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The Formula 1 2012 Season |OT2| WHY AREN'T YOU WATCHING THIS SEASON?!
- Thread starter Leunam
- Start date
The usual.
Alonso love
Webber worship
Hamilton respect
And the Vettel hate.
On a serious note. Pretty exciting qualy it was
Good article. It covers pretty much exactly why I felt things went badly for him last year. But from the sounds of that article, he gets along far better with Newey than I'd expected... never would've thought AN would be in a position to comment on Webber's state of mind going into 2011, but there you go.
Tell you what, though. I'm hoping that we can see Webber cut through to see what happens if it's him vs. Vettel. Will there be team orders? Will Webber lose his shit and accidentally take him out under pressure? Will Vettel defend too aggressively and lose one of his rear tyres? Maintain the gap?
Probably making too much of it, but I love a bit of drama.
2011 Race Summary
At the start of the race, Mark Webber made a slow start from pole position; he 'bogged down' with too low revs, allowing Hamilton to take the lead. The Ferraris were on the inside and outside of Vettel as they approached the first turn, and Alonso managed to get ahead of Vettel. Massa had made another good start but after being on the outside of Vettel at Turn 1, he eventually slipped behind Nico Rosberg into sixth place. Jenson Button had a poor start, slipping down from seventh to tenth in the first lap. Contrastly, Michael Schumacher had another good start moving from tenth to eighth on lap 1. Meanwhile further back Nick Heidfeld and Paul di Resta made contact and dropped to the back of the field. After that, Hamilton was leading the race from Webber, Alonso, Vettel, Rosberg and Massa. Sutil was in seventh, after a good start, followed by Schumacher, Petrov and Button completing the top 10.
On the fourth lap, Alonso ran wide at Turn 2 getting a wheel on the wet grass, forcing him onto the tarmac. This allowed Vettel to gain third place. Only a few laps later though, Alonso repassed Vettel into Turn 1. Later, on lap 16, Rubens Barrichello suffered an engine failure, however he was able to limp back to the pits.
Heidfeld received a drive-through penalty for causing an avoidable accident with di Resta, but did not have time to serve it. Whilst trying to make progress through the field, he was squeezed off the track by Sébastien Buemi at the chicane and crashed out. Buemi had to pit for new tyres, and was later given a five-place grid penalty at the next race, the Hungarian Grand Prix. Di Resta, fought his way through the field to finish in thirteenth by the end of the race.
Vitaly Petrov was defending very well against Button's McLaren for ninth place; whilst Felipe Massa overtook Rosberg's Mercedes for fifth place after Massa's Ferrari engineer, Rob Smedley, had told him it was necessary for his strategy to work. Button eventually passed Petrov and started closing on Schumacher. Before the first round of pit stops, Hamilton ran wide allowing Webber to come up the inside of him through the final corner. Hamilton instantly dived up the inside on the run down to Turn 1 and repassed Webber.
Vettel spun at Turn 10 putting him eleven seconds behind third placed Fernando Alonso, the first three positions were covered by just three seconds and Vettel was lapping half a second slower than them. At the pit stops, Webber pitted first in an attempt to get the undercut and came out behind Sutil, but managed to work it out, passing Vettel and catching Massa when Hamilton and Alonso pitted at the same time, bringing them just out of the pits as soon as Webber and Massa were braking for turn 1. Massa took the lead ahead of Webber, Hamilton and Alonso with Vettel pitting to ninth place. When Massa pitted he dropped to eighth, just in front of Vettel starting a new battle. After these stops Webber had undercut Hamilton into the lead – leading a race for the first time in the season – with Alonso in third position. During the pit stop phase the two Mercedes cars were closing on Petrov's Renault in the DRS zone leading to the Veedol Chicane. Rosberg passed Petrov on the straight and Schumacher followed him through. Schumacher later spun at exactly the same place as Vettel, falling behind both Sutil and Petrov.
It looked as if Sutil and Button's two-stop strategies were successful as Sutil got ahead of Rosberg in the later pit stops and finished the race in sixth place. Button was also going strong – catching and passing many drivers including Rosberg for sixth at Turn 1 when Rosberg outbraked himself and ran wide. Button, like Sutil, was only passed in the pit-line and not on the track, although his back luck continued from Silverstone and he suffered his second successive mechanical retirement, with a hydraulics failure. Only two laps later, Vitantonio Liuzzi became the fourth and final retirement of the race when his car had an electrical failure.
