can wreck yourself, you can punt other cars into the next country over, but if you so much as breathe funny on your teammate, you're opening yourself up to a world of criticism. So it should come as no surprise that Lewis Hamilton, frustrated by Seb Vettel's utter domination of the 2011 season to date and recently voted "Most Likely To Drive Like His Hair Is On Fire, If He Had Any Hair, Which He Doesn't", would do something dumb. On Lap 8, as the McLarens driven by Jenson Button and Hamilton swept down the front straight, Hamilton tried to get by his teammate to the inside. Button moved over to make it a challenge, and instead of playing it cool, Hamilton decided to barge on through. As Hamilton drove onto the grass, the two McLarens touched. Button drove on, screaming into his radio "...what is he, crazy?!??!". On the other hand, his teammate's car smacked into the inside wall, sending the various team's signboard holders scrambling for cover as he scraped by them. His left rear wheel deranged, he tried to make it around back around to the pits, but only made it a few turns before he had to stop on track. Out came the Safety Car for the second time.
*GREEN AGAIN: This time, Bernd Maylander led the race for five laps as the marshals disposed of the broken McLaren. Behind him, Seb Vettel led HWMNBN, and Felipe Massa, while Jenson Button came around and into the pits for a quick checkover and to become the first to switch to Intermediate tires. Once the Safety Car came in, the leading three blast away from the rest of the pack, while Vettel once again shows that he's got the better car, putting 1.5 seconds between him and the Ferraris in one lap. Button, on the other hand, begins to rip off laps nearly two seconds faster than anybody on the full wets but is hit with a drive-through penalty for speeding behind the Safety Car. Whoops. He serves the penalty and rejoins in 15th. There's a mass exodus to the pit lane as teams decide it's safe to put on Intermediate tires. By Lap 18 however, Vettel leads Massa by nearly seven seconds. Gandalf Kobayashi follows the Ferrari, but is still on the full wet tires. Mark Webber and HWMNBN round out the top five.
*AND THEN...: On Lap 20, the skies decide to drop the other half of the Atlantic Ocean on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Once again, Bernd Maylander brought out the Safety Car, leading to yet another mad scramble for the pits and full wet tires. Vettel manages to get in and out while remaining in the lead, but Massa loses 2nd to Gandalf, who doesn't need to pit; he's still on the rubber he started with. Then, much to everybody's surprise, the rain got even harder. Even though he was the leader and therefore had nobody but Maylander in front of him, Seb Vettel radios in that he can't see a darn thing, while Jenson Button complains that he's aquaplaning down the track. On Lap 25, some bright spark realizes that the track is undriveable and throws the red flag, halting the race.
*IT FELL, AND FELL, AND FELL SOME MORE...: The field came to a halt on the front straight, with everybody supposed to stop in the grid spot that equated to their position: First place in the first grid slot, second in the second slot, and so on. Felipe Massa, apparently unable to count to "three", just sort of stopped where he felt like, leading Rob Smedley, his head engineer, to call to him over the radio: "...is it so hard, Felipe?" Cue peals of laughter amongst the Legendary Announce Team. And with that began the longest red flag period in Formula 1 history. For two hours and 14 minutes, the field sat on the grid, umbrellas over the cockpits and tarps over the backs of the cars as the rain continued to pelt down. After a couple of recaps of what had gone on so far, the Legendary Announce Team was reduced to showing clips of past races, praising Montreal to the heavens, and making shadow puppets. Oh, and Rhianna visited the McLaren pits. Cue plenty of "Umbrella ella ella ella" jokes. What F1 needs for rain delays is what baseball has: players sliding headlong into big puddles. We here are F1U! would pay good money to see Slappy bellyflop like that.
*FINALLY: After two hours of watching Canadians with brooms trying to push water off the track, they finally decided to restart the race behind the Safety Car. Once again, we were treated to the sight of Bernd Maylander leading the 23 most expensive, technically advanced race cars in the world... in a street-legal car you could, in theory, walk into a Mercedes dealer and buy. For ten laps we get this pleasure, full wet tires pumping the rain off the racing line and accomplishing more in a few minutes than the Squeegee Patrol managed in two hours. But all good things come to an end, and on Lap 35 the SLS AMG turned off its lights and let Seb Vettel take over the field. Immediately, a quarter of the field dove into the pits to make the switch to Inters. On Lap 36, Jenson Button pits to do the same, his fourth stop of the day if you include his earlier drive-through penalty. He rejoins just behind HWMNBN, and is obviously faster than the Ferrari driver.
*OH COME ON: On Lap 37, Seb Vettel is still on the full wet tires, still cranking out quick laps, but he's intentionally driving off the racing line, trying to keep the rubber wet and cool. It's obvious that he's going to need to pit soon, which would throw the entire field into a cocked hat. And then Button tried to pass HWMNBN in the first chicane. The two cars collide, sending the Ferrari into a spin that ends up with the Spaniard high-centered on the curb. And once again, Bernd Maylander takes to the track! Button limps around to the pits, is pronounced fit to continue, but rejoins dead last on the grid. Meanwhile, Seb Vettel took advantage of the Safety Car to change to Inters and rejoin without losing first place. This time, the SC comes in on Lap 41, with Vettel still leading Gandalf and Massa.
*RACING, WHAT A CONCEPT: Surprisingly, we go for 13 laps before anything weird happens. The racing line was dry enough for people to try slicks, and they worked well: nearly three seconds a lap faster than either of the two types of galoshes. It was on these that Button began working his way up the field, taking 10th place on Lap 49, and coming on like a freight train. On Lap 54, Felipe Massa found his way blocked by the HRT of Narain Kittylitter as he chased after Gandalf and Sebby. Going off the dry line to get past, the Ferrari snapped viciously into the wall on the right side of the track, sending the car's front wing off into the forest and actually damaging the nosecone in the process. He'd continue, but would be out of the running. Button makes yet another pitstop for tires, his sixth of the day.
*WHO HERE IS SURPRISED, RAISE YOUR HAND: A lap later, Grizzly Nick Heidfeld bangs into the back of Gandalf. The Renault's front wing detaches, slips under the front tires, and virtually explodes as the uncontrollable car plows into the wall. And once again, the Safety Car is summoned, this time because of all the carbon fiber debris scattered across the track. The standings at this point are Vettel, Slappy Schumacher, Mark Webber... and Jenson Button, having the drive of his life at this point. The Safety Car stays on the track until Lap 61, but not without incident. On Lap 59, before the entire field had been gathered up by the Mighty Maylander, track marshals ran out to start picking up debris from Heidfeld's front wing. One of the marshals, apparently wearing super-soft shoes or unfamiliar with the concept of gravity, took a header... right in front of the fast-approaching Sauber of Gandalf Kobayashi.
Only fast braking and a quick swerve saved us from a Montreal Marshal Massacre.
*THIS TIME FOR SURE: With nine laps to go, the race restarted. Webber and Slappy immediately begin fighting each other tooth and nail for second place, letting Vettel fly away unfettered. Jenson Button is right there behind the two, looking for an opening. On Lap 65, the Red Bull driver, under pressure from the McLaren, blows the final chicane and lets Button past. A lap later, Button barely notices when he go by the Mercedes and into second, so great is his advantage. However, he's a few seconds behind Vettel.
*AND THEN...: On Lap 67, Button turns the fastest lap of the race at 1:17.5, a full second-and-a-half faster than Vettel. On Lap 68, he does it again. And again on Lap 69. Just like that, it's the final lap and Button is less than a second behind the reigning World Driver's Champion. Suddenly, it's Monaco all over again: Vettel has the lead, Button has fresher tires. Button is driving as if he's on rails, while the Red Bull is slipping all over the place. Into Turn 7, the inevitable happens and Sebby slides juuuuuust a bit wide, his tires giving up altogether. He gets into the wet part of the track, and suddenly he's fighting to keep from spinning while Button sweeps past, taking the lead for the first time today. From dead last on Lap 50. A few turns later, the McLaren takes the checkered flag a full two seconds ahead of Vettel, winning in four hours, 14 minutes, 39 seconds: the longest race in F1 history. Seb comes in second, followed by Webber, Slappy, and the Red Menace. Behind the Renault, Felipe Massa and Gandalf are sprinting for the finish line, with the Ferrari beating the Sauber for 6th place by five-hundreds of a second, ending the drama of a fantastic race.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Jenson Button. SIX pit stops, one drive-through penalty, and still going from last to first in 20 laps? Oh yeah, driver of the race, right there.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. Okay, they didn't win, but second-third is still a pretty good result, particularly when your closest rival only has one car finish, further solidifying your position in the Constructor's Championship.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: On Lap 51, Slappy Schumacher was in 4th place, behind a dueling Gandalf and Felipe Massa. Coming out of a turn, Schumi began a pass on Massa just as the Sauber driver slid a bit wide. Massa took advantage by passing Gandalf while being passed by the Mercedes driver, a brilliant bit of opportunistic driving by the seven-time World Champion, and a small example of his past talents. It drew a "Holy Sh*t!" from the F1U! team, a jaded bunch of plonkers, that's how good it was.
*MOOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: (please see "The Number One Rule of Racing..." above)
Good jorb, Lewis. Still, you got to hang out with Rhianna... that's gotta count for something. Here's your Mooooooooo-oooove.
*SELECTED DRIVERS QUOTES OF THE RACE:
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May 29, 2011
F1 Update!: Monaco 2011
The day dawned beautifully over the Principality of Monaco, just perfect weather for a quick drive around a tiny French fishing village. But who could have expected the race we got? THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Monaco!
*LIGHTS OUT: As the race began, it looked like we'd have an improbable runaway victory for polesitter Seb Vettel. By the end of the first lap, he had a three second lead over McLaren's Jenson Button, a lead that would grow to nearly five seconds by lap 4. Great, another dominant blow-out for the incumbent champion, that'll be exciting. To make matters worse, Lewis Hamilton, the only driver with a legitimate chance to catch Vettel in the championship standings, had fallen to 10th and probably wouldn't have a chance to do anything in the race. But then the weirdness began.
*RED HOT PIT STOP ACTION: Button came in for his first stop on lap 15, putting on another set of super-soft tires. Then Vettel pitted from the lead. To say that the Red Bull pit crew made a complete hash of the stop would be something of an understatement... or perhaps it was Vettel who did, as nobody was quite sure what the hell happened. It looked quite a bit like the team had teammate Mark Webber's tires out and ready, as a mad scramble for tires occurred. Whatever the reason, Vettel's stop took over 30 seconds to complete (including drive-in and drive-out), an eternity in F1, and nearly 10 seconds slower than Button's. Then Mark Webber pulled in just as Vettel was leaving, and the same thing happened again. Webber wouldn't be heard from again all day. When Ferrari's HWMNBN came in for tires, Button was promoted into an 8.8 second lead over Seb Vettel. A few laps later, Lewis Hamilton came in for his first stop on lap 21, McLaren clearly wasn't ready for him. This sort of Keystone Kop-ery stuff just doesn't happen in Formula 1, and particularly at Monaco. Hamilton returned to the race in 15th, losing eight places as the McLaren pit crew peed what little chance he had down their collective pants leg.
