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

Someone other than Vettel is leading the Championship!

It may be strange to see, but for the first time since Abu Dhabi 2010 someone other than Sebastian Vettel is top of the Championship after Jenson Button won the Australian Grand Prix in commanding fashion with Vettel second and a folorn Hamilton falling foul of a safety car which allowed the German through.

Going into Malaysia it seems apparent that Mclaren have the strongest car as they were far and away the strongest team in Australia and it was only after having to fuel save for 90% of the race that let Red Bull get within distance, when Button and Hamilton were at full throttle for the first 8 laps, they pulled away at over a second a lap which provided a comfortable cushion even though it was wiped out by a safety car due to Vitaly Petrov breaking down on the main straight.

But the Australian Grand Prix raised more questions than it did provide answers, the only thing that we learned was that the not quite so new teams are still as bad as they were last season and Mclaren and Red Bull are the two fastest teams. Ferrari had a shocking qualifying but Fernando Alonso managed to drag it kicking and screaming into 5th place which suggests a better race pace compared to qualifying pace while beleaguered Felipe Massa trundled around in midfield like he was on a Sunday drive in the Australian parks.

lotus are the only team where a question mark still remains about the general competitiveness. Roman Grosjean qualified a remarkable third but was taken out early on by Maldando while returning champion Kimi Raikkonnen failed to get out of first qualifying but managed to fight through the field to finish a very strong seventh which suggests that they do have a strong car but need to ally qualifying with race pace if they are to take the fight to the top teams.

In 2011 Malaysia was a race full of pit stops due to the high degradation of the Pirelli tyres, and while the tyres this year are more conservative and stable, high degradation is still to be expecting and several pit stops are going to be the norm with an unpredictable weekend to come. The only thing to expect is the likelihood of a massive shower at some point during the weekend which would no doubt spice things up.

For Galahad's excellent circuit write up, see here http://cliptheapex.com/pages/sepang-international-circuit/

 

[Il_leone]

You don’t know this, I don’t know this and nobody will ever know this. Its just your opinion. You cant fairly compare any F1 driver from the 60’s to a modern one, the cars, the sport have changed just too much since then.

Btw, how old are you? Did you witness Clarks career? I didn’t. In fact did you actually witness all of Schumacher’s career or are you basing your opinions on things you’ve heard?

I've seen Senna race in the late 80's and I got bored of Schumacher's one sided championships because it was obvious he had the best car and his teammate was never allowed to race him. The Bridgestones were made for Schumacher that is why Mclaren chose Michelin for 2002 because they felt Ferrari were being favoured for designs of the tyre

Its easy for him to be dominant if he has a NO 2 driver who is contractually not allowed to race him and two test drivers doing the extra miles for him with the team that spends the most every year except Toyota

Clark drove in Lotuses designed by Colin Chapman which were clearly the fastest cars most seasons and Clark was acknowledged as the best driver in that era and did not win more titles that 2 because invariably Chapman would design cars and try out new parts that would fail.

Chapman was a risk taker in trying to design faster cars

 

[Il_leone]

Well the same goes for drive through penalties, but at least in that instance the driver has a chance to repair the damage in the race.

I've said it before, but in most incidences, the penalty is the incident itself. No driver is going around intentionally crashing into another driver. Why can't stewards accept that 70-80% of incidences are near-enough blameless.

Since the HRt are likely to be at the back of the grid it would not make a difference giving Narain a 10 place grid drop would it

20 seconds in the race maybe if he was higher up

 

[Mephistopheles]

I've seen Senna race in the late 80's and I got bored of Schumacher's one sided championships because it was obvious he had the best car and his teammate was never allowed to race him. The Bridgestones were made for Schumacher that is why Mclaren chose Michelin for 2002 because they felt Ferrari were being favoured for designs of the tyre

Chapman was a risk taker in trying to design faster cars

Schumacher even got to design a corner which suited his own driving style but I still think he was and still is a superb talent

The problem is Chapman took risks with drivers lives!!!!!!!!!!

 

[mjo]

The problem is Chapman took risks with drivers lives!!!!!!!!!!

So did all other team principals of that era.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Just as a matter of interest I looked back at the discussion on last year's race. There were certainly incidents between Alonso and Hamilton to get posters heated. the result was that there were 16 pages of discussion.

http://cliptheapex.com/threads/2011-malaysian-grand-prix-practice-qualifying-race-discussion.2405/

Have a look and see how things have changed, imo for the worse.

 

[Cookinflatsix]

What is your point exactly?

Do you mean the numbers of members have doubled or are you saying rules are getting broken

 

[Il_leone]

Schumacher even got to design a corner which suited his own driving style but I still think he was and still is a superb talent

The problem is Chapman took risks with drivers lives!!!!!!!!!!

Yes even Rindt was not comfortable in using Lotus 49's in his seasons at Lotus

I remember Chapman trying out different rear wings and they were cracking from the vibrations at the back on a Tv documentary

 

[Il_leone]

So did all other team principals of that era.

Yes but Chapman was the biggest risk taker because he was clearly a great designer if he got the regulations right and usually he was the first to do so before the other teams caught on and surpassed him

 

[Il_leone]

Schumacher even got to design a corner which suited his own driving style but I still think he was and still is a superb talent


A superb talent that really did not need the politics to show his superlative skills. - take Austria 2002 if he came out and said he was prepared to race Rubens for the championship then at least he could have got more respect that way

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Back to Sunday's race Narain seems to be the most unpopular man at the moment with Red Bull. Perhaps for once its the sign of the pressure the team are under as they realise they have a fight on their hands

I am waiting for when Red Bull will start favouring Vettel and Marko sticks his nose in again that the world champion needs more help

Nice to see Vettel and Horner showing a bit of class - NOT

 

[Bill Boddy]

What is your point exactly?

Do you mean the numbers of members have doubled or are you saying rules are getting broken

i am saying that the whole tone of discussion was different then, much more friendly, more banter between posters who respected the views of others and did not try to do each other down all the time.

 

[Fenderman]

Webbers reaction to disconcerting radio traffic ...

http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/276590/webber-ripped-radio-connection-out-of-helmet/