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As the title suggests, a place to discuss Formula One, and all other types of motorsport (excluding MotoGP, which has a section of its own).
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Last edited by: VxFan on Sun 11 Jul 10 at 00:31
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Frightening crash for Mark Webber - went into the back of a Lotus and took off, a bit like Cambell in his boat on Coniston and those Mercedes at Le Mans a few years ago, then smashed into the barriers at a fair rate. But Webber threw out his steering wheel and just walked off - amazing things those cars.
I expect you'll be able to see it on the BBC website later.
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Glad the guy is ok, couldnt do that in a Focus and walk away! Doesnt have much luck does he.
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>> Glad the guy is ok, couldnt do that in a Focus and walk away!
I'm going to take you word for it :)
>> Doesnt have much luck does he.
He dropped from 2nd on the grid to 9th IIRC in the first lap, without really appearing to do much wrong. Fair to say it wasn't his race.
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Film of the TV pictures on youtube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoK_WNvAZP8
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Footage on BBC site:
news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8766194.stm
More frightening at normal speed when you see the way he hits the tyre wall, never mind landing upside down at 180(?) mph.
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Oh I loved the post race interviews. Alonso *really* hates Hamilton with a passion only a latin could summon up. YOu can see he is eaten up with the hatred.
Its fabulous.
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>>Its fabulous.
Indeed it is. And the only person his hatred is hurting is him. A candidate for cognitive behavioural therapy I should think - every move of Hamilton's is seen as anti-Fernando.
He's dubbed "El Gloomio" in this spoof Schumacher blog - goo.gl/OBf4
Last edited by: Manatee on Sun 27 Jun 10 at 18:11
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Listening to the radio comms during the race, all Alonso was interested in was how much the penalty had hurt Hamilton. Id have love to see the face without the helmet when he learned that even with teh drive-thro, he was still where he was. Priceless.
Be interesting to see if any penalties are imposed post-race, not seen anything about that yet.
Drive of the day surely to Kamui Kobayashi. Give that lad a decent car and I think he will be one to watch.
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>> Drive of the day surely to Kamui Kobayashi. Give that lad a decent car and
>> I think he will be one to watch.
I thought the commentary team said he would end up 3rd due to a lot of drivers under investigation due to speeding behind the safety car IIRC. Were they let off, or hasn't it been decided yet?
Last edited by: Focus on Sun 27 Jun 10 at 19:40
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>>Be interesting to see if any penalties are imposed post-race, not seen anything about that yet.
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BBC says
Button was one of nine drivers who were penalised after the race, by the addition of five seconds to their race time, for breaching the rules when the safety car was called out.
Each was found to have completed the third sector of the track and entered the pits below the minimum time allowed under safety-car regulations.
It made no difference to the final result for the four highest-placed offenders: Button, Williams's Barrichello (who took fourth, his team's best result of the season), Renault's Robert Kubica (fifth) and Force India's Adrian Sutil (sixth).
But it provided further misery for Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi.
After his late stop, Kobayashi rejoined in ninth and, on fresh tyres, was able to pass both Alonso and Buemi (who left the door open at the final corner of the race) to take seventh.
ANDREW BENSON BLOG
For the first time in its short history, the Valencia track produced a thrilling grand prix but the irony is that in doing so a potentially even better one - in terms of the battle for the lead - was lost
Buemi's five-second penalty then meant he lost a further place to Alonso, who was able to gain a crucial two extra points as he was elevated to eighth.
Sauber driver Pedro de la Rosa was another to lose out. He had finished 10th on the road, but his penalty knocked him down to 12th.
It meant that Mercedes' Nico Rosberg was promoted into the points after a miserable race for the team, who suffered from severe brake problems on the cars of both Rosberg and Michael Schumacher.
Others to lose places due to penalties were Renault's Vitaly Petrov, who dropped from 11th to 14th, and Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi (13th to 16th). The last of the nine, Nico Hulkenberg, retired his Williams a few laps from the finish.
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Thanks for that. Good for Kaumi and a good showing for Williams regardless.