*WHAT IN THE WORLD...?: As the race continued, Button stretched his lead to nearly 15 seconds over Vettel, who had put on soft tires at his stop, as opposed to the super-softs on the 2009 Champion's McLaren. On lap 34, Button stopped for another set of super-soft tires, meaning he would have to stop one more time at some point to put on soft tires, so as to comply to the sporting regulations. As he did so, Felipe Massa stuck his car into the barrier inside the Tunnel, bringing out the first Safety Car of the 2011 season. Button rejoined the race in second place, but with backmarkers between him and the leader Vettel. Unlike almost every racing series in the world, in F1 cars form up behind a Safety Car depending on where they are collected... backmarkers are not waved past. This led to the race restarting and Vettel immediately having a 9 second lead over Button, as it took that long for the five or six cars between the two to cross the line. Ten laps later, on lap 49, Button pulled into the pits for a set of soft tires, rejoining the race in third, some 20 seconds behind the leader and 15 seconds behind second place HWMNBN, who had pitted for his mandatory soft tires during the Safety Car.
*HE CAN'T REALLY BE TRYING THAT, CAN HE?: Around lap 55, everybody came to a sudden realization: Sebastian Vettel hadn't been into the pits since lap 17, when he changed from super-soft tires to soft rubber. Behind him, HWMNBN was whittling a second a lap out of Vettel's lead as the leader nursed his tires. But if the Ferrari was whittling, Jenson Button was using a chainsaw. By lap 60, the McLaren was a mere three seconds behind the Red Bull; he had made up 17 seconds in 10 laps! On lap 62, the order was Vettel - HWMNBN - Button, all three covered by two-thirds of a second. To say that we were set up for one of the most epic finishes in F1 History would be to massively understate things. Three World Champions, running three different tire strategies, running nose-to-tail, on the most dramatic circuit in the world, with only 16 short laps to go.
*HOLY MACKEREL!: For the next seven laps, we were treated to an example of just why F1 drivers are the best in the world. Button would stab at HWMNBN, who would parry while attacking Vettel, who was managing to keep his tires functional enough to be able to keep the Ferrari behind, despite having 50+ laps on them. All the while, the three kept going so quickly that they had nearly 50 seconds on Gandalf Kobayashi in 4th place... on a track where a slow lap takes only 80 seconds or so to complete. The situation was fascinating: Vettel had the lead, but his tires were failing. However, Monaco is the best circuit in F1 to keep someone behind you, even when your tires are paper-thin. HWMNBN had better tires in second place, but he had the dual tasks of trying to get past Vettel while defending his position, splitting his concentration at a place that demands your entire attention at all times. Button was in third, on the freshest rubber, but had to get past the Ferrari driven by someone with the ability to make his car incredibly wide when he wants to. Legendary Announce Team member Steve Matchett summed Vettel's options up quite succinctly around this point when asked whether the Red Bull driver should pit for new tires. "If he pits, he finishes third. If he stays out, he has a small chance to win, and at worst he'd finish third. He stays out." And so he did, and the knife-fighting between the three was amazing.
*LAP 69: Ahead of the leaders, an amazing gaggle of cars had formed. Take a look:
*CAR-NAGE: Sutil, mostly out of control, cuts across Piscene just as everybody else arrives. Lewis Hamilton slows to avoid the careening Force India. NKOTT bangs into Hamilton, his front wing going under his tires and pitching his Toro Rosso into the air, deranging the McLaren's rear wing in the process. NKOTT then has the left side of his car removed by the barriers. The Red Menace, who had slipped back just before the melee, suddenly had a limping Force India blocking one side of the circuit and a ruined Toro Rosso blocking the other in front of him. With no place to go, the Renault plows nearly head-first into the armco. The remains then embed themselves into the back of NKOTT's car. And then the leaders arrive on the scene.
*RED MEANS STOP: So here's the situation facing Seb Vettel. He's got an angry Spaniard crawling all over the back of his car, a confident Brit immediately behind him, and a disaster movie playing out directly in front of him. Carbon fiber shards and chunks of racecar litter the track, and he has to pick his way through the mess. By some miracle, all three leaders made it through the chaos in one piece, just as the world's fastest Safety Car indication comes out. This time, no backmarkers are in between Vettel, HWMNBN and Button. Nothing will get in the way of this ending. Except things are not all right at the scene of the accident. The Red Menace, still in his ruined Renault, tells the Medical Car occupants that he can't feel his legs. An ambulance is summoned and the Red Flag is thrown, stopping the race.
*FINALLY: According to the rulebook, if the race is red-flagged after 75% of the race distance is run, the race may be declared over. But not today! Instead, the horde forms up on the grid behind the Safety Car, shuts down their engines... and another quirk of the rulebook comes to light. In most every other form of motorsport, if a race is red-flagged but is expected to be resumed, you can't touch the cars. No tire changes, no repairs, no nothing. In F1? The only thing you can't do is refuel. Immediately, Red Bull was out to jack up Vettel's car... carrying a brand new, unused set of super-soft tires. It was at this point that the F1U! team wanted to throw our deep-dish pizza at the TV screen. What was looking like a tremendous five-lap scramble to the checkered flag up until that point suddenly became a five-lap guaranteed win for Vettel. Of course, HWMNBN and Button put on super-soft tires as well, but it doesn't matter. The race restarts, Vettel opens up a 1.1 second lead and keeps it like that all the way to the end. HWMNBN holds a similar lead over Button as they cross the line. A frustrating way to end what was looking like a true classic race.
*POSTSCRIPT: The Red Menace was essentially uninjured in the wreck, just bruised. Good to hear!
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: A one-stop strategy in this day and age of F1 seems like an impossibility, but Monaco might be the one time it could possibly work, if you're quick and good. Seb Vettel was both, and managed to keep his 52-lap old soft tires in racing condition right up until the race was red-flagged. While we might be dissatisfied with the way the affair ended, there's no denying that the reigning World Champion did a miraculous job conserving his shoes while keeping up a competitive pace. Not everybody could pull that off... indeed, perhaps not anybody. Congratulations Seb, you deserve this one.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: The logical choice would be Red Bull. After all, Vettel finished 1st and with the help of the red flag, Webber came in 4th. However, we're not giving it to them. After the race, it turned out that Vettel's tire strategy was an accident; he was supposed to have another set of super-soft tires put on at his first stop, but confusion resulted in the soft tires going on. Then they wanted to bring him in late, thereby throwing away the win (but locking up a third-place finish). Vettel ignored the call to stop. That's not a sign of a team working together. Yes, they did well, but something didn't click for the Bullies today. So instead, we're giving the Team of the Race award to perennial underdog Sauber. Despite working under the black pressure of having one of their drivers in hospital, they flawlessly executed an intentional one-stop strategy. It was only because of the red flag and Webber getting to put on a fresh set of super-soft tires that they lost out on a fourth place finish for Gandalf Kobayashi. Still, fifth place is pretty darn good, and well-deserving of the Team of the Race. Honorable mention goes to Lotus for quietly having their best day ever, finishing 13th and 14th.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: Karma can be a real beeyotch sometimes. Last week in Spain, Lewis Hamilton complained that he believed Slappy Schumacher had intentionally blocked him, so as to slow the McLaren driver down in his pursuit of Slappy's fellow German Seb Vettel. Today, Hamilton got a chance to provide some payback. Early on, he'd been hounding the seven-time world champion for a couple of laps, needing desperately to get past if he wanted any chance to affect the outcome of the race. On his soft tires, he had to stay in touch with the leaders, but here he was, stuck behind Slappy's Mercedes. On lap 10, as the two headed towards Ste Devote, Hamilton said "enough."
He pulled alongside the Mercedes driver as they entered the braking zone, brazenly daring Slappy to slam the door on him. Considering who we're talking about here, it was quite the gamble... Schumacher is notorious for doing just that, and damn the consequences.
Instead, Schumi squeezed over, getting their tires overlapped. One false move by either, and the whole thing would end in tears and carbon fiber being shed.
No false move was forthcoming, leaving Slappy with a choice: either keep fighting the young Brit, and likely ending up in the quickly upcoming barrier, or backing off and letting Hamilton by. Wisely, he did the latter, and Lewis zipped off into the distance. A truly gutsy pass in a place on the track that isn't particularly conducive to such things. Brave lad, here's your MotR!
*MOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: From the sublime to the idiotic in 24 laps. Now Hamilton was stuck behind Felipe Massa, and not having any luck getting unstuck. The Ferrari driver just wasn't giving him any chance to get by, and Lewis was getting desperate... and impatient. Coming into the Loew's Hairpin, Hamilton threw caution (and brains) to the wind and went to the inside of the Brazilian... with predictable results.
For the record: the sidewalk is not the preferred line around the Hairpin. Bodywork flew, Massa wound wind up crashing in the Tunnel a few seconds later, and Hamilton was given a drive-through penalty for causing an accident, thereby ruining his race anyway. He later claimed that it was all Massa's fault, saying that the Ferrari driver had turned in early, forcing him onto the sidewalk and thenceforth into the red car's sidepod. Uh-huh. Here's your Mooooooooo-oooove, Lewis.
*SELECTED DRIVER'S QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*LIGHTS OUT: As the race began, it looked like we'd have an improbable runaway victory for polesitter Seb Vettel. By the end of the first lap, he had a three second lead over McLaren's Jenson Button, a lead that would grow to nearly five seconds by lap 4. Great, another dominant blow-out for the incumbent champion, that'll be exciting. To make matters worse, Lewis Hamilton, the only driver with a legitimate chance to catch Vettel in the championship standings, had fallen to 10th and probably wouldn't have a chance to do anything in the race. But then the weirdness began.
*RED HOT PIT STOP ACTION: Button came in for his first stop on lap 15, putting on another set of super-soft tires. Then Vettel pitted from the lead. To say that the Red Bull pit crew made a complete hash of the stop would be something of an understatement... or perhaps it was Vettel who did, as nobody was quite sure what the hell happened. It looked quite a bit like the team had teammate Mark Webber's tires out and ready, as a mad scramble for tires occurred. Whatever the reason, Vettel's stop took over 30 seconds to complete (including drive-in and drive-out), an eternity in F1, and nearly 10 seconds slower than Button's. Then Mark Webber pulled in just as Vettel was leaving, and the same thing happened again. Webber wouldn't be heard from again all day. When Ferrari's HWMNBN came in for tires, Button was promoted into an 8.8 second lead over Seb Vettel. A few laps later, Lewis Hamilton came in for his first stop on lap 21, McLaren clearly wasn't ready for him. This sort of Keystone Kop-ery stuff just doesn't happen in Formula 1, and particularly at Monaco. Hamilton returned to the race in 15th, losing eight places as the McLaren pit crew peed what little chance he had down their collective pants leg.
