Grand Prix 2014 German Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

The races are now coming thick and fast and the Drivers Championship is warming up nicely after Nico Rosberg's first DNF of the season gave a relatively easy win to Lewis Hamilton. The circus moves on now to Germany, at the emasculated Hockenheim circuit.

Last year Vettel won the first home race of his career. This year I'm sure another German driver, in the shape of Nico Rosberg, will be hoping this will be his turn. After Lewis won his home race maybe Mercedes will have something predetermined (oops, I've just started the first conspiracy theory).

Outside of both Mercedes cars failing it's hard to see any other team winning. Should the Silver Arrows falter Williams are looking best placed to pick something up but I suspect it's more likely to be a podium for either Massa or Bottas. McLaren appeared to find some pace at Silverstone, maybe their technical team have finally realised they have the best engine on the grid and should, perhaps, take advantage of it. Red Bull will also be looking to pick up the crumbs and, as appears to be the pattern, Ricciardo is more likely benefit than Vettel.

The Force India cars were off the pace in Silverstone, perhaps Hockenheim will better suit them. I'm sure the other Nico will want to put on a good show for his home crowd. It will be interesting to see which German midfield runner Fernando Alonso chooses to have a fight with. His preference most races has been Nico Hulkenberg but at Silverstone he decided to have a fight with Sebastian Vettel, which was quite entertaining.

Toro Rosso will be just behind the Ferrari's and Red Bull's, maybe collecting point or two. Of the other teams Lotus will just ahead of Sauber, the biggest question will be who will crash into whom during the race. Marussia and Caterham will fighting to be last, with Caterham almost certain to win that battle.

I forgot to mention Kimi Raikkonen. Hopefully he will be fully recovered for the German race but, on current form, Ferrari might look to stick someone else in the car.

Did I mention I'll be there? Well I will. Look out for a fat bloke with two kids waving like a tit at the camera. Maybe I'll put some Union Jack underpants on my head, that should please the German TV director :D Bring on the frites and wurst!
 
How do you wave like a tit? Isn't it more of a ripple or wobble? A fat bloke in Germany, eating a sausage......

I hope there's no-one else there with 2 kids, you might be hard to spot! You'll need the pants on the head,
 
The tyre allocations are soft and supersoft for Hockenheim, compared to medium and hard for Silverstone, which is beneficial to the cars that are easy on the tyres. I expect Red Bull to be the second-fastest team, ahead of Ferrari and the other Mercedes-powered teams.
 
Losing the forest section meant that Spa's Kemel Straight is the last of the truly great slip-streaming straights on the F1 calendar. All the other circuits need DRS zones because their straights just aren't long enough. That would be all well and good if DRS wasn't such an artificiality.
 
Indeed. The old track was a car killer and would have been a very serious test for the cars of this new formula. I for one would like to have seen that.

I was actually surprised to see some engine failures in Monaco. Possibly the low speeds affect the engine cooling. Given that the engines only rev up to about 12-13k, engine reliability may even be better at high-speed circuits. However, the brakes may be the real problem.

At least there is Monza.
 
Losing the forest section meant that Spa's Kemel Straight is the last of the truly great slip-streaming straights on the F1 calendar. All the other circuits need DRS zones because their straights just aren't long enough. That would be all well and good if DRS wasn't such an artificiality.
Is Monza not long enough? What about India and Korea if we still raced there?
 
Had to check out the circuit maps on this one soccerman17 . After messing with maps that all had different scales this what I found out:

The old Hockenheim had four good slip streaming opportunities. The mostly straight run from the Nord Kurve to Clark Chicane was a mega 1.7Km. Then the massive sweeping curve from Clark to Ost (I think that was the "Ost Kurve") was 1.095Km. Then there was the straght from Ost to the Senna chicane at 1.009Km and from Senna to Agip another 0.925Km.

Monza's longest stretch good for slip-streaming is the main straight at 1.08Km (approx). The run from Curva di Lesmo to Variante Ascari with the Curva del Serraglio "kink" in the middle is about 0.930Km and then the run from Ascari to Curva Parabolica is approx 1.005Km.

India's Buddh International circuit has one decent straight that is only around 0.6Km in length.

Haven't checked out Korea yet and as far as Spa is concerned I haven't found a map of it with the scale! I think though that Kemmel is just over 1km.

Anyway, unless I'm very much mistaken, the only circuit in modern use that comes close to matching the old Hockenheim's forest section must be Le Mans. Hmm, F1 at La Sarthe, now that would be interesting:thinking: ... :snigger:
 
Hockenheim's main advantage over the others is the multitude of consecutive straights. Shanghai is 1170m, Korea 1160m, Abu Dhabi 1140, Monza 1120, Inda 1060. It would be real interesting to see those two long straights at Abu Dhabi without DRS.
 
Indeed. The old track was a car killer .

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Whereas today it is badly in need of a lot of weed-killer...

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I think they actually cleaned up the site of Jim Clark's memorial last year FB. There was a ceremony held there to commemorate the 45th anniversary of his death, as well as tribute to all who lost their lives at the Hockenheimring.
I can't remember where I'd read it but I'm pretty sure that did indeed take place.
 
Had to check out the circuit maps on this one soccerman17 .

Haven't checked out Korea yet and as far as Spa is concerned I haven't found a map of it with the scale! I think though that Kemmel is just over 1km.

Why don't you just use Google Earth for example?
I think the run from La Source to Les Combes should be comparable in length to the longest straight on the old Hockenheimring. Anyway, most of the "modern" tracks have pretty long straights to promote overtaking? China, Abu Dhabi and Korea spring to mind.
 
Hockenheim the old circuit was a car killer but actually there was not much overtaking if I remember despite 3 straights with chicane to follow

I don't mind the new circuit because it actually promotes overtaking
 
What I enjoyed about the old Hockenheim was when the cars would skitter and slide around the Motodrom section, shorn of downforce for the long straights they made for quite a spectacle, something that you don't really see quite so clearly at Monza, I don't think.

An all-German podium isn't out of the question, I suppose. It would be a good time for Sutil to get on the scoreboard as well.
 
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