Grand Prix 2011 Singapore Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Getting closer and closer

Every time we say that Vettel won't win, he comes up trumps with a flawless performance and Monza was no different, taking pole, won the race and put a smart move on Alonso which won him the race.

Ferrari have pretty much admitted defeat and are stopping development on their frankly dissapointing 2011 car which so far has only taken one win at the rain affected British Grand Prix which was also the only track where the EBD was banned which was negatively affecting McLaren and Red Bull more than it was Ferrari. It means that Fernando Alonso will have gone 5 years without adding to his 2 world championships which he took at Renault in 2005 and 2006 and he will be more determined than ever to fix that soon. Felipe Massa looks to be just going through the motions and is a shadow of his pre 2009 self.

Jenson Button continued his strong second half of the season with a podium at Monza to further assert himself as the number one driver at McLaren, indeed his performances recently have been putting his team mate in the shade and a series of overtakes in Spa and Monza have showed that he has the mantle to be the leading driver at McLaren.

In contrast Lewis Hamilton has been somewhat troubled recently, after a crash in Spa, a spin in Hungary and just 1 podium in 8 races, he was notably less agressive in Monza, particularly when trying to overtake Schumacher who arguably should have been penalised for agressive defending which other drivers have been penalised for recently.

Apart from over agressive defending Schumacher has been driving a lot better recently and has been up at the front on a more consistent basis and surely he must be close to a podium now? Rosberg has been very unlucky recently, a good strategy in Monza was ruined when he was t-boned by the missile that was Liuzzi who was given a penalty for his spin, he claimed that he was pushed off by Kovalainen but this wasn't true and the stewards took a dim view of him.

Toro Rosso have enjoyed a very strong second half to the year with another double points finish in Monza with Alguesari continuing his Lazarus act from near expulsion to take his season total to 16, 3 ahead of his team mate Buemi who took a solitary point in the sister Toro Rosso, both will be looking to get the upper hand on each other as the season draws to a close and Riccardo in the rear view mirrors when the 2012 contracts get drawn up.

Renault showed a resurgance in Monza with Bruno Senna taking his first F1 points in 9th, he might have finished higher but he was caught up in the first corner crash which forced Petrov to retire after both cars had made it into Q3, but with Singapore being a totally different track, it will be a good test on whether the last upgrades for the car have worked.

Singapore is the first night race in F1 but apart from 2008 which was affected by deliebarate crashing and race fixing, the races have been rather dull with little action throughout the race and many fans criticising the circuit despite decent overtaking figures.

For Galahads superb write up, see here http://cliptheapex.com/pages/marina-bay-street-circuit/
 
Why would McLaren send Lewis out at the back of that gaggle of cars?

And then they can't get back out because of a fueling issue. :givemestrength: (Which I'm not entirely convinced of anyway)
 
Can I come out and say something slightly controversial?

I like the chicane. I really do like the chicane. When I hear that eeijit Jordan say its too difficult I cringe. OK, its not elegant. But maybe F1 should challenge the drivers to do something difficult that they might not enjoy. They're supposed to be the greatest drivers in the world.

Far too often, the drivers are getting used to a load of "normal" corners. Why not let them do something difficult? The Grand Hotel chicane at Monaco is by a long way a 'worse' corner (its so bad the cars can't actually tackle it, so you end up with a clumsy tango any time two cars go anywhere near it in any kind of vacinity to it). But it is a different challenge - thats what street circuits are there for!

It is a perfect street circuit corner. Get it wrong and feel the armco. Again, if you cope with the Grand Hotel corner, then this one works on the same principle. Far too much of Singapore is like Valencia at night, but there are some corners where the walls loom large enough to cause a challenge.

So the chicane must be kept, to keep the Singapore Grand Prix, as a whole, an interesting challenge. Lets not mollycoddle F1 drivers. They're big boys now, and its about time they faced corners where they absolutely cannot err, where the half-a-second you'd lose on the mammoth run-offs of Shanghai or Sakhir looks like a distant wish as you stand on a dark Asian roadside.
 
Controversial indeed. Although I don't like the chicane, drivers do need to be challenged on a street circuit. I just think that that area of the track can be changed.
 
Massa/Hamilton
One minute EJ says it's the teams fault for not planning track position properly like Red Bull did

then all of a sudden Lewis is at fault and needs chastising for trying to sort out track position himself

And a team like McLaren are not able to fuel a car for a 2 lap run in the garage without it taking several minutes?
 