*WHAT IN THE WORLD...?: As the race continued, Button stretched his lead to nearly 15 seconds over Vettel, who had put on soft tires at his stop, as opposed to the super-softs on the 2009 Champion's McLaren. On lap 34, Button stopped for another set of super-soft tires, meaning he would have to stop one more time at some point to put on soft tires, so as to comply to the sporting regulations. As he did so, Felipe Massa stuck his car into the barrier inside the Tunnel, bringing out the first Safety Car of the 2011 season. Button rejoined the race in second place, but with backmarkers between him and the leader Vettel. Unlike almost every racing series in the world, in F1 cars form up behind a Safety Car depending on where they are collected... backmarkers are not waved past. This led to the race restarting and Vettel immediately having a 9 second lead over Button, as it took that long for the five or six cars between the two to cross the line. Ten laps later, on lap 49, Button pulled into the pits for a set of soft tires, rejoining the race in third, some 20 seconds behind the leader and 15 seconds behind second place HWMNBN, who had pitted for his mandatory soft tires during the Safety Car.
*HE CAN'T REALLY BE TRYING THAT, CAN HE?: Around lap 55, everybody came to a sudden realization: Sebastian Vettel hadn't been into the pits since lap 17, when he changed from super-soft tires to soft rubber. Behind him, HWMNBN was whittling a second a lap out of Vettel's lead as the leader nursed his tires. But if the Ferrari was whittling, Jenson Button was using a chainsaw. By lap 60, the McLaren was a mere three seconds behind the Red Bull; he had made up 17 seconds in 10 laps! On lap 62, the order was Vettel - HWMNBN - Button, all three covered by two-thirds of a second. To say that we were set up for one of the most epic finishes in F1 History would be to massively understate things. Three World Champions, running three different tire strategies, running nose-to-tail, on the most dramatic circuit in the world, with only 16 short laps to go.
*HOLY MACKEREL!: For the next seven laps, we were treated to an example of just why F1 drivers are the best in the world. Button would stab at HWMNBN, who would parry while attacking Vettel, who was managing to keep his tires functional enough to be able to keep the Ferrari behind, despite having 50+ laps on them. All the while, the three kept going so quickly that they had nearly 50 seconds on Gandalf Kobayashi in 4th place... on a track where a slow lap takes only 80 seconds or so to complete. The situation was fascinating: Vettel had the lead, but his tires were failing. However, Monaco is the best circuit in F1 to keep someone behind you, even when your tires are paper-thin. HWMNBN had better tires in second place, but he had the dual tasks of trying to get past Vettel while defending his position, splitting his concentration at a place that demands your entire attention at all times. Button was in third, on the freshest rubber, but had to get past the Ferrari driven by someone with the ability to make his car incredibly wide when he wants to. Legendary Announce Team member Steve Matchett summed Vettel's options up quite succinctly around this point when asked whether the Red Bull driver should pit for new tires. "If he pits, he finishes third. If he stays out, he has a small chance to win, and at worst he'd finish third. He stays out." And so he did, and the knife-fighting between the three was amazing.
*LAP 69: Ahead of the leaders, an amazing gaggle of cars had formed. Take a look:
6th: Adrian F'n Sutil 7th: Cleric Maldonado 8th: The Red Menace 9th: Lewis Hamilton
10th: NKOTT 11th: Seb Buemi 12th: Nico Rosberg
We've taken the liberty of labeling the on-track positions of the traffic. Suddenly, Vettel's job had become infinitely more difficult; he'd have to pick his way through the cars ahead, all of whom were racing for position and couldn't just move aside like normal backmarkers. To be sure, the sporting regulations insisted that they'd have to. But, for example, nobody could expect Lewis Hamilton in 9th to pull aside in a manner that'd make it easy for NKOTT in 10th to sneak by too, or for The Red Menace in 8th to do so, either. But a few moments later, it all became moot. Just past Tabac, Adrian F'n Sutil brushed the armco, his right-rear tire coming off as they reached Piscene... and all hell broke loose.10th: NKOTT 11th: Seb Buemi 12th: Nico Rosberg
*CAR-NAGE: Sutil, mostly out of control, cuts across Piscene just as everybody else arrives. Lewis Hamilton slows to avoid the careening Force India. NKOTT bangs into Hamilton, his front wing going under his tires and pitching his Toro Rosso into the air, deranging the McLaren's rear wing in the process. NKOTT then has the left side of his car removed by the barriers. The Red Menace, who had slipped back just before the melee, suddenly had a limping Force India blocking one side of the circuit and a ruined Toro Rosso blocking the other in front of him. With no place to go, the Renault plows nearly head-first into the armco. The remains then embed themselves into the back of NKOTT's car. And then the leaders arrive on the scene.
*RED MEANS STOP: So here's the situation facing Seb Vettel. He's got an angry Spaniard crawling all over the back of his car, a confident Brit immediately behind him, and a disaster movie playing out directly in front of him. Carbon fiber shards and chunks of racecar litter the track, and he has to pick his way through the mess. By some miracle, all three leaders made it through the chaos in one piece, just as the world's fastest Safety Car indication comes out. This time, no backmarkers are in between Vettel, HWMNBN and Button. Nothing will get in the way of this ending. Except things are not all right at the scene of the accident. The Red Menace, still in his ruined Renault, tells the Medical Car occupants that he can't feel his legs. An ambulance is summoned and the Red Flag is thrown, stopping the race.
*FINALLY: According to the rulebook, if the race is red-flagged after 75% of the race distance is run, the race may be declared over. But not today! Instead, the horde forms up on the grid behind the Safety Car, shuts down their engines... and another quirk of the rulebook comes to light. In most every other form of motorsport, if a race is red-flagged but is expected to be resumed, you can't touch the cars. No tire changes, no repairs, no nothing. In F1? The only thing you can't do is refuel. Immediately, Red Bull was out to jack up Vettel's car... carrying a brand new, unused set of super-soft tires. It was at this point that the F1U! team wanted to throw our deep-dish pizza at the TV screen. What was looking like a tremendous five-lap scramble to the checkered flag up until that point suddenly became a five-lap guaranteed win for Vettel. Of course, HWMNBN and Button put on super-soft tires as well, but it doesn't matter. The race restarts, Vettel opens up a 1.1 second lead and keeps it like that all the way to the end. HWMNBN holds a similar lead over Button as they cross the line. A frustrating way to end what was looking like a true classic race.
*POSTSCRIPT: The Red Menace was essentially uninjured in the wreck, just bruised. Good to hear!
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: A one-stop strategy in this day and age of F1 seems like an impossibility, but Monaco might be the one time it could possibly work, if you're quick and good. Seb Vettel was both, and managed to keep his 52-lap old soft tires in racing condition right up until the race was red-flagged. While we might be dissatisfied with the way the affair ended, there's no denying that the reigning World Champion did a miraculous job conserving his shoes while keeping up a competitive pace. Not everybody could pull that off... indeed, perhaps not anybody. Congratulations Seb, you deserve this one.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: The logical choice would be Red Bull. After all, Vettel finished 1st and with the help of the red flag, Webber came in 4th. However, we're not giving it to them. After the race, it turned out that Vettel's tire strategy was an accident; he was supposed to have another set of super-soft tires put on at his first stop, but confusion resulted in the soft tires going on. Then they wanted to bring him in late, thereby throwing away the win (but locking up a third-place finish). Vettel ignored the call to stop. That's not a sign of a team working together. Yes, they did well, but something didn't click for the Bullies today. So instead, we're giving the Team of the Race award to perennial underdog Sauber. Despite working under the black pressure of having one of their drivers in hospital, they flawlessly executed an intentional one-stop strategy. It was only because of the red flag and Webber getting to put on a fresh set of super-soft tires that they lost out on a fourth place finish for Gandalf Kobayashi. Still, fifth place is pretty darn good, and well-deserving of the Team of the Race. Honorable mention goes to Lotus for quietly having their best day ever, finishing 13th and 14th.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: Karma can be a real beeyotch sometimes. Last week in Spain, Lewis Hamilton complained that he believed Slappy Schumacher had intentionally blocked him, so as to slow the McLaren driver down in his pursuit of Slappy's fellow German Seb Vettel. Today, Hamilton got a chance to provide some payback. Early on, he'd been hounding the seven-time world champion for a couple of laps, needing desperately to get past if he wanted any chance to affect the outcome of the race. On his soft tires, he had to stay in touch with the leaders, but here he was, stuck behind Slappy's Mercedes. On lap 10, as the two headed towards Ste Devote, Hamilton said "enough."
He pulled alongside the Mercedes driver as they entered the braking zone, brazenly daring Slappy to slam the door on him. Considering who we're talking about here, it was quite the gamble... Schumacher is notorious for doing just that, and damn the consequences.
Instead, Schumi squeezed over, getting their tires overlapped. One false move by either, and the whole thing would end in tears and carbon fiber being shed.
No false move was forthcoming, leaving Slappy with a choice: either keep fighting the young Brit, and likely ending up in the quickly upcoming barrier, or backing off and letting Hamilton by. Wisely, he did the latter, and Lewis zipped off into the distance. A truly gutsy pass in a place on the track that isn't particularly conducive to such things. Brave lad, here's your MotR!
*MOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: From the sublime to the idiotic in 24 laps. Now Hamilton was stuck behind Felipe Massa, and not having any luck getting unstuck. The Ferrari driver just wasn't giving him any chance to get by, and Lewis was getting desperate... and impatient. Coming into the Loew's Hairpin, Hamilton threw caution (and brains) to the wind and went to the inside of the Brazilian... with predictable results.
For the record: the sidewalk is not the preferred line around the Hairpin. Bodywork flew, Massa wound wind up crashing in the Tunnel a few seconds later, and Hamilton was given a drive-through penalty for causing an accident, thereby ruining his race anyway. He later claimed that it was all Massa's fault, saying that the Ferrari driver had turned in early, forcing him onto the sidewalk and thenceforth into the red car's sidepod. Uh-huh. Here's your Mooooooooo-oooove, Lewis.
*SELECTED DRIVER'S QUOTES OF THE RACE:
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May 24, 2011
F1 on SPEED!: Monaco 2011
There are two ways to look at the street circuit known as "Monte Carlo," home of the Grand Prix of Monaco. The first is as a narrow and slow track that modern F1 cars have rendered close to obsolete, and would be too dangerous to have on the F1 calendar if it was proposed today. The other way is to see it as what it is: the grandest Grand Prix of them all. Here's the track map:
It's hard to argue with the "too narrow" and "too dangerous" assessment, because to be frank, it is both of those things. Three-time World Driver's Champion Nelson Piquet famously described racing at Monaco as "riding a bicycle round your living room." Because the track is so narrow, it's nearly impossible to pass without taking heroic measures. The circuit starts by going uphill from Sainte Devote all the way to Beau Rivage, then descends sharply from Mirabeau to Portier. There's another small descent as the cars approach the Chicane as well.
Monte Carlo has the distinction of having both the slowest and the fastest turns in Formula 1. Turn 6, better known as the Loew's Hairpin, is taken at approximately 30mph and is so tight that the teams usually have to modify their steering rigs to allow a car to make the turn. Turn 9, aka The Tunnel, is run at about 160mph or so. The only true tunnel in F1 (Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi has one at the end of the pit lane, which doesn't count. Singapore has a stretch that runs underneath some grandstands, but that isn't really a tunnel), its aerodynamic effects take off nearly a third of a car's downforce. For that reason, DRS will not be permitted while running through it during practice and Quals.
