Motors The Official bit-tech F1 2013 Thread

What hype are you talking about?

He was told to maintain position by his team principal and he sand-bagged his team mate. What else is there?

 

I think Webber stated post-race that he was "assured" that Vettel would comply with the multi-21 order. That's what made the betrayal seem worse, because even after Vettel had gone and screwed him, the team didn't order him to give it back, like they should have done. Instead, they've destroyed any faith Mark has in his team, and any respect he has for his teammate. I honesty wouldn't be surprised if he went into Maldonado mode against Vettel, although I can say with almost absolute certainty that he's going to ignore the pitwall completely for the next 17 races.

 

what i think of the drivers and teams aside...

watching the race again it seems to be more a case of 'easier to seek forgiveness than ask permission'...

Vettel chose to pass his team mate and deal with aftermath later... Rosberg asked permission to overtake Hamilton, was denied, and whilst not happy about it ['Remember this...'] stayed behind Hamilton...

Both drivers were faster than their team mates for whatever reason and felt they should be able to exploit that even if, as Brawn put it to Rosberg [paraphrased slightly], 'the guys behind aren't gonna catch you, and you're unlikely to catch the guys in front [or in Vettel's case no-one in front to catch]'

As someone else [I forget who it was now], if Vettel wins the WDC by 7 points or less, people will look back on this and call it genius or whatever... If Webber loses out [to someone other than Vettel] by the same margin, unlikely as that looks right now, this will most likely get dredged up again...

 

stoned: Bang on, that's the problem now - if the roles are reversed at some point in this long, long season we'll see Vettel get mugged by Webber because he couldn't give a toss about what the pit wall says.

 

Not quite true in Vettel's case. He was only faster because Webber had turned his engine down and was posting 1m42s lap times as he'd been instructed to do by the folks who pay him. Just like Brawn said about Lewis, he could certainly go much faster. Furthermore, Vettel only got around because he sucker-punched him. Had Vettel and Webber had their cars turned all the way up and actually fought it out around the track, Vettel's race may well have been ruined, given that he was on the softer tires and might have had to pit yet another time if he gave them too much of a workout dicing with Webber.

 

Id much prefer to see them just race but the none refueling crap has really put paid to it as they dont race any more they manage.

Manage the tires, Manage the fuel, Manage there team m8s.

Formula 1 is no longer about who is the quickest on the grid but about who can manage the above the best.

 

Exactly. The best and only "real" races imho are the 24h races like LeMans, Nurburgring, Spa or the 12h of Sebring.

 

True, but who can manage all that and still be quickest? There's skill in the sport yet.

 

I'd like to see where Vettel would position, if all the others like Hamilton, Alonso, Räikkönen, etc would have the same car...

Formula 1 is more about the cars then the drivers imho, like most other series aswell.

The NASCAR-series is a good drivers-championship, as they basically all have the same car, due to the heavy regulations.

 

It newer was.

 

I have little sympathy for Weber, although what Vettel did was underhanded.
Weber hasn't exactly been a great teammate either, he did the same thing during 2011 Silverstone race. And i recall the general feeling was in support of Weber, so i would argue a portion of the complaints over this recent incident is fueled by the polarizing opinions people have of Vettel rather than what he did so much.

Also lets not forget last years final race in brazil, Weber wasn't exactly a help to Vettel in that race if anything he was obstructive at times, so yeah, i have little sympathy for Weber.

 

I don't agree with what Vettel did, and I don't agree with team orders.
However two wrongs don't make a right.

Take Rosberg for instance, he could of easily taken Hamilton but was told no (more than once) But he respected the teams decision and played along (unhappily)

Team orders in F1 are a joke, just think of Schumacher in his Ferrari days (too many examples to mention!)
I'm expecting Webber to have a few "radio malfunctions" from now on, and maybe a couple of dives down the inside with "catastrophic understeer issues" and I cant say that I would blame him if that happened

 

Firstly: Read this:
http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/a-little-background-on-team-orders/
Team orders have always existed. ALWAYS.

see it this way:
there's no money in the WDC for the teams. Only in the WCC. As such, they give their drivers the privilege of racing each other, as long as it doesn't effect the WCC.
In the case of Red Bull and Merc in Malaysia, there was NOTHING to gain by letting the two drivers chase each other.
Ross Brawn has stated that BOTH mercs were fuel saving, and that chasing the RBRs was out of the question. ESPECIALLY not at the risk of the drivers overcooking something and wrecking a car (this happens easily, since they are, as we all know, just a bit competitive).
The safe call for Brawn was to take it home. Nothing to win, everything to lose.

Red Bull was in a similar situation. Since Webber was leading (I'd like to see who made the strategy decision to pit Vettel before Webber on that last stint - without that, Vettel wouldn't be in striking distance of Webbo), and since there's no CLEAR no1 in the team yet (their words), they decided to hold positions immediately after the last round of stops.

Vettel then saw that he had a shot at his teammate, and went for it, against team orders. He's not the first one to do it, nor will he have been the last.
the situation was clearly not that Webber was sitting there all defenceless and not racing back. Not like at Mercedes, where Lewis didn't go defensive once after the order was given.
Webber could see this coming, and the team saw it coming.
Looking at the lap before the actual overtake, you can see Webber fighting back. He COULD easily have turned his engine mode up, and have fought back harder. It's not like he was out of options.

The part where my opinion of Vettel took another hit was when I realised that Webber pulled out of the fight. Webber, in that case, put the team and the car first, realising that this fight would end in tears and carbon fibre salad. They almost touched 2 turns before, and didn't because Mark saw it coming and dodged.
This wasn't a friendly tussle between teammates (like the overtake by Nico on Lewis seemed to be), but rather a ferocious Schumi-esque d*ckhead challenge where Vettel seemed unwilling to give even only respectable margins.

Add that to the overcelebrating at the end, the spoiled kid antics on the radio earlier and the hollow apology, and Seb just comes out of this looking like a complete douche by virtue of his behaviour.
(hollow apology: I didn't disobey team orders on purpose, but I overtook on purpose.... dafuq!?!?!!)

 

On a slight different topic have they said why Lewis was so low on fuel compared to Rosberg? Was he racing harder at the beginning or where they expected more rain disruption?

 

He was apparently pushing harder to try and hassle the Red Bulls, which he was quite close to for quite a while.

 

one thing not discussed yet, Force India pit stops. they lost ALOT of team points.
Sutil was fast all weekend and DiResta was looking good too.
But overheating wheel nuts!? All teams use the same rims and nuts, I'm guessing they have a fancy brake cooling system that was barely within the rules, and they didn't take heat tolerances into consideration. it cost them dearly

 

I think force India use mclaren technology, but they have tweaked the design. It's to do with the nut being captive to the wheel. I had to laugh at them getting hammers out and hitting the nut in the high tech world of f1!

I'm not sure if everyone does use the same rim & nut? From memory I think Ferrari and redbull are different.

 

YOU MADE ME LOSE TONS OF FANTASY F1 POINTS FI! I KEEEL YOUUU!

 

Each team engineers their own wheel and nut solution - very often they're interconnected with the brake ducting system as well. In Force India's case it was fractionally too small so that the hot conditions in Malaysia bound them up.

 

If it can't be fixed with a hammer then it's an electrical problem