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Kobayashi showed his real class today. If the top teams have any sense they will be after him for next season. I have been promoting him here all season. Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard had quite a spat about speed differentials. But they both thought Kobayashi was the driver of the day.
I loved the way he ambushed Alonso on the last lap, just as Schumacher did at Monaco. Probably the main reason why our Fernando was in such a rage after the race. Will his supporters' claque be sporting a slitty-eyed look at the Spanish GP instead of blackface and fright-wigs? Tee hee.
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>>Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard had quite a spat about speed differentials
Coulthard may be better qualified than I am, but I'm sure he's wrong. The closing speed was under Webber's control.
It's not as if Kovalainen was driving a different class of car, it was a Formula 1 car and he was entitled to race. If he wasn't, why bother with the race at all? Just award the cups on qualifying.
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It looked to me like Kov braked or suddenly slowed. The speed diference suddenly became very large very quickly.
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I think Webber missed his braking point. He caused the speed differential by braking too late.
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Good theory. It wasnt a braking point tho.
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>> Still his fault.
Yes. It's always your fault when some wally stops suddenly in front of you for no imaginable reason and you run into him. He's the wally, he caused the crash, but it's your fault. One of life's many pains in the fundament.
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That some walley was doing about 150mph, and didn't stop untill after the hit.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sun 27 Jun 10 at 22:39
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Er, you misunderstand me ON. I didn't say Kovaleinen was a wally or that he stopped. I was just observing that when some wally - on the road - causes an accident in which someone else hits the back of the wally's car, the other person nearly always gets the blame although it may not be really their fault.
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Sorry AC, However it is always the rear enders fault for driving too close to be able to stop. Anyone can do an emegency stop for a reason not apparent to the car behind.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sun 27 Jun 10 at 22:50
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Nothing to be sorry for... but I know from experience that they can also stop for an imaginary reason, a completely silly one, or no reason at all. They cause the accident, the person behind gets the blame.
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They do not cause the accident, the driver behind is too close to stop, so it is his fault and he rightly gets the blame. It is called tailgating.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sun 27 Jun 10 at 23:00
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>> They do not cause the accident, the driver behind is too close to stop
This is indeed the official view and many share it. But I don't. If the car in front has stopped or slowed for a reason, then the person behind is responsible for the accident. If there isn't a reason, then the driver who has stopped for no reason is to blame. But the one behind still gets the blame. That was what I meant.
However you are entitled to take the other view. It's usually right, and if that's good enough for the police and courts then I can't complain if you think it's good enough for you.
But it still isn't good enough for me. I think people who stop abruptly in the carriageway for no good reason are dangerous wallies, who sometimes cause accidents for which they don't get the blame. Perhaps you have never seen anyone do that. I have, many times, and I have hit three of them over the years.
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I have only ever hit one, and that was owing to me looking for too long at lady on the pavement while in crawling traffic at Swiss Cottage. Too late I saw in the shop window behind her that the car in front had stopped, about a tenth of a second before I gave it a firm nudge.
I agree with ON save where somebody has actually pulled across in front of you and braked immediately prior to the shunt.
Back in the unreal world, Kova was always going to brake at some point, he had to. If Webber was a foot directly behind at that point, he was going to hit him which he did. I like to see Webber winning but in this case I'm pretty sure he was wrong.
The Red Bulls are undoubtedly the team to beat at the moment but they do have form in the crashing department.
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I have only been watching F1 for a couple of seasons now and just wonder what sort of future it has as they seem to invent the rules as they go along. I forsee a time when they could get rid of the overpaid drivers and replace them with remote controlled cars as they obviously have the technology for that.
If people could stand back from their obsessions with certain forms of sport and this includes the nonsense that is professional football, then you realise how silly they are and what a complete waste of time they are. However F1 is vaguely entertaining, at the moment, because of the element of danger that exists.
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"they seem to invent the rules as they go along"
My thoughts entirely. If the rules are so complicated that not only the drivers but also their teams can't interpret them correctly, then they need to be re-written. I'm not quite sure what Hamilton was supposed to have done, but I'm sure he'd have far less grief if he was driving for Ferrari...