That's kind of a pity, as it'd lead to more of my favorite camera sequence... 1) camera follows car through Portier and into the tunnel. 2) Camera picks up car as it approaches the apex of Turn 9, swings to follow. 3) Camera outside tunnel waits for car to appear; all that exits the dark tunnel is a tire or two bouncing free, followed by carbon fiber debris, followed by remainder of car. It never fails to crack me up... it's like the track has eaten the car, and is in the process of spitting it out.
Yes, it's dangerous. Yes, it's too narrow. Yes, it's a horrible track for modern F1 cars. It's also the most recognizable circuit in the world, and nowhere in the world can a (ridiculously wealthy) spectator get so close to a F1 car during a race.
Late breaking newsflash! Earlier today, a truck caught fire at Sainte Devote. It burned long enough and hot enough that it actually damaged the tarmac underneath it, requiring it to be replaced less than 48 hours before the first practice session. This could very well cause some problems, as the damaged area is in the braking zone... look for Turn 1 to be very exciting this time around.
Of course, the Legendary Announce Team will be bringing us their usual reportage on SPEED! It all begins on THURSDAY morning from 3am to 430am with streaming coverage of Practice 1. Practice 2 follows from 7am to 840am, live on SPEED.
Friday is a quiet day in Monaco for the F1 Circus, but the whole shebang picks back up on Saturday morning from 4am to 5am with streaming coverage of Practice 3. Quals is likewise on Saturday morning, from 7am to 830am live on SPEED.
Finally, the jewel in the F1 crown, the 2011 Grand Prix of Monaco takes to the air from 630am to 9am, live on SPEED. There'll be a replay on Monday from 1030am to 1pm.
F1U! will be providing our own version of the "usual reportage" as well, so don't miss it!
It's hard to argue with the "too narrow" and "too dangerous" assessment, because to be frank, it is both of those things. Three-time World Driver's Champion Nelson Piquet famously described racing at Monaco as "riding a bicycle round your living room." Because the track is so narrow, it's nearly impossible to pass without taking heroic measures. The circuit starts by going uphill from Sainte Devote all the way to Beau Rivage, then descends sharply from Mirabeau to Portier. There's another small descent as the cars approach the Chicane as well.
Monte Carlo has the distinction of having both the slowest and the fastest turns in Formula 1. Turn 6, better known as the Loew's Hairpin, is taken at approximately 30mph and is so tight that the teams usually have to modify their steering rigs to allow a car to make the turn. Turn 9, aka The Tunnel, is run at about 160mph or so. The only true tunnel in F1 (Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi has one at the end of the pit lane, which doesn't count. Singapore has a stretch that runs underneath some grandstands, but that isn't really a tunnel), its aerodynamic effects take off nearly a third of a car's downforce. For that reason, DRS will not be permitted while running through it during practice and Quals.
That's kind of a pity, as it'd lead to more of my favorite camera sequence... 1) camera follows car through Portier and into the tunnel. 2) Camera picks up car as it approaches the apex of Turn 9, swings to follow. 3) Camera outside tunnel waits for car to appear; all that exits the dark tunnel is a tire or two bouncing free, followed by carbon fiber debris, followed by remainder of car. It never fails to crack me up... it's like the track has eaten the car, and is in the process of spitting it out.
Yes, it's dangerous. Yes, it's too narrow. Yes, it's a horrible track for modern F1 cars. It's also the most recognizable circuit in the world, and nowhere in the world can a (ridiculously wealthy) spectator get so close to a F1 car during a race.
Note spiral staircase to the left of "Le Casino" sign.
Monaco is one of the three entries in the "Triple Crown of Motorsport," along with the 24 Hours of LeMans and the Indianapolis 500. Only one driver, Graham Hill, has accomplished the feat in his career, and only one active driver, Juan Pablo Montoya (aka "The Pope"), has a chance to join him (he won Monaco in 2003 and the Indy 500 in 2000).Late breaking newsflash! Earlier today, a truck caught fire at Sainte Devote. It burned long enough and hot enough that it actually damaged the tarmac underneath it, requiring it to be replaced less than 48 hours before the first practice session. This could very well cause some problems, as the damaged area is in the braking zone... look for Turn 1 to be very exciting this time around.
Of course, the Legendary Announce Team will be bringing us their usual reportage on SPEED! It all begins on THURSDAY morning from 3am to 430am with streaming coverage of Practice 1. Practice 2 follows from 7am to 840am, live on SPEED.
Friday is a quiet day in Monaco for the F1 Circus, but the whole shebang picks back up on Saturday morning from 4am to 5am with streaming coverage of Practice 3. Quals is likewise on Saturday morning, from 7am to 830am live on SPEED.
Finally, the jewel in the F1 crown, the 2011 Grand Prix of Monaco takes to the air from 630am to 9am, live on SPEED. There'll be a replay on Monday from 1030am to 1pm.
F1U! will be providing our own version of the "usual reportage" as well, so don't miss it!
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May 23, 2011
F1 Update!: Spain 2011
A gorgeous day in Barcelona, but would the sun shine on Mark Webber, or
would someone else steal the light and win today? THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Spain!
*LIGHTS OUT: With the Red Bull teammates locking out the front row, it was pretty much a given that one of them would be leading the pack into the first turn. After all, they've got the best car, Seb Vettel is arguably one of the best drivers in the field, and Webber is hardly a slouch himself. Still, with an iffy KERS unit, one could see Lewis Hamilton's McLaren sweep by them both from third. But nobody expected what actually occurred as the Ferrari of HWMNBN, perhaps powered by the cheers of the Spanish crowd, blew past them all to take the lead going into Turn 1. More surprisingly, he held the lead after the first lap, then the second, then the third... while he didn't run away from Vettel and Hamilton, second and third respectively, neither did he yield any time to them. He had roughly a half-second lead on the Red Bull, who had a half-second lead on the McLaren. That trio did manage to pull away from Webber in fourth, to the tune of maybe five seconds.
*THAT'S THE PITS: Seb Vettel dove into the pit lane for new tires on lap 9, apparently just before they fell off the cliff and became a hindrance. Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, stayed out until lap 11, running a lap or two after his tires went bad. HWMNBN still held the lead, much to everybody's shock and horror. On lap 18, Vettel came back in for another set of new tires, again before their performance fell off. When HWMNBN came in a lap or two later, he wound up on the losing end of the pit rotation, as the Red Bull passed him just as he exited the pits. Hamilton had the lead, maybe one that was big enough for him to hit the pits, change shoes and rejoin before the reigning Driver's Champion went by... but McLaren kept him out there too long. When his pit stop finally occurred, he came back onto the track in second. We here at F1U! were impressed by Red Bull's strategy: they didn't worry about tire wear, because they knew they wouldn't be keeping their man out there long enough for it to affect their pace. Of course, that can only work when you've got relatively unused sets of soft tires... which, after Quals, they in fact had. At this point, the F1U! crew were sure the young German would power off into the sunset for an easy win.
*MEANWHILE: Sitting at the back of the grid at the start was Renault's Grizzly Nick Heidfeld. Relegated there by dint of an exhaust fire in P3 that prevented him from taking place in Quals, it was obvious to everybody that he'd be a fox amongst the chickens once the race started. Indeed, very quickly he went from 24th and dead last to 17th on the first lap, all the while on the new super-hard tires. In fact, he stayed out for 22 laps, during which time the guys up front stopped twice. He then had three sets of soft tires to go 44 laps. The chuckling and metaphorical rubbing of hands with glee were obvious on the Renault pitwall.
*YOU MANGY CURS KERS: Back up at the front, the F1U! crew were astounded to see that leader Seb Vettel did not, in fact, power away from Lewis Hamilton. Indeed, after the last set of pitstops had been completed, with both drivers going onto the super-hard tires, the McLaren slowly began to reel in the Red Bull. By lap 55, the gap was about a half-second and often closer. The KERS unit in Vettel's car was to blame, apparently overheating after being used for a couple of laps. The pit lane would then tell him to switch it off so it could cool down. Eventually it'd be okay to use again... at which point it would overheat after a couple of laps. Rinse, repeat ad infinitum.
*FINALLY: Hamilton's frustration must have been terrible. In the last couple of turns of each lap, Vettel would open the lead just enough to make the run down the front straight, even with DRS and KERS, a long stern chase that would end with the McLaren a bit too far back to make a passing attempt into Turn 1. If he had been on the soft tires, he could have braked later, maybe carried a little bit more speed into the first turn, and made the pass easily. But the McLaren had the less grippy super-hard shoes on, making it academic. The rest of the lap would be spent closing up on the Red Bull, only to see all the work go away in the last turns. No flaw in the McLaren, just that for some reason, Vettel could make the Red Bull work better in those last bends. As their grim duel continued on, the duo managed to lap the field through fifth place HWMNBN's Ferrari when the race ended. Hamilton did everything he could to catch the reigning Driver's Champion, but nothing he tried was successful. When the Red Bull finally crossed the line, there was the McLaren trailing behind by .6 of a second. A truly sterling race from both drivers. Third place Jenson Button followed along over 35 seconds later, with Mark Webber finishing up 12 seconds after that.
*AND THEN...: Further down in the pack, Grizzly Nick Heidfeld had been chewing up the rest of the field like the beast that gave him his nickname. Particularly on the final stint, when he was the only car in the field on a brand new set of soft tires (everybody else on softs were running scuffs, or "pre-used" tires), did Heidfeld go berserk, showing what "two seconds per lap" really means. He managed to end up in eighth, and given another couple of laps he probably would have passed both members of Team Mercedes. All of this leads one to wonder why the teams even bother to go out in Quals anyway?
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Yes, he has the best car. Yes, he's arguably the best driver. Seb Vettel actually had to drive today, as opposed to coasting the entire race. The result? A hard-fought win in a balky car that was probably a smidge slower than his rival. One small mistake and he would have been relegated to the second step on the podium... except he never made that mistake. Vettel deserves this award, perhaps more than ever before. The predictable Honorable Mention goes to Grizzly Nick Heidfeld for picking up 16 places during his charge from the rear.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: McLaren wound up second and third on the podium, had a great shot at winning the whole thing, and out-thought their main rivals on tire strategy. If Lewis Hamilton had the tire babying skills of his teammate Jenson Button, he probably would have won. Still, they put a scare into Red Bull, and made sure their main opponent knew that they have a fight on their hands the rest of the way... at least until Red Bull gets their KERS unit reliably working.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: Mark Webber had been trailing behind HWMNBN for a few laps, reeling the Ferrari in despite the two having tires with the same amount of wear. As the pair approached Turn 10 on lap 35, Webber made his move.
From waaaay back, the Aussie braked about as late as you can and possibly later, throwing out the anchor, deploying the parachute, dragging his feet, and anything else you can think of to slow down. HWMNBN must have been shocked at how quickly the Red Bull zipped by. However, the two-time World Champion quickly got his head back into the game.
