Oh the irony! Well done to Max, Christian, Helmut and RBR. There will be far worse days in the future as Verstappen matures, but they've got some reward for being brave and decisive today. Good to see Rosberg avoided punishment today and credit to Lauda for having an opinion and being prepared to air it. Yet more dissapointing antics from Toto and Paddy though...
Fair play... Totally proved me wrong. He was a little fortune given Mercs implosion and Ricciardo totally using the wrong strategy but he delivered... and that's racing
no, I just put forwards a different point of view, I didn't say Vettel doesn't moan, I said he moans for a particular reason, he didn't moan about drivers UNTIL he got punished because Alonso whined. as to RBR, I go devils advocate because the blatant anti-RBR and bias spouted on here is a joke and needs to be balanced. Now go cuddle your Lewis doll and cry.
Have to say I thought Vettel was the big loser today. To not grab the win when the Mercs were out basically leaves him a long old season ahead to chase. Raikonnen is 2nd in the Championship and there's much chance of me knocking one in Liz Hurley and Shakira than there is of him mounting a title challenge. I wanna see Mr Ricciardo in a car that can fight for wins regularly- that kid is ferociously quick and great to watch! Next thing to keep an eye on is the Renault PU that is apparently testing this week with a view to use in Canada! That could make it interesting because that Red Bull chassis is brilliant.
There's plenty of bias on many things when it comes to sport and plenty here from all sides. We all have our opinions and of course they're influenced by our own bias from time to time. I think it's near impossible to be truly objective no matter how hard we try. I'm not a fan of Helmut or Horner, I just don't like them much at all, so rather than hide it, I just put it out there so my bias can be taken in to account every time I take a pop at them, Much easier that way. I don't have anything against RBR as a team though.
Right. You ready for this, DHC ? A few technicalities are necessary in order to get a good understanding of the difficulties now faced by F1 drivers but I'll try to keep it simple. Hopefully you'll agree the background knowledge is worthwhile. The difficulty with clutches in high-spec race cars is that, like brakes, they are usually made from carbon fibre. This is not only because carbon is very light but also because it is immensely strong and durable. A win-win-win situation then, surely? No. Not quite. The downside is that carbon is extremely temperature sensitive and that temperature has a direct influence upon friction. Let's speak of brakes first because they tend to be understood more intuitively. The optimal operating temperature is upwards of 700˚C and can be as much as 1000˚C, depending upon thickness and construction, which will also vary according to vehicle weight and race distance. Thus it will be seen that a driver MUST have brakes up to temperature so that when they are first applied at Turn 1, they provide a predictable response. During the formation lap and especially just before arriving on the grid, brakes are brought up above optimum temperature (more so for those at the front of the grid who are stationary for longest) so that by the time the lights go out, they will be just right for the first corner. That's how carbon works; but actually, we are not only concerned with brakes… Apply the same thinking process to the clutch. It has undergone a whole lap of gearchanging and thus become cooler than optimal for grid-launch. How does a driver know where the bite point is when a carbon clutch is so variable according to temperature? To emphasise the point, no two clutches are exactly alike, even if they are built to identical specification for the same car; and this means that what is optimal for one, is not for another. Now we can sense at least some of the technical difficulty and why, in the first place, designers set about trying to overcome it with all manner of cunning devices to reduce or eliminate the variables. As is so often the case with technological solutions, different teams soon converged upon the same idea: that of using two paddles, the first of which would not allow the car to move unless the second was also used. This allowed the first ('primary' or 'master') paddle to find the bite point regardless of clutch temperature and variations in exactitude and efficiency; and for it to then send a signal to preset the other clutch paddle (either directly or via the ECU), thus overcoming human error – so long as the paddles were used at the right moment, in sequence and according to previously calculated optimum revs. Simple. Problem solved; back then; pre 2016… Back to the future: In an effort to put greater emphasis upon the driver, all of the interactive solution described above, or anything designed to achieve the effect – which is not too dissimilar to a form of traction control – has been outlawed! For 2016, drivers may only use one hand on one paddle in order to operate the clutch. Although two paddles may still be fitted for other reasons (not worth going into here) if a team or driver has decided upon two*, no communication between them is allowed, even via an intermediate device such as the ECU, for instance. This means the driver must now find a variable bite-point (according to parameters set out above) and that it be found at precisely the right moment when lights go out, without any outside or mechanical assistance at all. Inevitably, as was intended when the idea was first mooted, small differences in design between teams and, more significantly, their respective drivers are enormously amplified. *Drivers are fussy. What suits one may be anathema to another.
Adendum to above, and partly why I began by speaking of brakes: I omitted to say that hitting a brake pedal with 100kg of pressure is, once one has become accustomed, far easier in principle than using a clutch – especially as one has just had yet another lap of practice to feel the response.
if you read my posts this season you'll see I have attributed blame to Hamilton for practically every issue he has had this year, including today. I can see the wood from the trees, you just slam him at every available opportunity and ignore failings of others. That's not balancing any bias as there is little bias in this forum. if you think the media is biased towards him, which the Brit press is ( Germanyits Vettel, Italy it's Ferrari etc) , that is different, but not this forums problem. Why vent it out here to rebalance an issue that doesn't exist on here?
on a quick note about the stewards, they deemed Ham\Ros no penalty, yet penalised Magnussen for having a last lap lunge at Palmer!? Seems a bit odd when you consider the two incidents. Would the Merc crash be deemed a racing incident if it hadn't been teammates? Stewards worried about affecting the title race with penalties?
Was yesterday the first true symbol of Rosberg absolutely not yielding an inch? We will see. The more Merc have issues the better the racing will be to watch!
Send them to the back of the grid for Monaco!! That'll open up the championship. It's got to be fairer than the one season double points in the final race.
Actually that would probably be a fairer result, and a great way to spice up Monaco! Both arguably caused an avoidable high-speed collision, which could have created a bigger accident if others had to take avoiding action. Is one way to sort it out to punish them both, rather than letting them off? As said earlier, Magnussen was penalised for a lunge on Palmer at the end of the race, both still finished, so why no action for Ham/Ros?
On first sighting it appeared to me that it was Hamilton's fault. Then I noticed Rosberg's flashing light. The tv analysis was very interesting and explained Rosberg's light. To his credit in his interview that I saw, he didn't blame Hamilton but I think he was a bit optimistic, maybe felt more pressure. I know it's a racing instinct, sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't. In this case, it only affected those two. But Mercedes should at least internally discipline them, a big fine and a warning. I didn't see the Magnussen incident so can't comment on that. But did it affect their finishing positions? If not, then it seems harsh.
In all fairness, neither driver blamed the other. They both had their views on it and I think they could each see why the other did what they did. As for the Renualts, it made no difference as Palmer came out ahead still, so not really sure what the penalty was actually for, unless it was for forcing another driver off the track.
Bottas got punished in Bahrain, yet was much further alongside than Hamilton was yesterday. Seems to me if you hit Hamilton you get punished, but if he hits you, it's okay.