Towards the front, Massa and Vettel started to move through the field, passing Kobayashi and Petrov. In the second pit-stop phase Webber pitted first, but was lapping slowly after stop struggling to get the new tyres up to temperature. The mechanical grip of Hamilton's McLaren in cold conditions helped him, and he got past Webber in the stops with the opposite effect of the undercut. Webber tried to overtake Hamilton on the outside of Turn 2, Hamilton kept him behind. Alonso was the last to pit, and came out in the lead, but due to his tyres not being at operating temperature, Hamilton made an easy pass at Turn 2 and got past Alonso to retake the lead.
Hamilton was then first to pit for the medium compound tyres and got out in front of Alonso and Webber, he pulled away and took the race victory. All the drivers on three-stop strategies pitted for the primes in the last ten laps – not wanting to go on to the medium compound, which was 1.5 seconds slower per lap than the softer tyres, for too long. The battle between Massa and Vettel for fourth went to the pits on the penultimate lap, Massa had a slower pit stop than Vettel, and Vettel got out in front after he had not been able to pass on track. After the top 3, Vettel, Massa and Sutil completed the top six with Rosberg ahead of Schumacher, Kobayashi, from 17th on the grid, finished in ninth and Petrov completed the points finishers in tenth, ahead of Kobayashi's team-mate Sergio Pérez. After the race, Fernando Alonso stopped his Ferrari on the circuit, and got a lift back to parc ferme on the sidepod of Mark Webber's Red Bull.
Circuit Info
[Click for Onboard]
Laps
60
Circuit length5.148 km (3.199 mi)
Race length308.863 km (191.919 mi)
Lap RecordKimi Räikkönen - McLaren-Mercedes - 2004 - 1:13.780
Most Wins (Drivers)Rudolf Caracciola (6)
Most Wins (Constructors)Ferrari (20)
Previous Winners
2011 - Lewis Hamilton for McLaren-Mercedes at Nurburgring-GP
2010 - Fernando Alonso for Ferrari at Hockenheimring
2009 - Mark Webber for Red Bull-Renault at Nurburgring-GP
2008 - Lewis Hamilton for McLaren-Mercedes at Hockenheimring
2007 - Held as European Grand Prix
2006 - Michael Schumacher for Ferrari at Hockenheimring
2005 - Fernando Alonso for Renault at Hockenheimring
Videos highlighting the German Grand Prix
Highlights from the 1961 German Grand Prix
Highlights from the 1982 German Grand Prix
Onboard lap of the former Hockeheimring layout
Highlights from the 2003 German Grand Prix
Changes from 2011
-The drag strip around the outside of turn 16 will have all the rubber removed before the Grand Prix.
-Better quality artificial grass will be used on the exit of turn 1, it will be three metres in width and extended to ensure drivers have to cross it to get back on the track.
-An additional conveyor belt will be fitted after two rows on all six row barriers, these barriers will then comprise, conveyor, two rows, conveyor, four rows and then wall.
GP Facts
-This will be the 33rd time the German Grand Prix has been held at Hockenheim. It first staged the event in 1970, when Jochen Rindt took his final grand prix win before his tragic death at Monza the following month. Hockenheim was next used in 1977, after Niki Lauda’s crash at the Nürburgring spelled the end of that track’s hosting of the race until the current event-sharing programme was instituted in 2009.
-This year marks the 10th anniversary of the last major redesign of the Hockenheimring. The somewhat controversial changes made for the 2002 race included the abandonment of the long, forested straights of the circuit, the shortening of the track and the construction of the new Mercedes Tribune.
-The old Hockenheim, with its long, punishing straights was always a car breaker, but never more so than in 1994. Eleven of the 26 starters went out in a series of unrelated accidents on lap one. A further seven cars fell by the wayside during the race until at the end Gerhard Berger led home just eight finishers. One of the most notable retirements was that of Jos Verstappen whose Benetton was enveloped in a fireball when fuel sprayed over his car during a pit stop.
-The 2000 race will go down as one of the most memorable German GPs at Hockenheim. In an incident-packed race, Ferrari’s Rubens Barrichello took his first GP win, despite starting from 18th, having to cope with rain and also a safety car intervention, due to a disgruntled former Mercedes employee invading the track.
