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/
 
The stewards can make whatever ruling they like. Don't forget this is an Austrian owned team with a German driver at the German GP so I wouldn't hold your breath. :(
 
If the car is illegal it shouldn't be allowed to race whilst it's illegal. At best they should be allowed to legalise them and start from the pits. Anything less is not on.
 
If Christian Horner is correct and the qualifying result can't be changed, the throttle map can't be changed in parc ferme and Red Bull are doing something illegal, then I presume they would get disqualified from the results at the end of the race a la Sauber at Australia last year.

Either way, this is an interesting twist to the weekend! Might explain why Vettel is now much more competitive in comparison to Webber compared to the start of the season as well!
 
Kewee, I am fairly sure that the stewards can only decide whether they believe it is legal or not, and the FIA can only report the matter to them for review. If the Stewards deem it to be illegal, I believe the penalty is defined for them.

Although I am open to be corrected on this.
 
Sorry if this was already asked - but why was Alonso's fastest Q3 time allowed?

I get that it was wet, and therefore difficult, but he went off the track twice on his fastest lap.
 
I would think that at any time they can be disqualified if their car is found illegal. Maybe the qualifying result can't be changed, but that doesn't automatically mean they're free to race if the car is illegal.
 
Kewee, I am fairly sure that the stewards can only decide whether they believe it is legal or not, and the FIA can only report the matter to them for review. If the Stewards deem it to be illegal, I believe the penalty is defined for them.

Although I am open to be corrected on this.
Sorry The Pits, I was being a little facetious. I may have seen too many appallingly biased decisions over the years. If they're guilty, we can only hope they'll be penalized.
 
The only FIA published grid I've seen says 'Provisional' which to me means something entirely different to final.

Andrew Benson seems to think the options open are disqualification or starting from the pits. I can't see given Jo Bauer's report that the stewards can decide any other than breach of the regulations - surely it's just a formality now.
 
The Pits......I stand to be corrected but I always believed the FIA determine the rules then refer breaches of those rules to the stewards, who then determine the severity of the penalty, which appears to be the process that is happening at present
 
The Pits......Thanks. So I assume it's up to the stewards to decide whether a breach has occurred. Thats clearly the FIA's opinion. It would be a gutsy or stupid move to ignore the FIA interpretation. The outcome of this will be fascinating.
 
Of course it begs the question, why did Jo Bauer look at the engine traces in the first place?
I can't imagine that's standard procedure so they must have suspected something or been alerted to it by someone.
 
I find it curious that the discrepancy wasn't found until AFTER qualifying. Why wasn't it caught in initial tech inspection?
 
It has been said that the fact this is being dealt with so publicly is an indication of how strong a case the FIA believe exists.

Not sure what the penalty is, but they should at the very least be forced to run standard maps (not sure how long these would take to upload, but I would assume they are available) and start from the pit lane, otherwise, if they race under appeal, there will be lots of wrangling before the race results are finalised, which I think not many people like.
 
Does anyone know if they still use observers with acoustic samplers to listen to the cars to ascertain if there could be any dodgy goings on?
 
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