After reviewing the current state of Formula 1 and the 2013 season I have come to the conclusion that the WDC is Ricciardo's to lose!
It would be nice if he had to battle for the wins a bit more, I hope that next years RBR isnt the class of the field as I dont think he'll get the respect he des rves until he has to fight for it, but RBR/Vettel is the perfect storm, the best driver (afaic) in the best car
Look at his use of KERS: [video=youtube;jXeQizpP5AQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXeQizpP5AQ[/video] Such an intelligent driver.
It's not that simple. When defending from a driver with DRS, you'd think the most sensible thing to do is to use KERS as early as possible. Alonso initially does this, but quickly realises what will happen on the straight. So he saves his KERS and waits until after crossing the DRS activation zone, and the result is that Alonso reaches 320kph - the same as his top speed in qualifying (where he had DRS). We saw how close Hamilton was to Alonso coming out of Eau Rouge. In the race whenever we saw a driver that close and with a DRS advantage, they easily passed. Hamilton tried to be clever by letting Alonso past at La Source, it was brilliant tactical driving and in my opinion if it were anyone other than Alonso, Hamilton would have easily re-passed on the straight. Hamilton tried to do something similar in Canada but Alonso outsmarted him there as well. [NSFW]Look at this: please log in to view this image Compared to: please log in to view this image [/NSFW]
Just watched the race. What the heck did Maldonado think he was doing, did he have a braking issue or something? Appalling driving to take out di Resta. Also commiserations to Kimi - that's going to be a tough record for anyone to beat though.
Massa showed how the Ferrari could fend off anything in a straight line. With or without the use of KERS, he held off the Lotus who had use of DRS and couldn't even get alongside him. Ferrari were pretty trimmed out for the race.
Faster but not by a lot: Alonso vs Mercedes Alonso - 320.1 Hamilton - 317.0 Rosberg - 316.6 Massa vs Raikkonen Massa - 316.9 Raikkonen - 314.0
Presumably they are with DRS activated, so the gap would be smaller as DRS would have less of an effect on the Ferrari's running thinner wings. Ferrari were plain quick without DRS, but that's how you need to be in the race and they got it spot on and shows why they struggled in quali if they had gone with a dry setup.
Maldonado was trying to pit. Unbelievable, I agree; but true.Having outbraked himself, he was on the wrong side of the track to carry out this plan without serious modification. Bearing in mind that he knew there was a tight squabble for position immediately behind, he needed to delay returning to the track until all were past, or rejoin just as he did but postpone tyre refreshment for another lap. What he actually did was not only daft but dangerous: it required him to cut back across traffic and then approach the pit entry from the wrong angle, which no driver could possibly have anticipated. Not only was he in completely the wrong place for the pit entry, such that it was impossible for others to anticipate, but if he survived the reckless chop by some miracle he would then only be able to pit by also cutting across the solid line which defines the entry to the pit lane. Daft is too generous. Plain stupid is a better description. One can only assume that Maldonado hoped di Resta was far enough back to be able to read what he was trying to do. There are two further possible explanations, however, both of which show him under poorer light: a/ he was completely unaware of di Resta – which I find hard to believe. b/ he hoped to force di Resta to take avoiding action in order to comply with his crazy move – which I think is actually close to the truth!
It has been an accident waiting to happen for a long time since they re-did the old bus-stop chicane, I'm sure there's been a lot of near misses as well before then. It is one of the daftest pit entries I can think of and there surely must be a better solution to feed the cars into the pits before they reach that chicane. Then again, it's always been a bit dangerous even before hand (okay it was 1998 but the possibility for this had been there before) [video=youtube;tnv2tctXkA8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnv2tctXkA8[/video]
The above discussion begun by Forza about Alonso's intelligent use of KERS is an interesting one. I agree it is a very clever tactic. It was a classic textbook move which he deployed to perfection. The point is though, that this tactic is only available if the car is slightly and deliberately over-geared in order to allow it. This shows that it formed part of Alonso's (or Ferrari's) thinking when planning their weekend – and we can anticipate the same philosophy at Monza. Prior to the move, it was a case of Hamilton being 'damned if he did and damned if he didn't': If he remained ahead from La Source, Alonso would make a simple DRS pass for sure. By deliberately allowing Alonso past before Eau Rouge, he at least gave himself a fighting chance if Alonso got it wrong (or had already used most of his KERS); and this was another example of supreme intelligence in the heat of battle. We are fortunate to have three absolutely outstanding talents all on track during the same era.