Grand Prix 2012 German Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

The German GP marks the half way point in this strangest of seasons.

There have been seven different winners, with Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber the only two able to notch up more than one win.

From having a car which looked to be well off the pace at the start of the season, Fernando Alonso is still leading by 13 points, from Mark Webber of all people. Can he and Ferrari maintain the momentum going forward?

Indeed, in a drastic reverse of fortunes from last season, Mark is comfortably winning the head to head over his double world champion team mate, Sebastian Vettel.
The Red Bull car appears to suit both drivers though and is the class of the field so expect things to change between the top three before the summer break.

It's a different tale at McLaren. Button has gone from winning the first race to only scoring seven points in the last six races. His team mate, Lewis Hamilton has fared better, despite multiple team errors and the best efforts of certain other drivers. He is however languishing in fourth place in the standings, as are McLaren who have been overtaken by Lotus.

What is clear, is the McLaren is no longer in the top three and some (including Button) are even claiming it is behind several of the mid-field teams. This after the results of both McLaren drivers at Silverstone, where they barely scraped 8th and 10th place finishes.
It's a big change from just a few races ago when Hamilton was leading the Drivers' Championship and McLaren were second behind Red Bull in the Constructors'.

Lotus appear to be getting stronger with every race. Surely it's just a matter of time before one of their drivers is on the top step. Which one though? Romain Grosjean looks every bit as good as Kimi Räikkönen and if not for some unfortunate collisions earlier in the season would most likely be ahead of him in the standings.

Mercedes are consistently inconsistent. Michael Schumacher appears to have broken his dreadful run of results and bad luck but Nico Rosberg had a very poor race last time out, finishing a lowly 15th.

Likewise for Williams; the car appears to have the pace, if only the drivers were capable of exploiting it.

It has been two years since F1 last raced at the Hockenheimring, due to the alternating calendar with the Nürburgring. As a result the teams will have no data concerning the Pirelli tyres, so expect lots of running in the free practice sessions, weather permitting.

Will we see the eighth different winner of the season? Will this race finally reveal the pecking order and see things settling down?
Will McLaren be able to recover their position amongst the top three with their much vaunted upgrade package they are planning to bring?

All these questions and more will be answered soon.

For the circuit write up, stat's, map and videos, see here: http://cliptheapex.com/pages/hockenheimring/

 

[Greenlantern101]

good call

 

[mjo]

Having seen the overtake again all I have to say is well done to the FIA.

 

[Josh]

Bullshit and more inconsistency from the stewards. But why am I not surprised no one cares in this case?

 

[Hamberg]

Sebastian Vettel on Hamilton
"I don't see the point in him trying to race us. It is a bit stupid to race the leaders."

"That potentially lost me the position to Jenson, I pitted two or three laps after that," Vettel said.

He added: "I don't think we need a different rule, if you want to go quick and you are a lap down and there is no chance to win the race, you should respect it and use common sense. I didn't expect him to attack."

Newsflash Seb - he wasn't racing you, he was trying to get into the points.

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

He clearly went off the track to gain an advantage. Absolute no-brainer.

 

[MCLS]

Good to see that common sense prevailed in that case

 

[Speshal]

 

[Josh]

All good but it leaves me wondering why Hamilton wasn't punished in Bahrain.

 

[MCLS]

It's hard to compare this to Hamilton/Rosberg because in that instance Rosberg practically forced Hamilton off the road, in this case, Button left Vettel plenty of room down the outside and wasn't at any point on the edge of the circuit or close to making contact with Vettel which Rosberg was with Hamilton

 

[Josh]

But Rosberg was cleared of any wrong doing remember

 

[F1Yorkshire]

If Red Bull had got away with it twice in a weekend there would be many suspicions pointed towards the FIA and stewards. This was the lesser of the 2 infractions so I still think RB should be grateful that they were even able to challenge for the points they received today.

 

[F1ang-o]

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

When Hamilton passed Massa initially at Spa 2008, gaining an advantage by going off track was technically the reason for the penalty wasn't it?

 

[F1ang-o]

At Spa 2008 it was Kimi who forced LH off the track & LH did the right thing he went left...(as Pastor should have done at Valencia), he cut the corner came back on track..& gave the position back to KR...went to the other side & overtook Kimi...
The penalty was for not giving Kimi enough...advantage...wasn't it?
Kimi crashed out, not long after,......Ferrari were not happy & they got LH a post race penalty, enough to promote Felipe to first...now there's a suprize....

 

[Hamberg]

All good but it leaves me wondering why Hamilton wasn't punished in Bahrain.

Hamilton was never investigated it was Rosberg who was under investigation which then led to a clarification of the rules which were clarified further with the wheel/nose thingy.

 

[Dizzi]

Well half common-sense prevailed to me. Yes Seb gained an advantage by going off track (deliberately I think) so a driver shouldn't be able to profit from that. But yet again I ask why on earth don't they have the option to swap driver positions around? That would have been the fairest solution. Now Jenson rightly has second place but no way did Seb deserve to go down to fifth.
Will they ever get it right?

 

[Josh]

Oh I know, but seeing how Rosberg was cleared of anything it should be logical that Hamilton broke the rules by overtaking off track - as implied by Alonso - so it is fairly inconsistent.


Oh btw, I think Seb should have been punished, just like I think either Rosberg or Hamliton should have been punished, but it would have been better in this case to swap the positions around as there's no way Vettel would have finished fifth otherwise. But I guess since it's Vettel it's okay for most people.

 

[Hamberg]

I agree with the Hamilton/Rosberg thing - but I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) incidents have to be investigated within 4 hours and as all the concentration was on Rosberg and everybody assumed what the outcome would be they missed any window to investigate Hamilton. Also as it was acknowledged there needed to be clarification of what was allowed in overtaking it probably would have been a bit ill judged to have penalised the other driver just because they couldn't quite penalise Rosberg.

 

[Fenderman]

Dizzi Seb and RBR had the opportunity to rectify the error on track by giving the position back of their own volition according to the perfectly well known and understood rules. The time penalty is equivalent to a drive through penalty which would have been imposed had it not happened so late in the race. Furthermore, it would not be much of a penalty if the only result would be reverting to the place he held before the incident. The punishment for an infraction needs too inflict some kind of pain otherwise it is no deterrent for similar acts in the future.

 

[Jen]

If it was a deliberate off, then Seb deserves all he gets - he could have been happy with a legitimate 3rd. But, perhaps he believed the theory that RBR are invincible or he just thought **** it I'm having 2nd.

That's what happens with racing - sometimes the drivers lose the plot and/or test the water.