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/

 

[Mephistopheles]

I just watched that clip Brogan and it seems Michael was punished for that move because he got a puncture by doing it, maybe they used to use my idea of putting tin tacks down off track

 

[Speshal]

I jmy idea of putting tin tacks down off track

You weren't at the top of a mountain in the Tour de France a week back were you?

 

[F1ang-o]

Josh
See post 209...the two incidents were not the same...Rosberg headed across the track to block/force LH.....off the track

 

[teabagyokel]

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.

He might have had he done it in the first twenty laps and picked up a drive through.

 

[Hamberg]

I'm sorry no, apart from Schumacher on Alonso at monaco which was re the safety car not overtaking off the track - when have the places ever been just swapped? As far as I can remember it's always been a drive through or post race equivalent.

 

[teabagyokel]

Hamberg - The places weren't swapped then. Schumi was down to 12th!

 

[Mephistopheles]

I may have been Speshal

 

[GeoffP]

I think we, and the stewards have to take each incident in isolationj, otherwise errors in decision will lead to a precedent. Rosberg & Hamilton probably deserved a penalty, but didn't get one.

Vettel should not have had his previous position retruned to him because he got caught - that would be called "correction", what he got was a "penalty" for breaking the rules, a kind of remnder that this shouldn't happen again.

It was the right thing to do for this offense - as was mentioned he could have had a 5 second penalty or a 25 second penalty, or even a race ban, I think this one pitched the penalty and meesage about right.

 

[teabagyokel]

That makes it Kobayashi's best ever Formula One finish. Congratulations Kamui!

 

[Brogan]

Ironically if he'd been given a drive through during the race he probably would have finished 3rd.

There's an argument there that post race fixed time penalties are actually worse.

 

[teabagyokel]

Brogan - yes, 20 seconds is probably out of proportion.

 

[Fenderman]

No gain, no pain

 

[Hamberg]

Hamberg - The places weren't swapped then. Schumi was down to 12th!

Of course, we all argued they should have been swapped.

 

[Quintessentially]

Harsh penalty for Vettel but FIA seems hellbent on punishing Redbull this weekend. There is precedence. Also I'm not sure why the Safety Car wasn't sent out to mop up the mess Massa left behind in the first lap. I'm sure a few drivers suffered because of it.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Ironically if he'd been given a drive through during the race he probably would have finished 3rd.

There's an argument there that post race fixed time penalties are actually worse.

I think the problem they have is that not all pit lanes are equal some are longer than others there maybe different speed limits and so the amount of time lost in a drive through is not a constant people say 12 seconds for Germany but is it?

The 12 seconds it the time spent on the limiter you have to add on slower entry into the pit + slowing down to the limiter + accelerating to race speed + time lost getting the tyres back up to racing temperature.

Taking all this into account 20 seconds is probably about right and a post race penalty at a different a track could even be the lesser penalty..

 

[mjo]

Why don't they, at every race meeting, make all the cars take a mock drive-through and then average out the times taken, and this average would be used as a penalty time, instead of the 20 seconds.

 

[Pyrope]

Ironically if he'd been given a drive through during the race he probably would have finished 3rd.

Indeed, and a further irony is that if he had honourably given the position back even Button is fairly sure he would have been past before the flag, because Button's rear tyres were shot. Vettel got greedy and it bit him on the bum.

As for his claim that he couldn't see Jenson, I've watched the replays and judging by how much of Button's McLaren you can see from Vettel's on-board camera there is a serious case to be made that poor Seb must be suffering from the onset of glaucoma. It does raise the question of just how much visual impairment is acceptable before a driver's Superlicence is withdrawn...

 

[Fenderman]

Everyone knows the rule and the penalty traditionally applied. If a driver doesn't want to "take it on the chin" as Horner says that they will in this case, then he knows what to do.

Ironically, we saw a little lapse in Seb's racecraft today, since he had the opportunity to back off very slightly and undercut as Jenson running wide was inevitable. Basic race craft tells you that if one enters a corner wide (as Seb did) you can make a tight exit. Conversely, entering tight (as Jenson did) one's exit will be wide. Watch todays overtakes and one sees example after example of guys doing just that - all overtaking on the inside regardless of how defensive on the inside other drivers were since the progress of those being overtaken through the hairpin and their exits were compromised by their tight, slow defensive entries.

It is unfortunate but Seb made his own bed and has to lie in it. Apologies for the cliches.


Edit: And as Pyrope alludes to another issue, Seb saying he didn't know where Jenson was raises the spectre of a total lack of spatial and situational awareness. Let's just hope he was lying otherwise he could be rather dangerous out there!

 

[cider_and_toast]

On the face of it, it seems like a tough call on Vettel because as is most often the case, if there had been ten laps left and not two then the stewards would have been on the radio via Charlie and told RBR to let Button have the place back. I wonder in this case if the 20 seconds was given because RBR / Horner made no attempt to confirm with the Stewards / Charlie (not that that made any difference in some cases) that the pass was a good one and could stand.

Good finish for Kobyashi as a result and if Renault can find a bit more speed the Kimi is creeping up the outside in the points table. In this topsy turvy season it would only take a win for the Ice man and a couple of consistent top three finishes and before you know it.....

 

[siffert_fan]

I'm sorry, but to me this is merely more FIA result engineering. I see no difference in using the "off track" surface to gain a position, or using it myriad times thru a race to continue at unabated speed, thereby gaining a competitive advantage and preventing coming under attack.

If I were, say, Sauber, I would protest every driver that used the off track area and went unpunished. Imagine that--the stewards have to review the entire race, watching every driver's excursion off track, counting them all and adding twenty seconds for each offense. (Let's see. Alonso, you went off twenty times, so we are adding 400 seconds to your time. You are now over two laps down). If that were done, I rather imagine that even Marussia and HRT may have scored some serious points.