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"If Webber was a foot directly behind at that point, he was going to hit him which he did"
Have to agree with that. In any case, all he had to do was to pull right before passing, but he seemed to forget that you can't slipstream and overtake at the same time!
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>> Back in the unreal world, Kova was always going to brake at some point, he
>> had to. If Webber was a foot directly behind at that point, he was going
>> to hit him which he did. I like to see Webber winning but in this
>> case I'm pretty sure he was wrong.
Yes he was going to brake, at the braking point - which was some 30 yards further into the corner. In F1, outbraking someone is braking about 1-2 yards later. F1 brakes are incredible, and 1-2 yards braking difference is about 1-1/2 car lengths.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 28 Jun 10 at 15:10
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Kovaleinen was jinking about a bit too. It looked as if Webber thought he was moving left but he jinked right or straightened up before braking early. All in small fractions of a second.
A racing accident was what it was, more Kovaleinen's fault than Webber's. But then as a lifelong dangerous tailgater I would think that, wouldn't I?
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>>Yes he was going to brake, at the braking point - which was some 30 yards further into the corner.
I'm not aware of any commentary or evidence to the effect that Kovalainen braked 'early' (other than Mark Webber's). Has there been any? And what's in it for Kova to brake early given it took him out of the race and involved him in a serious high speed crash?
Mike Gascoyne -
"Mark's charged up behind Heikki, he's got the quicker car and Heikki has to brake where he brakes because of the grip he has....Heikki braked where he was supposed to brake and someone hit him, so that's our point of view."
Referring to the collision between Webber and team-mate Sebastian Vettel in Turkey four weeks ago, Gascoyne pointedly added: "Mark's now had two accidents in three races and it's never been his fault."
...to which Gascoyne could have added the crash with Hamilton in Melbourne as well.
Webber's fast and certainly helps to counteract the processional tendency of F!, but he does have form in this area...
>>In F1, outbraking someone is braking about 1-2 yards later.
Yup. So no good being directly behind your quarry at that point. Schoolboy error, unless you are right about Kova's very early braking.
Racing accident I think. Either driver given notice would have planned a different outcome - but at 190mph there isn't a lot of time to deliberate is there?
The only thing I am convinced of is that expecting drivers to "get out of the way" isn't racing. I don't recall it being 'expected' so much before Schumacher was in his pomp, when his aggressive style succeeded in intimidating most of the field.
Last edited by: Manatee on Mon 28 Jun 10 at 23:13
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>> I'm not aware of any commentary or evidence to the effect that Kovalainen braked 'early'
After the race, Kovalainen said he braked.... checked the footage?
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Clearly he braked, but did he brake in the wrong place, that's the question isn't it? He said IIRC that his braking point was earlier than Webber's owing to the grip available to him.
I've watched the replay several times and I can't see that Kova braked early - I didn't think that worth saying as I can't really back it up, given the angles and not least the fact that I have never driven a F1 car...
Last edited by: Manatee on Mon 28 Jun 10 at 23:19
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>> his braking point was earlier than Webber's owing to the grip available to him.
These were both F1 cars. They were both nowhere near a corner in F1 terms!
But the speed difference was so big, why did Webber need a slipstream? I think this is why there has been no further investigation. Webber was a lot faster (or should have been in an undamaged car.... and he'd had incidents in the race).
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well, webber closed on him for sure, and was a yard or two behind him for some yards as he slipstreamed, and then the gap closed suddenly. It happened a long way before the normal braking point for any car.
So either webber suddenly got 30 mph more or kov suddenly dropped 30mph of his.
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I agree RF. Well before any braking point Kov braked. And moved around a lot before then.
Kov used to drive with Hamilton and may still be a good friend. He may not have imagined Webber was about to fly! He might have wanted to hold him up.
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So why does Gascoyne say Heikki braked where he was supposed to brake? If it was as obvious as you two think, he'd just look stupid wouldn't he?
To which you could add that it's not credible that Kova would brake "nowhere near a corner". