Motors The Official bit-tech F1 2012 Thread - Post season

I have no problems criticizing Senna. Was never a fan. Yeah, he was passionate and winning was the most important thing for him, as it should be with all drivers, but some of the things he did on track were selfish and downright dangerous.

 

Well this is controversial. http://thef1times.com/news/display/07031

 

Is it too late to do anything about this? I know it was a chaotic race, but what the **** is the point of having rules and stewards if Hülkenberg gets a penalty for losing his rear end in the wet (mitigating circumstance, surely?!) but Vettel gets away with overtaking under yellows?

 

Yup. As someone mentioned in the comments, look at the steering wheel, a light either side of the display clearly shows it as a yellow flag zone (highlighted by the fact that these lights then turn off as he passed the board to allow green flag racing again).

Whether you're a Vettel fan or not, rules are rules and are there for the safety of drivers and track personnel. Obey them or be punished. This is, of course, assuming the information is correct as it may well not be.

 

Well, I just did some frantic googling (I'm an Alonso fan, what did you expect?) and apparently the move was legal.

Source 1, and 2.

 

What a retarded system! Why can't they make it simple and have the nice, bright, lit up boards at the start of each section denoting the current flag condition of the track; if a section is clear of the issues then it shows green denoting free racing again.

I know it's the flags which are the official and primary signals but this is 2012, make use of what's available. I'm actually more annoyed by the ridiculous ambiguity than whether the pass was legal or not now

 

I forgot to congratulate Massa on his excellent drive in my earlier posts. He performed brilliantly.

 

Also a very valid point, the way he positioned in that first defence from Webber for Alonso to get through was utter genius.

 

Yep, me too. This is supposed to be a super-fancy high tech sport. Jeez...

Yes! Massa was on song for the latter half of the season.

And he knows that yielding to Alonso has basically saved his career, because Ferrari could not be sure any replacement for their #2 slot would be as compliant as Massa. He could conceivably extend his career with Maranello for another two-odd years if he manages to start better than he did this year. Ferrari has hisorically had a great record with WCC wins, even when they fail to sew up the WDC (see: 2008, 1999, 1982-83) and they cannot be happy about being shown up by Red Bull, a team with little history and little connection to the automotive world (at least in the eyes of the public).

 

Ive been really impressed with Massa too, I hope he can keep up the good work into next year.

What really irritated me about brazil was the fact that everyone always bemoans ferrari when Massa helps Alonso, yet Vettel had the 2 Toro Rosso's, Webber and Schumacher all helping him along. When you take them out of the equation, along with the 6 slower cars at the back and Perez/Senna who crashed, Vettel only needed to in front of 2 cars to get points.. crazy.

 

Agreed. I have no problem with Webber helping him at all, team mates and team strategy, but for Schu and the Toro Rosso's to help is disgusting and they should have been given penalties for doing so. It's race fixing, we've all seen what happens when that comes to light.

 

But the convenient way to sidestep that will be to say "there was no planned race-fixing" because it'll be hard to prove the STRs moved on orders, and Schu did it of his own free will.

Shame.

 

Deliberately unsealing a gearbox to alter race results, deliberately letting a teammate by, deliberately holding up the field so your teammate can attempt to win a WC, isn't race fixing?

But when toro rosso drivers and a Mercedes driver don't put up a battle to prevent a much faster car going through its disgusting?

I can't see how the first example can be fine as its team strategy whilst the second isn't because its a different team doing it, ultimately they both alter race results.

 

When its within a team its alright, as its all strategic. But when its 2 drivers from an entirely separate team (Toro Rosso might be owned by Red Bull, but its viewed a separate team by the FIA, and should therefore not be linked with Red Bull Racing in any way) it is race fixing, in my opinion any way.

Michael let him through out of kindness more than anything else, which was a shame, as i wanted to see something similar to the Raikkonen battle earlier on in the race.


Alonso deserved the title more, as his car was a lot slower at nearly all the races, yet he managed to pull out some very good results.

 

BBC now reporting Vettel yellow flag incident. Seems Alonso is pushing for something to be done.. Interesting!

 

Interesting, as at the time Ferrari thought it was the greasy track (red/yellow) flags. As did the stewards...

Well, watch the video embedded at the top of the Beeb article... Pretty cut and dried to me. He passes several blinking marker boards, and then overtakes the torro rosso before the green flashing clear track board.

20 secs added on, IMHO. The rules are the rules.

 

What are peoples thoughts about Williams not resigning Senna for next year?

Sam

 

Shame, as always when a seemingly-decent F1 driver gets stuck without a seat during the annual musical chairs festival, but he's never going to add up to WDC material, despite the name. I thought Kobayashi may have had a bit more to give than we saw with Sauber, but they obviously don't think so!

 

How does it make it any less race fixing just because they're team mates?

Why make the distinction, when it comes down to it, it alters race results so they are both essentially race fixing.

Do we consider what happened in 2002 between Schumacher and Barrichello not a case of race fixing just they were teammates?

If you're going say its OK because they are teammates, then why is it not OK for sister-teams to help each other out? it's essentially the same thing.

For the record i'm totally fine with team orders/strategy, it adds interest the the race, Brazil would not of been as good if it wasn't for Massa playing rear gunner.
It just seems people are picking whats OK, when it suits them.

 

Because there should be a clear distinction between different teams. Sister teams are not the same team, would you expect FIndia or McLaren to pull over for a Mercedes because they're engine customers? Of course not, so why should Toro Rosso or Schumacher acting on his own get away with it?

I too am fine with team orders/strategy but only when it's 'that team' and not some other team who's running their own race, or a fellow countryman outside of a sister team, well outside of a championship fight.

The gearbox trick was clever and some quick thinking by Ferrari and is within the team, ok cool. Now then, what if Raikonnen was fighting for the title (in fact he was still in on numbers at the time but I digress) and the Renault Engine people pulled the same trick on both the Red Bull cars to help the Lotus Renault team win? I know I would have issue with that but essentially it's the same as the STR's and MSC pulling over.

In fact, slight tangent, after them pulling over so easily I'll be very interested to see where their engines come from next year.