Turning inside Webber, HWMNBN took a shorter (but slower) line through the turn and got back on the gas while the Red Bull pilot gathered in the parachute and anchor. The two sprinted down to Turn 11... another left-hander.
This time, the Ferrari was in the better position and retook the place from the Red Bull. A brilliant piece of driving from both men, Webber for the initial pass, HWMNBN for the re-pass. A well-deserved shared MotR for the two!
*MOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: Felipe Massa had been having a miserable weekend. First, Quals simply sucked, qualifying eighth while his teammate took fourth on the grid. The once the race started, he simply couldn't get his Ferrari F150 Italia to perform, languishing in eighth before starting a slow slide down the field. The unforced error that led to a spin on Lap 38 mercifully didn't cost him any places, but must have just made an awful day even worse. The ugly grinding sound in his gearbox couldn't have made him feel any better. It probably came as a relief when he beached himself.
Intentionally, I might add. His gearbox wasn't going to make it another five laps. Really, he doesn't deserve this... so instead, I'm going to give it to a special surprise winner!
Yes, that's right, I'm giving the Moooooo-oooove of the Race to the cornerworker who managed to lose both his safety helmet AND his ballcap as he ran around the back of Heikki Kovaleinninninnie's car. Well done!
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*LIGHTS OUT: With the Red Bull teammates locking out the front row, it was pretty much a given that one of them would be leading the pack into the first turn. After all, they've got the best car, Seb Vettel is arguably one of the best drivers in the field, and Webber is hardly a slouch himself. Still, with an iffy KERS unit, one could see Lewis Hamilton's McLaren sweep by them both from third. But nobody expected what actually occurred as the Ferrari of HWMNBN, perhaps powered by the cheers of the Spanish crowd, blew past them all to take the lead going into Turn 1. More surprisingly, he held the lead after the first lap, then the second, then the third... while he didn't run away from Vettel and Hamilton, second and third respectively, neither did he yield any time to them. He had roughly a half-second lead on the Red Bull, who had a half-second lead on the McLaren. That trio did manage to pull away from Webber in fourth, to the tune of maybe five seconds.
*THAT'S THE PITS: Seb Vettel dove into the pit lane for new tires on lap 9, apparently just before they fell off the cliff and became a hindrance. Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, stayed out until lap 11, running a lap or two after his tires went bad. HWMNBN still held the lead, much to everybody's shock and horror. On lap 18, Vettel came back in for another set of new tires, again before their performance fell off. When HWMNBN came in a lap or two later, he wound up on the losing end of the pit rotation, as the Red Bull passed him just as he exited the pits. Hamilton had the lead, maybe one that was big enough for him to hit the pits, change shoes and rejoin before the reigning Driver's Champion went by... but McLaren kept him out there too long. When his pit stop finally occurred, he came back onto the track in second. We here at F1U! were impressed by Red Bull's strategy: they didn't worry about tire wear, because they knew they wouldn't be keeping their man out there long enough for it to affect their pace. Of course, that can only work when you've got relatively unused sets of soft tires... which, after Quals, they in fact had. At this point, the F1U! crew were sure the young German would power off into the sunset for an easy win.
*MEANWHILE: Sitting at the back of the grid at the start was Renault's Grizzly Nick Heidfeld. Relegated there by dint of an exhaust fire in P3 that prevented him from taking place in Quals, it was obvious to everybody that he'd be a fox amongst the chickens once the race started. Indeed, very quickly he went from 24th and dead last to 17th on the first lap, all the while on the new super-hard tires. In fact, he stayed out for 22 laps, during which time the guys up front stopped twice. He then had three sets of soft tires to go 44 laps. The chuckling and metaphorical rubbing of hands with glee were obvious on the Renault pitwall.
*YOU MANGY CURS KERS: Back up at the front, the F1U! crew were astounded to see that leader Seb Vettel did not, in fact, power away from Lewis Hamilton. Indeed, after the last set of pitstops had been completed, with both drivers going onto the super-hard tires, the McLaren slowly began to reel in the Red Bull. By lap 55, the gap was about a half-second and often closer. The KERS unit in Vettel's car was to blame, apparently overheating after being used for a couple of laps. The pit lane would then tell him to switch it off so it could cool down. Eventually it'd be okay to use again... at which point it would overheat after a couple of laps. Rinse, repeat ad infinitum.
*FINALLY: Hamilton's frustration must have been terrible. In the last couple of turns of each lap, Vettel would open the lead just enough to make the run down the front straight, even with DRS and KERS, a long stern chase that would end with the McLaren a bit too far back to make a passing attempt into Turn 1. If he had been on the soft tires, he could have braked later, maybe carried a little bit more speed into the first turn, and made the pass easily. But the McLaren had the less grippy super-hard shoes on, making it academic. The rest of the lap would be spent closing up on the Red Bull, only to see all the work go away in the last turns. No flaw in the McLaren, just that for some reason, Vettel could make the Red Bull work better in those last bends. As their grim duel continued on, the duo managed to lap the field through fifth place HWMNBN's Ferrari when the race ended. Hamilton did everything he could to catch the reigning Driver's Champion, but nothing he tried was successful. When the Red Bull finally crossed the line, there was the McLaren trailing behind by .6 of a second. A truly sterling race from both drivers. Third place Jenson Button followed along over 35 seconds later, with Mark Webber finishing up 12 seconds after that.
*AND THEN...: Further down in the pack, Grizzly Nick Heidfeld had been chewing up the rest of the field like the beast that gave him his nickname. Particularly on the final stint, when he was the only car in the field on a brand new set of soft tires (everybody else on softs were running scuffs, or "pre-used" tires), did Heidfeld go berserk, showing what "two seconds per lap" really means. He managed to end up in eighth, and given another couple of laps he probably would have passed both members of Team Mercedes. All of this leads one to wonder why the teams even bother to go out in Quals anyway?
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Yes, he has the best car. Yes, he's arguably the best driver. Seb Vettel actually had to drive today, as opposed to coasting the entire race. The result? A hard-fought win in a balky car that was probably a smidge slower than his rival. One small mistake and he would have been relegated to the second step on the podium... except he never made that mistake. Vettel deserves this award, perhaps more than ever before. The predictable Honorable Mention goes to Grizzly Nick Heidfeld for picking up 16 places during his charge from the rear.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: McLaren wound up second and third on the podium, had a great shot at winning the whole thing, and out-thought their main rivals on tire strategy. If Lewis Hamilton had the tire babying skills of his teammate Jenson Button, he probably would have won. Still, they put a scare into Red Bull, and made sure their main opponent knew that they have a fight on their hands the rest of the way... at least until Red Bull gets their KERS unit reliably working.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: Mark Webber had been trailing behind HWMNBN for a few laps, reeling the Ferrari in despite the two having tires with the same amount of wear. As the pair approached Turn 10 on lap 35, Webber made his move.
From waaaay back, the Aussie braked about as late as you can and possibly later, throwing out the anchor, deploying the parachute, dragging his feet, and anything else you can think of to slow down. HWMNBN must have been shocked at how quickly the Red Bull zipped by. However, the two-time World Champion quickly got his head back into the game.
Turning inside Webber, HWMNBN took a shorter (but slower) line through the turn and got back on the gas while the Red Bull pilot gathered in the parachute and anchor. The two sprinted down to Turn 11... another left-hander.
This time, the Ferrari was in the better position and retook the place from the Red Bull. A brilliant piece of driving from both men, Webber for the initial pass, HWMNBN for the re-pass. A well-deserved shared MotR for the two!
*MOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: Felipe Massa had been having a miserable weekend. First, Quals simply sucked, qualifying eighth while his teammate took fourth on the grid. The once the race started, he simply couldn't get his Ferrari F150 Italia to perform, languishing in eighth before starting a slow slide down the field. The unforced error that led to a spin on Lap 38 mercifully didn't cost him any places, but must have just made an awful day even worse. The ugly grinding sound in his gearbox couldn't have made him feel any better. It probably came as a relief when he beached himself.
Intentionally, I might add. His gearbox wasn't going to make it another five laps. Really, he doesn't deserve this... so instead, I'm going to give it to a special surprise winner!
Yes, that's right, I'm giving the Moooooo-oooove of the Race to the cornerworker who managed to lose both his safety helmet AND his ballcap as he ran around the back of Heikki Kovaleinninninnie's car. Well done!
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
Posted by: Wonderduck at
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Post contains 1996 words, total size 14 kb.
May 08, 2011
F1 Update!: Turkey 2011
A beautiful sunny day awaited us today at the Istanbul Otodrom as the cameras went live on the Turkish Grand Prix. But would Seb Vettel enjoy the race, or would the someone else take the May flowers from him? THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Turkey.
*RACE: As the F1U! crew, joined by F1tern Vaucaunson's Duck, settled into our comfy chairs, the lights went out to begin the race. It immediately became obvious that, barring car failure, this contest was going to be for second place. Seb Vettel jumped away from the line and never looked back, opening a 1.2 second lead at the end of Lap 1. Just a pleasant Sunday drive for the World Champion, who won by nearly nine seconds over his teammate Mark Webber, who led Ferrari's HWMNBN across the line by just over a second. After those podium positions, there was a 30 second gap back to Lewis Hamilton's McLaren.
*THAT'S A RECORD: Pirelli's hopeful optimism towards the lifespan of their tires turned out to be somewhat misplaced. The first pitstops came on Lap 10, and for all intents and purposes never stopped. As a result, more stops were made in this race than ever before in F1 history: 80. The previous record-holding race started out in the wet, went dry, then sort of bobbled back and forth between the two, causing chaos in the pit lane. This one? All dry, and everybody save McLaren's Jenson Button and one of the Toro Rosso drivers made four stops.
*DIFFERING VIEWPOINTS: Having the F1tern here for the race brought something unexpected to the F1U! team's eyes. We saw the race as being action-packed but somewhat dull, full of passing back in the pack that was more or less meaningless. On the other hand, the F1tern thought the race was action-packed and exciting, full of dramatic passes. The possibility exists that the F1U! team is old and jaded.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: It's very hard to not give this award to Ferrari's HWMNBN, who pulled his steed onto the podium when it looked like the red cars would never get there this year. It's also very hard not to give the award to Gandalf Kobayashi, who started dead last, fought his way up to eighth, and ended up tenth, very nearly equaling Mark Webber's 15-place improvement at China (18th to third). But it's impossible to not give the Driver of the Race award to Red Bull's Seb Vettel. Maybe it's the car, maybe it's because he's mostly driving with a clear track in front of him, but he dominated the Grand Prix of Turkey race weekend. Beginning from Saturday's P3 session, then in Quals, then the race itself, nobody was even close to the World Champion. It's a telling statistic that he's led 183 of the 220 laps run this season...
