2010 Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying - Textbook Idiocy

[teabagyokel]

There is every chance that it may rain at the Malaysia Grand Prix at some point as it has done in the last two years. Each team boss will be hoping that their strategists don't forget that their job is not to attempt to outthink God.

It was in Sepang in 2009 that reality hit Ferrari that cruising through Q1 was now others preserve. Felipe Massa has thus exited at this stage twice in a row!

A year later and qualifying was wet. As the midfield runners went out to set times early, the frontrunners took their time and waited. Mark Webber, both Mercedes, both McLarens and both Ferraris sat in the garage and watched the rain get heavier...

When they got out there, their early times stood because the rain just got heavier - Schumacher was out on full wets. The session finished with this order:

[COLOR=rgb(0, 0, 255)]KUB DLR[/COLOR] [COLOR=rgb(255, 0, 0)]VET[/COLOR] [COLOR=rgb(0, 0, 255)]PET KOB ALG BUE SUT HUL LIU BAR[/COLOR] [COLOR=rgb(255, 0, 0)]WEB BUT MSC[/COLOR] [COLOR=rgb(0, 128, 0)]GLO[/COLOR] ROS [COLOR=rgb(0, 128, 0)]KOV [/COLOR][bg=#FFFF00][COLOR=rgb(0, 128, 0)]TRU[/COLOR] [COLOR=rgb(255, 0, 0)]ALO HAM MAS [/COLOR][COLOR=rgb(0, 128, 0)]CHD SEN DIG[/COLOR][/bg]

Seb Vettel had joined the midfield runners in the top 11, and the rain watchers of Hamilton and the two Ferraris found themselves in the elimination zone. Worse still for the silver fellas, Button had beached himself in a gravel trap and started 17th.

In essense, Mercedes and Red Bull were luckier; Rosberg and Webber made the same mistakes as the McLarens and Ferraris but made up the front row of the grid. But there is no excusing the arrogance of the Big Four at last year's Malaysian GP. They seemed to have learned by Spa, but you still can't say for certain that Massa will not be out in Q1 for the third consecutive year.

 

[Brogan]

It never ceases to amaze me that teams with decades of experience can't see what every armchair fan can; which is to just get a banker lap in.

So what if a set of tyres are wasted.
There's no excuse for any of the top 5 teams not getting through to Q2, barring accidents.

 

[Galahad]

This follows on from the Charlie Whiting thread to some extent.

One gets the feeling with McLaren these days that every decision has to be run through Colossus before they make their minds up. But Ferrari have been just as bad on occasion. Certain teams seem consistently to get a better grip on tactical decisions than others and it can make a huge difference over the course of a season. Renault got to the stage where they were, undoubtedly, too good at it for their own good!

 

[teabagyokel]

Renault got to the stage where they were, undoubtedly, too good at it for their own good!

This follows on from the Charlie Whiting thread to some extent.

One gets the feeling with McLaren these days that every decision has to be run through Colossus before they make their minds up. But Ferrari have been just as bad on occasion. Certain teams seem consistently to get a better grip on tactical decisions than others and it can make a huge difference over the course of a season.

It is interesting that we don't know how RBR actually ran in Malaysia last year, because they did not get that challenge from the other teams. I know practice results are often uninstructive, but Hamilton split them in FP3 last year.

You can't make these errors and throw away these points. Remember Raikkonen running on full wets on a bone-dry track at Sepang in 2009?

However, some seem to get it right more often than not. Nick Heidfeld seemed to have a gift of finishing 2nd in these situations. Wet races are a nice challenge, and get them right they can contribute to a title - look at Hamilton in 2008, for example!

 

[johnnoble1990]

Anyone know which race it was where everyone was scared of this happening again, so they all went out in Q1 really early to get a dry lap in, and then it started raining, so rather than backing off to get space people started trying to overtake each other and it was mayhem. I remember watching it was so fun.

EDIT: Think i just found it was spa.

 

[Andrea_Moda_Rules]

It never ceases to amaze me that teams with decades of experience can't see what every armchair fan can; which is to just get a banker lap in.

So what if a set of tyres are wasted.
There's no excuse for any of the top 5 teams not getting through to Q2, barring accidents.

I remember a mate of mine, a Moto GP fan, trying F1 again after years of being dissintrested talking about this

He asked me about how Mclaren, Ferrari inparticular could get is so wrong, I told of him the teams excuse (Mclarens at least from memory), They relied on the weather forcast. He's response was along the lines how plucking stupid, how anybody could be that much of an idiot and thay nobdy belives weather forcasts. All i could do was shrug my shoudlers laugh and agree.

so even people who arn't fans could see what Mclaren and Ferrari didn't