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/
 
I always get onto this forum wondering how the Hamilton over-sympathisers are going to paint the latest incident, and this time it seems it's by dedicating half of the discussion to how Massa is generally a bad and uncompetitive driver, or by listing all the Hamilton-Massa incidents of the past as being somehow relevant. If Car A has the inside line and has their front wing ahead, and Car B turns in from the outside and hits their rear, Car B caused an avoidable accident. Locking up the front tyres, which some people have offered as consolation/explanation would cause the car to skid straight on, not turn left into the path of another car. I would be impressed if the members of the forum could unanimously accept he made an error, rather than offering excuses or even voting him driver of the weekend. Oh wait, Hamilton is tied with Paul di Resta in the Driver of the Weekend poll with 3 votes, 2 votes more than the guy who took pole by half a second and cruised to victory.
 
A very good point which needed saying.

I'm not sure why or when people started saying penalties are only justified if the driver being affected's race was ruined or the offending driver didn't take himself out.

Was it an avoidable accident?
 
Quite clearly he did.

I'm not sure what your point is?

The penalty is awarded for causing the collision, not for how it affects each driver.
 
On the Lewis Hamilton debate.

I might get mocked for this, but i sense whenever he gets something wrong a lot of people are still going to defend him.

It does not matter one little bit about the penalty. Time and time again this season, and possibly over the past two years he keeps getting himself in postions he does not need to be. The contact with Massa was just poor and not needed. A driver of what? 60 races experience?, let alone race winner and world champion Should know better.

He needs to be more aware fo the space he has around, perhaps be a bit more frugal in his racing style. because a lot of times wheater he deserved a penalty or not, He has been the cause of his own downfall.
 
Lets just put this down to another bad day at the office for Lewis and move on. Every race weekend we always have the same arguments over Lewis, lets just focus on what a good job other drivers have done for a change.

Vettel - lights to flag finish, faultless all race.
Button - got in front of Webber at the start which proved to be important and finished a very comfy 2nd place.
Di Resta + Sutil - top drives from the pair of them to get a double points score for the FI team.
Perez - Comfortably in the top 10 all race and finished 10th for Sauber.
 
Yawn. How predictable the people who don't like talking about Hamilton are the first to start talking about Hamilton.
It's getting to the point where it's hardly worth coming on here when Hamilton makes a mistake, you can almost hear the cracking of the knuckles as certain people warm up their keyboards readying the usual diatribe.
The guy made a mistake - big deal. What's the problem? He was punished, get over it. In case you hadn't noticed, the race ran on for quite a bit longer than the Hamilton-Massa incident. To tar everyone who 'likes' Hamilton with the same brush is, at best, showing your own subjectivity and at worst, ignorant. Not to mention bloody boring.
 
The stewards obviously do or they wouldn't have awarded it.

Eddie Jordan and Martin Brundle think it wasn't deserved.

I won't say what I think so you're wasting your time hounding me.

Okay :)

It's a case of team preference........
I would bet everything I own ...on LH out racing JB...same cars etc.....no team favouratism etc......level playng field...MW on a sabbatical..?
NO Way would Jens get a look in ...but at the moment LH is being compramised by a team who are JB .........d

All the arguments as to why Lewis is doing poorly always come down to "team favoritism", Whitmarsh "loving" Jenson Button etcetera.
When will we get to see some actual arguments instead of conspiracy theories? There is no proof at all that the team is favoring Jenson.
 
thanks for making assumptions.

The irony. If you took the post to be solely aimed at you (it wasn't, which was fairly obvious) then maybe it's because the cap fits? Just as many people who can't wait for Hamilton to make a mistake as those who will readily defend him. Don't see many people ranting about that though? That's my point, always was, but I think you knew that anyway ;)
 
The irony. If you took the post to be solely aimed at you (it wasn't, which was fairly obvious) then maybe it's because the cap fits? Just as many people who can't wait for Hamilton to make a mistake as those who will readily defend him. Don't see many people ranting about that though? That's my point, always was, but I think you knew that anyway ;)

My bad, maybe because your first sentence was aimed at me and then you continued on without any whitespace or anything it came across as being aimed at me.

I see you edited out your first sentence. Oh well.
 
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