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. Duh. They blew away everybody in Quals, they blew away everybody during the race, and they had to rebuild Vettel's car after his 1st Practice wreck. That's a heckuva record for the team.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: The combination of KERS and DRS have made passing much, much easier this season, giving the F1U! crew more than enough choices for the best move. The McLaren teammates, for example, had a scrum that lasted three full laps; Hamilton passed Button, who passed Hamilton, who came back and repassed Button, who turned around and repassed Hamilton again. Massa and Rosberg had a lovely little scrimmage on Lap 20. There were literally dozens of others, mostly in the DRS zone. But none of them came close to what happened on Lap 15. Slappy Schumacher led a hard-charging Gandalf Kobayashi, who had just gotten by Force India's Adrian F'n Sutil and Paul di Resta. Coming down from the flat-out Turn 11 towards Turn 12, Gandalf decided that he wanted Slappy's place, no matter what. Slappy decided he wouldn't make it easy for the Wizard. He moved to the inside, and Gandalf took Shadowfax onto the grass at 200 mph while Adrian F'n Sutil tried to take advantage of Schumacher's inattention, going wide to the outside.
Gandalf, past the elder statesman, lit up his tires through Turn 12, while Sutil whipped from the outside to the inside to get past the Mercedes driver. His tires smoking, he shouldered Schumi aside.
On the pull-out, di Resta tried to get involved as well, to no avail. Kobayashi had picked up three places through the whole thing, Sutil one, and Slappy lost two.
More importantly, it's clear that Schumacher's legendary status has worn off, with the younger drivers no longer giving him the respect they used to... which is the way it should be.
*MOOOOOO-OOOVE OF THE RACE: 13 laps previously on the same bit of track, Renault's Red Menace, Vitaly Petrov, made a... shall we say optimistic... move on Slappy Schumacher, neglecting to apply his brakes until very late into Turn 12. He went to the inside of Schumacher and quite honestly had no chance whatsoever to make either the move or the turn. Slappy, however, was having none of it. He decided that the brilliant thing to do was to close down on the speeding Red Menace.
Result? The two bumped rather hard, the Renault ran over the Mercedes' nose, and the contact slowed the Red Menace enough that he could control himself through the turn. Schumi immediately pulled into the pits, but he still lost a ton of places and was never seen again. Good job, Slappy, here's your Moooooo-oove.
*SELECTED QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*RACE: As the F1U! crew, joined by F1tern Vaucaunson's Duck, settled into our comfy chairs, the lights went out to begin the race. It immediately became obvious that, barring car failure, this contest was going to be for second place. Seb Vettel jumped away from the line and never looked back, opening a 1.2 second lead at the end of Lap 1. Just a pleasant Sunday drive for the World Champion, who won by nearly nine seconds over his teammate Mark Webber, who led Ferrari's HWMNBN across the line by just over a second. After those podium positions, there was a 30 second gap back to Lewis Hamilton's McLaren.
*THAT'S A RECORD: Pirelli's hopeful optimism towards the lifespan of their tires turned out to be somewhat misplaced. The first pitstops came on Lap 10, and for all intents and purposes never stopped. As a result, more stops were made in this race than ever before in F1 history: 80. The previous record-holding race started out in the wet, went dry, then sort of bobbled back and forth between the two, causing chaos in the pit lane. This one? All dry, and everybody save McLaren's Jenson Button and one of the Toro Rosso drivers made four stops.
*DIFFERING VIEWPOINTS: Having the F1tern here for the race brought something unexpected to the F1U! team's eyes. We saw the race as being action-packed but somewhat dull, full of passing back in the pack that was more or less meaningless. On the other hand, the F1tern thought the race was action-packed and exciting, full of dramatic passes. The possibility exists that the F1U! team is old and jaded.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: It's very hard to not give this award to Ferrari's HWMNBN, who pulled his steed onto the podium when it looked like the red cars would never get there this year. It's also very hard not to give the award to Gandalf Kobayashi, who started dead last, fought his way up to eighth, and ended up tenth, very nearly equaling Mark Webber's 15-place improvement at China (18th to third). But it's impossible to not give the Driver of the Race award to Red Bull's Seb Vettel. Maybe it's the car, maybe it's because he's mostly driving with a clear track in front of him, but he dominated the Grand Prix of Turkey race weekend. Beginning from Saturday's P3 session, then in Quals, then the race itself, nobody was even close to the World Champion. It's a telling statistic that he's led 183 of the 220 laps run this season...
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. Duh. They blew away everybody in Quals, they blew away everybody during the race, and they had to rebuild Vettel's car after his 1st Practice wreck. That's a heckuva record for the team.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: The combination of KERS and DRS have made passing much, much easier this season, giving the F1U! crew more than enough choices for the best move. The McLaren teammates, for example, had a scrum that lasted three full laps; Hamilton passed Button, who passed Hamilton, who came back and repassed Button, who turned around and repassed Hamilton again. Massa and Rosberg had a lovely little scrimmage on Lap 20. There were literally dozens of others, mostly in the DRS zone. But none of them came close to what happened on Lap 15. Slappy Schumacher led a hard-charging Gandalf Kobayashi, who had just gotten by Force India's Adrian F'n Sutil and Paul di Resta. Coming down from the flat-out Turn 11 towards Turn 12, Gandalf decided that he wanted Slappy's place, no matter what. Slappy decided he wouldn't make it easy for the Wizard. He moved to the inside, and Gandalf took Shadowfax onto the grass at 200 mph while Adrian F'n Sutil tried to take advantage of Schumacher's inattention, going wide to the outside.
Gandalf, past the elder statesman, lit up his tires through Turn 12, while Sutil whipped from the outside to the inside to get past the Mercedes driver. His tires smoking, he shouldered Schumi aside.
On the pull-out, di Resta tried to get involved as well, to no avail. Kobayashi had picked up three places through the whole thing, Sutil one, and Slappy lost two.
More importantly, it's clear that Schumacher's legendary status has worn off, with the younger drivers no longer giving him the respect they used to... which is the way it should be.
*MOOOOOO-OOOVE OF THE RACE: 13 laps previously on the same bit of track, Renault's Red Menace, Vitaly Petrov, made a... shall we say optimistic... move on Slappy Schumacher, neglecting to apply his brakes until very late into Turn 12. He went to the inside of Schumacher and quite honestly had no chance whatsoever to make either the move or the turn. Slappy, however, was having none of it. He decided that the brilliant thing to do was to close down on the speeding Red Menace.
Result? The two bumped rather hard, the Renault ran over the Mercedes' nose, and the contact slowed the Red Menace enough that he could control himself through the turn. Schumi immediately pulled into the pits, but he still lost a ton of places and was never seen again. Good job, Slappy, here's your Moooooo-oove.
*SELECTED QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
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April 17, 2011
F1 Update!: China 2011
It was a beautiful day in Shanghai, absolutely perfect for a Formula 1 race. Would it prove to be so for the polesitter Seb Vettel? Or would one of his rivals prevent him from winning his third race in a row to start the season? You'll soon find out, because THIS is your F1 Update! for the Grand Prix of China!
*BEFORE: Prior to the start of a F1 race, cars form up on the grid after taking a "recon lap" of the track. To prevent teams from holding their cars in the pits until the very last possible instant before a race, they must be off pit lane by 15 minutes prior to race start. If a car fails to do so, they must start from pit exit and can't move until all the rest of the field passes that point on the track. Usually this is the home of cars badly damaged during Quals, or that had a last-minute engine failure, or teams like HRT or Virgin, for whom such a handicap will make no difference. You can imagine the panic felt by McLaren's mechanics, then, when they fired up Lewis Hamilton's car at 20 minutes to go, and fuel began spraying out from under the bodywork.
They had rip the rear panels off the car, figure out what was causing the leak, clean up the spilled gasoline, make sure the MP4-26 was safe to drive, then get Hamilton off of pit lane, all within five minutes. It turned out that there wasn't a leak; instead, the engine somehow flooded when they engaged the starter. A liberal application of paper towels to the inside of the car sopped up the fuel that dripped into the bodywork, they made some adjustments to the sprayer rail of the engine, and sent the 2008 World Champion on his way... with some 15 seconds to spare. They didn't put the rear of the car's body back on until it was on the grid. No, no stress there.
*DURING: When the lights went out to begin the 2011 Grand Prix of China, we knew immediately that this was not to be a repeat of the previous two races. Red Bull's Seb Vettel bogged down off the line, allowing McLaren's Hamilton and Jenson Button to get past him before Turn 1, and Mercedes' Nico Rosberg nearly did so as well. It took a heroic effort by Vettel to keep his German countryman behind him, fighting him all the way through the Turn 1-2-3-4 complex, and only on the straight before Turn 5 did he shuffle the Silver Arrow back. By the end of the first lap, Hamilton had opened a one-second gap to his teammate, and nearly three to Vettel. That's the way it stayed for most of the first stint, Hamilton's lead bulging up to three seconds to Button at one point, then slowly dropping away. Eventually, both Jenson Button and Vettel passed him, dropping him to third. However, the first strategic play came from the man in fourth place, Rosberg. He made what seemed to be an early pit stop on lap 13. Instead of being caused by worn-out soft tires, the team had made the call to bring him in before the soft Pirellis "fell off the cliff". Then, as everybody else made their first stops, Rosberg ripped off some blazingly quick laps and found himself legitimately in first place. Button and Vettel made their stops together. Vettel came out ahead, aided by a major brainfade by the McLaren driver.
"I was looking down at the steering wheel to adjust a switch: when I looked up, I thought I was in my pitbox, but then I saw the Red Bull pitcrew in front of me," said Button, who had to roll slowly forward into his own box while Vettel slid smoothly into his. That small delay was enough to get the Red Bull driver out first.
*MEANWHILE: Red Bull's Mark Webber started the race in 18th, after a miserable qualifying session caused by electrical, mechanical and KERS problems prevented him from doing much. Starting the race on the hard tires, he slipped back to 20th after his first pit stop on lap 11. However, one unexpected benefit of his problems in Quals was that he had a full three sets of completely fresh soft Pirellis to use in the race. Getting his required stint on the hard tires out of the way early proved to be a masterstroke, as Webber began to climb his way through the field. It became obvious that the fight up front was so intense that everybody else was going to be using their hards on their last stints, giving Webber an interesting advantage... if he could get close enough to the frontrunners to use it. That was a mighty big "if", however, being as far back as he was.
*MIDRANGE: Nico Rosberg had driven a fantastic race, leading the more heralded Vettel, Hamilton, Button and Ferrari's HWMNBN and Felipe Massa for a good spell on the strategic decision to pit "off-sequence," taking advantage of fresh rubber to slip past opponents who had dying tires. While that was a genius-level call, it would mean a longer final stint on the hard tires than the others, as his last set of softs would go away with more laps remaining. Realizing this, team principal Ross Brawn made another strategic decision: Rosberg would be on a two-stop strategy while all around him would be making three. This would, in theory, save him the 25 seconds needed for the roll down the pit lane and should give him a comfortable margin of error. Rosberg made his final stop from the lead on lap 40, coming out in third, just ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button and just behind Felipe Massa, while Seb Vettel, fighting a dead KERS unit and unable to speak to his pit crew due to a failing radio, led the race with 16 laps to go.
