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/
 
Mclaren and upgrades always fill me with dread. Hopefully they can get back on the ball this weekend but have a feeling that it will be between Red Bull, Ferrari and Lotus.
 
First images of the updated McLaren.

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http://img4.auto-motor-und-sport.de...-2012-19-fotoshowImageNew-7d8a3af7-613566.jpg

http://img2.auto-motor-und-sport.de...-2012-19-fotoshowImageNew-525e6765-613563.jpg
 
The DRS is leading into the hairpin. The detection point is after turn 4 and the activation is 260m after turn 4.

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(from F1Fanatic)
 
It's been playing on my mind all night what turn's 1,2,3 and 4 at Hockenheim remind me of, it's turn 3,4 and 5 at Bahrain. Anyone got a doh button for Hermann Tilke for not coming up with something a little more creative.
 
Here's some better pics of McLaren's new sidepods:-

Front inlets are much more curved underneath on the outside, rather than being more of a right angle design.

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Then on these 3 pics below you can see the whole of the sidepod is re-profiled, creating more downwash over the exhaust exit. That exit is now in bodywork that stands out more like the Ferrari solution. This has enabled them to get a lot more undercut underneath this, which should allow for better airflow to the diffuser. Especially in terms of keeping that airflow stream separated from the exhaust, like Red Bull are doing with their tunnel.That's my rubbish technical explanation anyway. I believe the upgrades will be quite handy. In the past McLaren have often hyped upgrades primarily surrounding complex exhaust solutions, which have been very difficult to get working or have had reliability problems. This upgrade to me is simply about redirecting airflow to the rear in a much more efficient way. I think they also have new suspension and JB has said due to the extra downforce, they can take off bits that were costing them downforce in order to heat tyres. This may explain why they have got slower recently!

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http://twitpic.com/a9ff9z


Finally, these 2 pics show how the exhaust outlet section now seems to go closer to the floor, and looks quite similar to the famous Ferrari acer ducts, albeit that Ferrari now have working quite nicely. Strange how they seem to have copied Ferrari rather than Red Bull though:-

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Well those pics from yesterday aren't the half of it. Those 2 little vanes on the top of the sidepods, there's now 3 of them. Plus they have a new rear wing, which looks very small, especially the upper flap and you can see different logos on it. During FP1 that im watching right now, they also showed pictures of their rear floor that seemed to be lowered or flexing slightly. They are using laser ride height sensors back there.

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https://twitter.com/JennieGow/status/226220574475681793/photo/1/large
 
Romain Grosjean and Nico Rosberg have five place gird drop penalties due to gearbox changes.

Michael Schumacher crashed heavily at the end of FP2, damaging the front and rear of his car.
 
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