Grand Prix 2013 Italian Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Sebastian Vettel is unstoppable.
He is leading Alonso by 46 points in the championship, with some of his most successful circuits to come.
After convincingly winning at Spa (supposedly one of his weaker circuits) we move on to Monza (another of his supposedly weak circuits) for the 12th round of the season, the Italian Grand Prix. The Monza circuit, set in a royal park, has hosted the Italian Grand Prix every year except for 1980. It is vastly different from every other circuit in the calendar, requiring minimum downforce, minimum drag and a lot of horses in the engine. As it is Fewwawi's home circuit, they will be under immense pressure from the Tifosi to perform well, and, judging by their Alonso's performance at Spa, the team may as well be in a good position going into the race.

Monza is steeped in tradition, with the traditional cantilever grandstands, the traditionally vocal fans and the traditional surroundings. It is usually a place where many major driver announcements are traditionally made, as it is traditionally the last European race of the season. Of course, Ferrari & McLaren traditionally do well here, and Red Bull traditionally do not.

Last year, Lewis Hamilton strolled through the race weekend, winning convincingly, and Sergio Perez took a quite brilliant second place in his Sauber, with the Fewwawi's third and fourth. Red Bull did not score.

The weather is usually a predictable affair - there have only been three wet/varied races since 1950 (1981, 2004 & 2008) so expect it to be warm and sunny. The tight first chicane, however, leaves potential for first lap incident.

Remember, the race is live on both the BBC and Sky in two weeks, so British fans - no excuse for missing it!!!

All that remains for me to say is Ready, Steady, Discuss!!!
 
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when he was called in for his second stop he was setting purple sectors and should have been left to get on with it. They were concerned about traffic, had they left him alone he'd have cleared them set more fastest laps and come in when his tyres were actually giving up and not when they were in their prime.

thankyou!!!

I have posted the same thing on Muzz and not606 and I keep getting silly arguments back about how pitting was the CORRECT thing to do because the tyres wouldn't have lasted to the end!!!!!!!!

I mean.....................WHAT?!?!?!

On that basis he should have pitted on the first lap of the 2nd stint!!!

During the race I wondered what on earth Mercedes were thinking pitting him while he was the fastest man on track and I have not yet got a sensible answer from anyone.
 
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Better, perhaps, to pit Hamilton while he still had a tyre on which to drive back to the pits, and while he was demonstrably quick, than to risk keeping him out on a tyre that telemetry, at least, was telling them was going to fail at some point?:thinking:
 
The first sign of the tyres dropping off, he could have come in (if it made sense to with regards to the number of laps left), not when he was setting fast times. He could have got 7th or even 5th/6th if Mercedes did that.
 
If he came in the instant the tyres started to go he would have been further ahead than pitting while the tyres are at their peak and have more than enough grip available.

And for an added bonus the new tyres would have been a few laps younger (than they already were) than those ahead of him giving him even more advantage in the final stint.
 
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If his radio was working, he would have pitted a lap or two before and probably got seventh as he would have been just as quick, presumably, for a lap or two longer
 
downforce - There isn't an "instant" the tyres went off, as jez101, sushifiesta and tooncheese demonstrated when they did an analysis in 2011. They go off gradually, and are best from the first lap.

He was running faster than the others because he was on mediums when they were on hards.

It is most sensible to run both sets of tyres for an equal period of time.
 
I see what teabagyokel is saying. The rule always is you want your fastest lap as your in lap. there no point setting 3 fastest laps and having an in lap that's a second off as its an overall slower route to the finish.

As for Lewis not having any team radio. I think you'd find he'd end up off worse in the end just being able to judge gaps and time to people and know when to push and when he can ease off.

I know the disciples want St Lewis to just get in a car and drive on the ragged edge at all times but theres no point being on the ragged edge with gone off tyres or on the ragged edge and throwing it off the road when he has a 50 second lead. Lewis, like all drivers, need to work with the team.
 
Lewis said he was severely hampered for that very reason RasputinLives.

I personally would love them to go back to pit boards as the main form of communication but that couldn't possibly happen now.

I remember life without mobile phones and the interweb, but the thought of not having it now is rather crippling.
 
The only point to this pointless conversation I can see is There was no way his tyres were going to last 40 laps of racing and so he had to stop at some point so he may as well do it while the tyres are still working.

And the other point to this pointless conversation is. If he hadn't stopped and he started slipping back down the field which he was bound to do due to knackered tyres all the people on here bemoaning the fact that he did stop would now be moaning about the fact that he didn't...
 
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All kidding aside, I personally think that radio communications between team and driver are now indispensable. With the amount of telemetry from car to the engineer it's inconceivable that a driver would not want the benefit of that information relayed back.

To me the problem is actually the eaves dropping of their communications to other teams and the public. I believe it interferes with a teams' ability to advise their drivers as they have to codify or limit the content of the information to protect their strategy.

More importantly, "open" frequencies also probably contribute to communication problems such as experienced by Lewis on Sunday. If a frequency is insecure it can be interfered with (i.e. scrambled) intentionally or otherwise via "stray" signals or transmissions. Anyone who has used a radio controlled toy knows what happens when someone else nearby is using the same frequency. I'm not saying that is what happened at Monza but it is a possibility and in all likelihood does happen. In fact we did hear transmissions from other drivers to their engineers that were virtually unintelligible. That can't all be down to faulty radios since radio technology has been pretty well mastered over nearly a century of development!

The bottom line is that the old fashioned board is inadequate today since the driver cannot respond in a meaningful way other than to blindly follow the instruction. Many a time we have heard a driver countermand an instruction due to their own feel and assessment of how the car is behaving. Indeed if we take that infamous incident in China 2007, had the team heeded the pleas of LH to give him new boots he may well be a two times WDC. And what about the occasions when Button told the team what to do when pulling off those excellent drives in the rain?

In summation, I don't give a toss about whether or not a driver is right or wrong in our eyes. I am though fed up with hearing radio transmissions subjectively selected by some FOM underling. We get to hear them a couple of minutes too late, often out of context and usually there seems to be an underlying motivation to stir up trouble instead of to inform.

At the end of the day the driver with more information and the ability to use it better than his opponents has an advantage. The driver without it is disadvantaged regardless of his ability.
 
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