*MEANWHILE PT II: Mark Webber was driving like a man pissed off at the world. By lap 40, he was in seventh after making his last pit stop for fresh soft tires. Sixteen laps on softs was proving to be doable, though there'd be something of a dropoff in grip later in the run. On the plus side though, they had proven to be just over a second a lap faster than the hard tires that everybody else was on. The angry Aussie set to work. By lap 51, the standings were Vettel, Hamilton, Button, Rosberg and Webber... a miraculous drive by any stretch. The top five positions were covered by only nine seconds.
*ENDGAME: One thing you almost never see in F1 anymore is a pass for the lead late in the race, unless there's a breakdown on the leader's car. While Vettel's KERS unit had died, it doesn't appear to have worked much during the race in any case, so we here at F1U! aren't counting that. So it came as a pleasant surprise when Lewis Hamilton swept past the 2010 World Champion on lap 52 for the lead, a lead he would never relinquish. It came as an even bigger surprise when Mark Webber, who you may remember started from 18th on the grid, caught and passed Nico Rosberg for fourth. To be fair, Rosberg's tires had given up the ghost, but still. Then our collective jaws dropped even farther when Webber set sail after Jenson Button for third. On lap 54, the dislocation of our mandibles became total when the Red Bull driver cleanly dispatched Button. The checkered flag flew with Hamilton five seconds ahead of Vettel, who was a mere two seconds ahead of his teammate, bringing to an end a frantically exciting race, one of the best dry races we've had in the seven year history of F1U!
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: From 18th to third and fast lap of the race? Oh yeah, Mark Webber gets this one going away. Considering the relative pace between Webber and winner Hamilton at the end, if the Grand Prix of China had been 60 laps long instead of the regular 56, there's very little question that we'd be talking about the greatest single race performance of all time right now. Instead, it's merely fantastic. Honorable mention goes to Nico Rosberg for nearly making a brilliantly flawed strategy work. Not his fault the tires fell off the cliff.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. While McLaren finished 1st-4th and Red Bull 2nd-3rd, that third place finish came from a driver who was as low as 20th at one point. Yeah, that worked pretty well, giving the team a huge haul of unexpected points. Now they've got until Turkey to figure out their KERS problem. That's a scary thought.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: While there were plenty of more exciting passes during the race, none were more important than Lewis Hamilton's against Vettel on lap 52. He'd been harrying the Red Bull driver for most of a lap, parking his McLaren right under the rear wing of the World Champion's car all the way through the Turns 1-2-3 complex. He then made his move on the short run to Turn 4.
It was almost as if Vettel wasn't expecting a passing attempt at that point, as it wasn't until the very last moment that he even reacted with a blocking manuever, and that came when it was too late to do any good. Hamilton swept past into the lead for his first win of the year.
*MOOOOOOO-OOVE OF THE RACE: Two candidates this time. The first, Jenson Button's attempt to become the third Red Bull car, we've already seen. While that cost him a place at the time, it probably didn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. For Toro Rosso's NKOTT, a pit blunder ended his race. Pitting on lap 10 from 12th place, the pit stop seemed to be routine... indeed, we got to see all of it from the point of view of a camera looking back at the right-rear of the car, which was pretty neat. The director stayed with that view as the car rolled out and back onto the track, at which point, an eagle-eyed viewer might have noticed that right-rear tire seem to wobble... but it might have been the stripe Pirelli had painted on the soft tire. A few moments later, it was obvious that it wasn't the stripe.
No, the tire made a mad dash for freedom. Only a catch fence kept it from making its way into the wilderness outside of Shangahi. Upon reviewing the video, it looks like the tire-gunner for that wheel never engaged the locking pin that prevents the wheel nut from working free after the tire change. Some teams have gone to pins that are engaged by the gun itself so take care not to read too much into that, but either way it seems appropriate that Toro Rosso has earned themselves a Moooooo-oove of the Race. Olé!
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*BEFORE: Prior to the start of a F1 race, cars form up on the grid after taking a "recon lap" of the track. To prevent teams from holding their cars in the pits until the very last possible instant before a race, they must be off pit lane by 15 minutes prior to race start. If a car fails to do so, they must start from pit exit and can't move until all the rest of the field passes that point on the track. Usually this is the home of cars badly damaged during Quals, or that had a last-minute engine failure, or teams like HRT or Virgin, for whom such a handicap will make no difference. You can imagine the panic felt by McLaren's mechanics, then, when they fired up Lewis Hamilton's car at 20 minutes to go, and fuel began spraying out from under the bodywork.
They had rip the rear panels off the car, figure out what was causing the leak, clean up the spilled gasoline, make sure the MP4-26 was safe to drive, then get Hamilton off of pit lane, all within five minutes. It turned out that there wasn't a leak; instead, the engine somehow flooded when they engaged the starter. A liberal application of paper towels to the inside of the car sopped up the fuel that dripped into the bodywork, they made some adjustments to the sprayer rail of the engine, and sent the 2008 World Champion on his way... with some 15 seconds to spare. They didn't put the rear of the car's body back on until it was on the grid. No, no stress there.
*DURING: When the lights went out to begin the 2011 Grand Prix of China, we knew immediately that this was not to be a repeat of the previous two races. Red Bull's Seb Vettel bogged down off the line, allowing McLaren's Hamilton and Jenson Button to get past him before Turn 1, and Mercedes' Nico Rosberg nearly did so as well. It took a heroic effort by Vettel to keep his German countryman behind him, fighting him all the way through the Turn 1-2-3-4 complex, and only on the straight before Turn 5 did he shuffle the Silver Arrow back. By the end of the first lap, Hamilton had opened a one-second gap to his teammate, and nearly three to Vettel. That's the way it stayed for most of the first stint, Hamilton's lead bulging up to three seconds to Button at one point, then slowly dropping away. Eventually, both Jenson Button and Vettel passed him, dropping him to third. However, the first strategic play came from the man in fourth place, Rosberg. He made what seemed to be an early pit stop on lap 13. Instead of being caused by worn-out soft tires, the team had made the call to bring him in before the soft Pirellis "fell off the cliff". Then, as everybody else made their first stops, Rosberg ripped off some blazingly quick laps and found himself legitimately in first place. Button and Vettel made their stops together. Vettel came out ahead, aided by a major brainfade by the McLaren driver.
"I was looking down at the steering wheel to adjust a switch: when I looked up, I thought I was in my pitbox, but then I saw the Red Bull pitcrew in front of me," said Button, who had to roll slowly forward into his own box while Vettel slid smoothly into his. That small delay was enough to get the Red Bull driver out first.
*MEANWHILE: Red Bull's Mark Webber started the race in 18th, after a miserable qualifying session caused by electrical, mechanical and KERS problems prevented him from doing much. Starting the race on the hard tires, he slipped back to 20th after his first pit stop on lap 11. However, one unexpected benefit of his problems in Quals was that he had a full three sets of completely fresh soft Pirellis to use in the race. Getting his required stint on the hard tires out of the way early proved to be a masterstroke, as Webber began to climb his way through the field. It became obvious that the fight up front was so intense that everybody else was going to be using their hards on their last stints, giving Webber an interesting advantage... if he could get close enough to the frontrunners to use it. That was a mighty big "if", however, being as far back as he was.
*MIDRANGE: Nico Rosberg had driven a fantastic race, leading the more heralded Vettel, Hamilton, Button and Ferrari's HWMNBN and Felipe Massa for a good spell on the strategic decision to pit "off-sequence," taking advantage of fresh rubber to slip past opponents who had dying tires. While that was a genius-level call, it would mean a longer final stint on the hard tires than the others, as his last set of softs would go away with more laps remaining. Realizing this, team principal Ross Brawn made another strategic decision: Rosberg would be on a two-stop strategy while all around him would be making three. This would, in theory, save him the 25 seconds needed for the roll down the pit lane and should give him a comfortable margin of error. Rosberg made his final stop from the lead on lap 40, coming out in third, just ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button and just behind Felipe Massa, while Seb Vettel, fighting a dead KERS unit and unable to speak to his pit crew due to a failing radio, led the race with 16 laps to go.
*MEANWHILE PT II: Mark Webber was driving like a man pissed off at the world. By lap 40, he was in seventh after making his last pit stop for fresh soft tires. Sixteen laps on softs was proving to be doable, though there'd be something of a dropoff in grip later in the run. On the plus side though, they had proven to be just over a second a lap faster than the hard tires that everybody else was on. The angry Aussie set to work. By lap 51, the standings were Vettel, Hamilton, Button, Rosberg and Webber... a miraculous drive by any stretch. The top five positions were covered by only nine seconds.
*ENDGAME: One thing you almost never see in F1 anymore is a pass for the lead late in the race, unless there's a breakdown on the leader's car. While Vettel's KERS unit had died, it doesn't appear to have worked much during the race in any case, so we here at F1U! aren't counting that. So it came as a pleasant surprise when Lewis Hamilton swept past the 2010 World Champion on lap 52 for the lead, a lead he would never relinquish. It came as an even bigger surprise when Mark Webber, who you may remember started from 18th on the grid, caught and passed Nico Rosberg for fourth. To be fair, Rosberg's tires had given up the ghost, but still. Then our collective jaws dropped even farther when Webber set sail after Jenson Button for third. On lap 54, the dislocation of our mandibles became total when the Red Bull driver cleanly dispatched Button. The checkered flag flew with Hamilton five seconds ahead of Vettel, who was a mere two seconds ahead of his teammate, bringing to an end a frantically exciting race, one of the best dry races we've had in the seven year history of F1U!
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: From 18th to third and fast lap of the race? Oh yeah, Mark Webber gets this one going away. Considering the relative pace between Webber and winner Hamilton at the end, if the Grand Prix of China had been 60 laps long instead of the regular 56, there's very little question that we'd be talking about the greatest single race performance of all time right now. Instead, it's merely fantastic. Honorable mention goes to Nico Rosberg for nearly making a brilliantly flawed strategy work. Not his fault the tires fell off the cliff.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. While McLaren finished 1st-4th and Red Bull 2nd-3rd, that third place finish came from a driver who was as low as 20th at one point. Yeah, that worked pretty well, giving the team a huge haul of unexpected points. Now they've got until Turkey to figure out their KERS problem. That's a scary thought.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: While there were plenty of more exciting passes during the race, none were more important than Lewis Hamilton's against Vettel on lap 52. He'd been harrying the Red Bull driver for most of a lap, parking his McLaren right under the rear wing of the World Champion's car all the way through the Turns 1-2-3 complex. He then made his move on the short run to Turn 4.
It was almost as if Vettel wasn't expecting a passing attempt at that point, as it wasn't until the very last moment that he even reacted with a blocking manuever, and that came when it was too late to do any good. Hamilton swept past into the lead for his first win of the year.