Why would McLaren send Lewis out at the back of that gaggle of cars?

And then they can't get back out because of a fueling issue. :givemestrength: (Which I'm not entirely convinced of anyway)

but if they were just keeping lewis in to save his tyres,then why didnt they just say that?and you could see in the footage lewis putting his gloves on ready to go back out.it also looked like they were about to take the covers off the tyres.
 
Massa/Hamilton
One minute EJ says it's the teams fault for not planning track position properly like Red Bull did

then all of a sudden Lewis is at fault and needs chastising for trying to sort out track position himself

And a team like McLaren are not able to fuel a car for a 2 lap run in the garage without it taking several minutes?

these things just give the conspiracy theorists more ammo.
some ppl after quali on a different forum were saying they know someone who works for mclaren and apparently noone really likes lewis in the team,so they are more focused on button doing well,lewis is just a after thought.
 
Is lewis a set of softer tyres short now for the race? If its a three stop he'll need three sets and only has two because of the puncture...is that right?
 
BBC weather:

But as you know, they usually get it wrong. It'll be interesting as to what Jos says.
(All times Singapore time - race starts at 20:00 SGT)

08:00
(Sun)

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Sunny Intervals

11:00
(Sun)

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Thundery Shower

14:00
(Sun)

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Heavy Rain Shower

17:00
(Sun)

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Heavy Rain Shower

20:00
(Sun)

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Heavy Rain Shower
 
Any word on what caused the Q2 puncture?

Did Lewis pick it up on debris or was there wall contact?

Shame because I thought he was in line for victory with a full set of Super Softs.

Now I don't know...:thinking::dunno:
 
McLaren keep making the same mistake in Q2 - try and preserve a set of options for Lewis by him going out on primes, set a good time, then bottle it and send him out on options just in case. The whole point of that strategy is to not bottle it!

Thankfully they recovered the best of a bad choice by not sending him out again in Q3 so at least they have the same number of options as everyone else.
 
McLaren keep making the same mistake in Q2 - try and preserve a set of options for Lewis by him going out on primes, set a good time, then bottle it and send him out on options just in case. The whole point of that strategy is to not bottle it!

Thankfully they recovered the best of a bad choice by not sending him out again in Q3 so at least they have the same number of options as everyone else.
Except one has a hole in it doesnt it? the other folks a just a bit worn out.
Agree about the bottling it:rolleyes:
 
He clipped a kerb apparently.

That just about sums up his luck this year; he can't have been the only one to clip a kerb, considering how everyone was taking the chicane at turn 10.

Edit - Here's some more detail and a quote:

Hamilton thought the puncture was caused by a loose kerb bolt rather than debris from Kamui Kobayashi’s earlier crash.

“I’m not sure, I went over a kerb and then they said they lost pressure immediately, so it might have been on a kerb. There are lots of bolts hanging out of kerbs, that’s what they’ve been having problems with over the weekend, so maybe that’s it.”

http://adamcooperf1.com/2011/09/24/lewis-hamilton-we-were-too-late-to-get-going/
 
I seriously have no idea as to why McLaren sent Lewis out at the end of Q2. The only cars that could of possibly been ahead of him were the Mercedes and the Force Indias. Even if they all did, Lewis would have been 10th. It was near impossible for anyone else to get ahead of him and as it was, neither of the Force Indias even made it past him. If they hadn't of sent him out, he'd of not had that puncture and would be in a much, much better position.

Also, it's frustrating how he gets a puncture, which looks as though it was just pure bad luck, from one of the dodgy kerbs and then he also has a refuelling problem. I'm sorry, but when is Vettel going to have ANY kind of bad luck this season?

It's really annoying because im sure Hamilton was compromised on his first flying lap in Q3 and thus could have been quicker and who knows, on the 2nd run, when the track seemed to be even faster, as Vettel made a mistake, maybe Lewis could have even snatched pole. Lewis has set some very fast times round here in the past.

For tomorrow it looks like he will have to do 2 stints on super-softs then about 30 laps in the soft (prime) tyre. If tyres behave better in the race, like they did in Monaco, then this could be the optimal strategy anyway for track position, however, if tyres degrade a lot, which many fear they will, then Lewis will be in big trouble. Could he even try doing a Super-soft, Soft, Soft strategy?
 
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