-Michael Schumacher has the most German Grand Prix wins, with four, achieved in 1995, 2002, 2004 and 2006. All were scored at Hockenheim. Michael and brother Ralf are the only German drivers to have won their home event. Ralf won here in 2001 for BMW-Williams.
-That means that the German GP is just one of three currently raced circuits that defending champion Sebastian Vettel has yet to win. His best result at a German GP remains second place at the Nürburgring in 2009. The other GP victories that continue to elude him are Canada and the next race up, Hungary.
-The German GP has been run at Hockenheim seven times since the circuit redesign and in that time the man on pole has gone on to win four times (‘02, ‘03, ‘04 and ’08). On two other occasions it’s been the second-placed starter who has taken victory (2006 and 2010). Only once has a driver started from off the front row and won. That honour goes to Fernando Alonso, who started from third and won in 2005.
Drivers Championship
Constructors Championship
Fantasy League Championship
Templar Wizard
Member
2010 - Fernando Alonso for Renault at Hockenheimring
uhhhhhh what?
uhhhhhh what?
I've seen the photos before, but this is still depressing
Mohonky
Member
I think this could be an interesting race tonight. The McLarens I think will be good in the dry, they were going very well in quali, but it seemed at the later stages with more rain they couldn't keep pace but I think they may have a better dry setup as until the quali went to full wets, they were right up there.
Will be interesting, as a Hamilton fan it's been frustrating to see him running round in no mans land, not fast enough to overtake or challenge for the lead but enough to hold himself in the upper mid pack. Hopefully with these new upgrades he can challenge for the lead again. Button definitely looks happier.
Will be interesting, as a Hamilton fan it's been frustrating to see him running round in no mans land, not fast enough to overtake or challenge for the lead but enough to hold himself in the upper mid pack. Hopefully with these new upgrades he can challenge for the lead again. Button definitely looks happier.
Red Bull in trouble with the stewards again, this time with claims of engine mappings being used to illegally blow the diffuser off throttle.
It has been noted recently that the RBR cars did sound like they were doing this but now the FIA must have some proof.
It has been noted recently that the RBR cars did sound like they were doing this but now the FIA must have some proof.
Mohonky
Member
Colour me surprised.
I'm sure they are just having trouble 'interpreting' the rules again.
Looks like a flat-spot has been deliberately engineering into the engine map so that when the driver needs maximum torque, they will have to press the pedal more than usual delivering more exhaust flow than normal. Basically this will provide more downforce in slower corners.
Yup. Start from the pit lane or worse?
Starting from back of grid like Hamilton had to do for fuelling rule breach is the most likely punishment.
Yeah most likely this.
But if it is found illegal wouldn't hey start in he pits because they'd need to make changes to their car in parc ferme?
Yup, that's what I thought.
I'd guess they'll just change it, start from the pit lane and be done with it, but this being Red Bull, who knows.
Stronghammer22
Member
Noooo!!! I changed from Ferrari to Red Bull this weekend on F1RM due to Massa's lack of performance. lol. It was looking like a good decision, until this...
Helmut Marko.
'Extreme' maps were banned I thought
brotkasten
Member
Nothing serious will happen to Red Bull. A slap on the wrist and that's it.
Never won a German gp or in July. Looks like he wont be able to change that if they are forced to start from the pits.
Dunno about that, I think they've already been getting away with other things and this seems a bit more serious. I think Horner's comments are telling too, this time he kept re-iterating that 'it's down to the stewards'. Usually he looks quite cocky about it but not this time, who knows. I wonder if they would have gotten away with it in the dry.
Yup, seems that way.
Lol.....still plenty of races to go, if red bull cheated then they deserve to be punished. Some how, I think they will get out of it like usual
Thats what i thought as well. Normally he is more relaxed and open for a chat. He was more frustrated this time. I think they will be punished this race.
Alonso just sealed his championship lead. I know we still have 10 races but a 38 point lead to webber must be enough. I dont see alonso having a DNF this season. he has been really consistent.
Yeah, no penalty according to Sky.
I'm actually really impressed by the Ferrari's reliability, I know Fernando has maxed his opportunities but the car has been really reliable throughout. I guess him getting the championship wouldn't be sad. I just wished it was a bit closer at this point, Damn you Mclaren and Redbull for not being more with it.
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