*MOOOOOOO-OOVE OF THE RACE: Two candidates this time. The first, Jenson Button's attempt to become the third Red Bull car, we've already seen. While that cost him a place at the time, it probably didn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. For Toro Rosso's NKOTT, a pit blunder ended his race. Pitting on lap 10 from 12th place, the pit stop seemed to be routine... indeed, we got to see all of it from the point of view of a camera looking back at the right-rear of the car, which was pretty neat. The director stayed with that view as the car rolled out and back onto the track, at which point, an eagle-eyed viewer might have noticed that right-rear tire seem to wobble... but it might have been the stripe Pirelli had painted on the soft tire. A few moments later, it was obvious that it wasn't the stripe.
No, the tire made a mad dash for freedom. Only a catch fence kept it from making its way into the wilderness outside of Shangahi. Upon reviewing the video, it looks like the tire-gunner for that wheel never engaged the locking pin that prevents the wheel nut from working free after the tire change. Some teams have gone to pins that are engaged by the gun itself so take care not to read too much into that, but either way it seems appropriate that Toro Rosso has earned themselves a Moooooo-oove of the Race. Olé!
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
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April 10, 2011
F1 Update!: Malaysia 2011
The skies overhead were dark gray, heavy and humid, the ambient temperatures around 90 F... thoroughly unpleasant conditions for man and machine both. But would the rain come and throw the race into a tizzy? Or would tires, short-lived and prone to failure, prove to be defining aspect of the race? You're about to find out, because THIS is your F1U! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Malaysia.
*THE WEATHER: Surprisingly, the leaden skies never opened up. Other than a brief sprinkle right around the first pitstops, the race was run entirely in the dry. Of course, the timing of the sprinkles made for some tense moments up and down the pit lane. If a car came in for Inters and it stayed dry, that would be a wasted stop and a few laps run on slow slow tires. However, if a car stayed on slick tires and it began to rain, you're going to be turning laps 45 seconds slower than everybody else... if you can keep it on the track in the first place. Lots of crossed fingers, dice rolling, and coin flipping later, everybody made the right guess.
*THE TIRES: The combination of high temperatures and abrasive track surface made life hell on the Pirelli tires. Three stops were the norm today, four stops were not unheard of... though Gandalf Kobayashi managed to do the race on a two-stopper.
That's what the track looked like around Lap 40. That black stuff is known in the business as "clag," and it's what comes off the tires as they wear. You can see there's a clean line, but get off that you're taking your life in your own hands... literally. Your traction goes away fast when you're driving on little balls of rolled-up rubber. Unfortunately, it only took a few laps for the clag to build up to problem levels. While passing did occur today, it was mostly at the end of the back straight where there was no clag to speak of.
*THE RACE: Once the lights went out, Seb Vettel ran away and hid. Again. By the end of a very busy first lap that saw Grizzly Nick Heidfeld jump into second place, Mark Webber drop to 10th, and everybody else jumbled up, Vettel had a two second lead. However, he never got farther ahead than nine seconds during his cruise to victory, and spent most of it about five seconds in front of second place. That's good... except some of that might have been because neither Red Bull had a working KERS system; Vettel had overheating batteries and couldn't use his after Lap 25, while Webber's went into shutdown mode on the recon lap. Explains his horrid start. Behind Vettel, the race was one of the more confusing things we here at F1U! had ever seen. The multitude of pitstops made keeping accurate track of what was going on nigh impossible.
*AFTER THE RACE: McLaren's Lewis Hamilton had a bad day. Starting in second position, he got stuck behind Grizzly Nick Heidfeld for some 14 laps, ran out of soft tires at the halfway point, spent half of the contest on the slower hard tires and stumbled all the way down to seventh. At one point though, he was in third, being harried by Ferrari's HWMNBN, who was faster at that point in the race. Hamilton made two defensive moves to protect his position against a passing attempt by the Spaniard, who then clipped the McLaren coming out of the next turn. This sent the Ferrari to the pits for a new nose. Both drivers were brought before the Stewards post-race and handed 20sec. time penalties... HWMNBN for hitting Hamilton, Hamilton for his swerves. This penalty kicked Hamilton from seventh to eighth, while HWMNBN did not lose a position. F1U! thinks the penalties, while awfully ticky-tack, were both legit. We have yet to see Hamilton's swerving, though we've looked at the video a number of times, and the contact between the two sure looked like a racing incident to us. So it goes.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Grizzly Nick Heidfeld had a heck of a start, jumping from sixth to second by the second turn. He then grimly held off all comers for most of the race while Seb Vettel could never quite get away from him. In the end, he wound up on the third step of the podium after holding back a hard-charging Mark Webber for four laps at the end of the race. Good job, Griz!
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. The death of their KERS unit made Webber's start understandable. His fight back up the order to finish fourth was impressive, and Vettel's runaway victory despite the lack of KERS had to have cold chills running down the back of every team in the pit lane. Honorable mention to Renault for their second podium in two races.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: After Lewis Hamilton pitted on Lap 14, he returned to the race in 7th position, right behind Seb Buemi's Toro Rosso in 6th and the Mercedes of Slappy Schumacher. With fresh tires, he was surely faster than either, but approaching the long final straight, he had a decision to make. Would he hang back, protect his tires, and get past them when they pitted? Or did he risk burning his last set of soft tires off the rims by asking them to help him pass both cars? Since this is Lewis Hamilton we're talking about, the answer should be obvious.
Using the aerodynamic tow of the two cars ahead, he slingshotted past Buemi, pulling even with Slappy. However, neither driver really wanted to give up their positions without a fight.
Slappy moved to the right to push Hamilton onto the dusty side of the circuit. This let Buemi, also slipsteaming, attack to the other side of the Silver Arrow. Three abreast they came down to the final turn... who would blink first?
As it turned out, the seven-time World Champion, pinched between two drivers young enough to be his sons, backed out, then dove into the pits. Hamilton gained two positions, Buemi one, and all three impressed by not turning their cars into smoking piles of carbon fiber. Hamilton gets the MotR, but all three could share it.
*MOOOOOOOOO-OOOVE OF THE RACE: Here's something you don't see every day...
That's right, the steering column of The Red Menace's Renault is completely disconnected from the car. Fortunately his brakes still worked so he could bring his car to a relatively safe halt off-track. But what caused his steering to break?
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
*THE WEATHER: Surprisingly, the leaden skies never opened up. Other than a brief sprinkle right around the first pitstops, the race was run entirely in the dry. Of course, the timing of the sprinkles made for some tense moments up and down the pit lane. If a car came in for Inters and it stayed dry, that would be a wasted stop and a few laps run on slow slow tires. However, if a car stayed on slick tires and it began to rain, you're going to be turning laps 45 seconds slower than everybody else... if you can keep it on the track in the first place. Lots of crossed fingers, dice rolling, and coin flipping later, everybody made the right guess.
*THE TIRES: The combination of high temperatures and abrasive track surface made life hell on the Pirelli tires. Three stops were the norm today, four stops were not unheard of... though Gandalf Kobayashi managed to do the race on a two-stopper.
That's what the track looked like around Lap 40. That black stuff is known in the business as "clag," and it's what comes off the tires as they wear. You can see there's a clean line, but get off that you're taking your life in your own hands... literally. Your traction goes away fast when you're driving on little balls of rolled-up rubber. Unfortunately, it only took a few laps for the clag to build up to problem levels. While passing did occur today, it was mostly at the end of the back straight where there was no clag to speak of.
*THE RACE: Once the lights went out, Seb Vettel ran away and hid. Again. By the end of a very busy first lap that saw Grizzly Nick Heidfeld jump into second place, Mark Webber drop to 10th, and everybody else jumbled up, Vettel had a two second lead. However, he never got farther ahead than nine seconds during his cruise to victory, and spent most of it about five seconds in front of second place. That's good... except some of that might have been because neither Red Bull had a working KERS system; Vettel had overheating batteries and couldn't use his after Lap 25, while Webber's went into shutdown mode on the recon lap. Explains his horrid start. Behind Vettel, the race was one of the more confusing things we here at F1U! had ever seen. The multitude of pitstops made keeping accurate track of what was going on nigh impossible.
*AFTER THE RACE: McLaren's Lewis Hamilton had a bad day. Starting in second position, he got stuck behind Grizzly Nick Heidfeld for some 14 laps, ran out of soft tires at the halfway point, spent half of the contest on the slower hard tires and stumbled all the way down to seventh. At one point though, he was in third, being harried by Ferrari's HWMNBN, who was faster at that point in the race. Hamilton made two defensive moves to protect his position against a passing attempt by the Spaniard, who then clipped the McLaren coming out of the next turn. This sent the Ferrari to the pits for a new nose. Both drivers were brought before the Stewards post-race and handed 20sec. time penalties... HWMNBN for hitting Hamilton, Hamilton for his swerves. This penalty kicked Hamilton from seventh to eighth, while HWMNBN did not lose a position. F1U! thinks the penalties, while awfully ticky-tack, were both legit. We have yet to see Hamilton's swerving, though we've looked at the video a number of times, and the contact between the two sure looked like a racing incident to us. So it goes.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Grizzly Nick Heidfeld had a heck of a start, jumping from sixth to second by the second turn. He then grimly held off all comers for most of the race while Seb Vettel could never quite get away from him. In the end, he wound up on the third step of the podium after holding back a hard-charging Mark Webber for four laps at the end of the race. Good job, Griz!
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull. The death of their KERS unit made Webber's start understandable. His fight back up the order to finish fourth was impressive, and Vettel's runaway victory despite the lack of KERS had to have cold chills running down the back of every team in the pit lane. Honorable mention to Renault for their second podium in two races.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: After Lewis Hamilton pitted on Lap 14, he returned to the race in 7th position, right behind Seb Buemi's Toro Rosso in 6th and the Mercedes of Slappy Schumacher. With fresh tires, he was surely faster than either, but approaching the long final straight, he had a decision to make. Would he hang back, protect his tires, and get past them when they pitted? Or did he risk burning his last set of soft tires off the rims by asking them to help him pass both cars? Since this is Lewis Hamilton we're talking about, the answer should be obvious.
Using the aerodynamic tow of the two cars ahead, he slingshotted past Buemi, pulling even with Slappy. However, neither driver really wanted to give up their positions without a fight.
Slappy moved to the right to push Hamilton onto the dusty side of the circuit. This let Buemi, also slipsteaming, attack to the other side of the Silver Arrow. Three abreast they came down to the final turn... who would blink first?
As it turned out, the seven-time World Champion, pinched between two drivers young enough to be his sons, backed out, then dove into the pits. Hamilton gained two positions, Buemi one, and all three impressed by not turning their cars into smoking piles of carbon fiber. Hamilton gets the MotR, but all three could share it.
*MOOOOOOOOO-OOOVE OF THE RACE: Here's something you don't see every day...
That's right, the steering column of The Red Menace's Renault is completely disconnected from the car. Fortunately his brakes still worked so he could bring his car to a relatively safe halt off-track. But what caused his steering to break?
Wheeeeeee!
Yeah, that'll do it. Petrov ran wide into a turn and wound up going agricultural. He thought he could keep going at full speed across the grass... he was wrong. Remember, F1 cars are totally unsprung, and the driver doesn't have a seat; they sit on the floor of the cockpit. The landing must have really, really hurt... maybe the Mooooooo-ooootR will ease the pain.*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
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