Grand Prix 2013 German Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

So we leave the sunny shores of Great Britain behind and after a short cross channel hop and a chance to pick up some low tax cigarettes and alcohol we're off to the Rhineland in Germany and to the Nurburgring. If you fancy popping over, you could use the time to look around the place and have it valued, as it is currently up for sale.

Coming only a week after the British GP, the tyre debacle will still be very fresh in the minds of all who saw or took part in the race. It is extremely unlikely that any significant changes to the tyre construction will have taken place prior to the start of the race so all eyes will be on P1 to see if the lipped curbs of the, soon to be famous, turn 4 at Silverstone were responsible or was there a deeper issue with this year’s brand of boot?

For two of the home drivers at this race there will be a new focus on succeeding. For Vettel it was the rarest of things, a mechanical failure of a Red Bull, that saw his closest championship rivals close down his points total and put more pressure on. For Rosberg it was his second win of the season at Silverstone and with a clearly improving Merc, a chance perhaps to continue the momentum and mount a title challenge.

All of the top 4 teams go into the next round knowing that they have capable cars that can put them in the mix, so driver skill is becoming ever more important. We've seen that Mercedes can now maintain the pace of qualification in race trim but we've also seen that Red Bull and Ferrari have lost none of their speed while Lotus continue to bring home the points with Kimi.

Further back down the field McLaren have already fallen behind Force India in terms of race pace and are almost in danger of being swallowed up by the improving pace of the two Rosso cars as their drivers have found the inspiration to improve on their performances thanks to a departing Webber.

Williams are still struggling for points but as yet there is no danger of the "young" teams, as they are now being called on TV catching them up. As for Caterham and Marussia, well, they'll be at the track.

So, will the Mercs be on top at their second home GP or will the challenge come from one of the others??

 

[sushifiesta]

They should make the lapped cars fall to the back of the pack rather than waiting for them to overtake then catch up again. Then in the timing system they can put everyone on the lead lap and bob's your uncle you've saved yourself about 3 laps worth of safety car.

 

[MCLS]

That would require common sense, something that's not been seen in F1 in a while!!

 

[Il_leone]

Force India made a bungled pit stop again!! They always seems to to screw one car up each weekend

Toro Rosso - neither driver made any impression and Ricciardo fell backwards again

Mercedes - well that was a turn up and must have left the big bosses with glum faces seeing their cars dropped like a stone somewhat

- Rosberg did not even get into the points

Ferrari

- just don;t look quick enough and strategy worked the risky nature of being behind slower cars cost them today

- Massa - another off is just what he did not need


Lotus
- they actually had the near perfect strategy although their late calls for Kimi denied them a win

Mclaren

- an improvement on the last two races but was helped by errors by other teams to be up there

 

[no-FIAt-please]

Il_leone Rosberg finished 9th.

 

[LifeW12]

Can we forget about the rest of this season now? Its clear who will win, there's little point running the remaining races because they will probably win most of them.

 

[Mephistopheles]

As it turned out a drive through penalty would have made no difference to Webber's race due to the safety car....

Still I cannot understand why it was investigated after the race, just how unsafe does it have to be before it is bloody acted on immediately?

A drive through for the driver and a fine for the team because an innocent man got hurt would have been appropriate, I think RedBull ought to pay the cameraman some compo as well....

 

[Mephistopheles]

Can we forget about the rest of this season now? Its clear who will win, there's little point running the remaining races because they will probably win most of them.

As horrible as that prospect is, it is not RedBull fault or problem....

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

They should make the lapped cars fall to the back of the pack rather than waiting for them to overtake then catch up again. Then in the timing system they can put everyone on the lead lap and bob's your uncle you've saved yourself about 3 laps worth of safety car.

Why should lapped cars be given anything back? They should fall to the back and stay there, where they would still be the lap behind that they were in the first place. The whole rule is stupid and unfair on those who have managed to get themselves a lap ahead.

 

[Quintessentially]

Also lapped cars won't thank you for effectively gifting them an extra lap by fiddling with timing screens as they'll have to carry a penalty in an extra lap of fuel.

 

[Kewee]

Clearly not everyone agrees but the reason to give a lap back to a driver is to keep as many of the drivers on track something to race for and sometimes the lead driver of those that are a lap down is in that position through no fault of their own. A far more important reason to bring them back to the tail of the lead lap is to clear them from the front of the field. Why should the leading drivers have their restart ruined by lapped cars. On a restart blue flags are not enough to provide a clean start for those that have fought hard to be at the front of the field.

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

Kewee the only reason for releasing lapped cars (or so I thought) was so that they weren't in the way of the lead cars on the safety car re-start; nothing to do with giving them a reason to keep going. If that were the reason, why not bring out a pace car every 15 laps or so, just to bunch up the field and let lapped cars catch up?

Lead drivers have to deal with lapped cars all the time, it's part of the penalty for being so much faster.

But in any case, why release a lapped car that's already right at the back of the field? Sheer lunacy.

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

Anyway, on a different subject, and to keep on topic for the thread, I thought I'd say how well the Lotuses did yesterday, and Grosjean in particular, given the problems he's had up to now. Here's hoping he can continue in that vein so that at the end of the season we'll be talking about his performances, rather than his crashes..

Fernando Alonso keeps on putting himself on or near the podium, from some mediocre grid positions.

And hats off to Vettel, who drove another faultless race from the front to extend his championship lead. Is he catchable? That rather depends on whether Ferrari can improve their qualifying performance, whether Lotus can get their race day strategy right and whether Mercedes can get to grips with their tyre degradation (perhaps they need another test?).

 

[Dizzi]

After reading some of these pages all I can say is thank goodness we watched the tennis!
I was very disappointed Williams didn't mange to get in the points, that would have been nice on their 600th race.
Looks like Red Bull/Vettel is unstoppable, again
All my best wishes go to the injured camera man, Red Bull should give him a signed helmet or something as a 'sorry for nearly killing you'. I thought the penalty for that was far more lenient than Mercedes penalty for the dodgy tyre test (which made so much difference to their performance - not.)
Mercedes were awful & obviously haven't sorted the tyre woes.
Lotus may be a spark of hope for a challenge if Ferrari can't get their arses into gear.

 

[The Pits]

Can anyone remember what penalty was issued to Mercedes in the 2010 Hungarian GP? I seem to recall a tyre bouncing down the pit lane then too, one of Rosbergs, in a very similar scenario, I was just wondering what happened then.

 

[The Pits]

Found it.

$50,000 fine, so subject to exchange rates, it seems consistent.

http://www.isport.in/f1/hungarian-gp-mercedes-gp-fined-50000-for-pit-lane-error-1692

 

[Brogan]

It was $50,000.

 

[Jen]

Was this what you meant The Pits

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8169649.stm

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

Loose wheels seem to be rather a common problem don't they? The ever-faster pit stops seem to exacerbate the problem as the risk of cock-up is greater.

 

[Kewee]

Chad Stewarthill......I did say the most important reason for allowing lapped cars to unlap themselves was to allow clean restarts so we appear to agree on this point. You also stated that lead drivers have to deal with lapped cars all the time. Of course they do, nothing in my posting suggested they didn't, but I did point out and I stand by my comment that blue flags are not enough to provide clean restarts, in fact if there are four or five lapped cars in front of the leaders on a restart, the outcome is likely to be chaotic and a ruined race.

 

[Kewee]

Loose wheels seem to be rather a common problem don't they? The ever-faster pit stops seem to exacerbate the problem as the risk of cock-up is greater.

They are, but can anyone remember the last time one happened to Vettel.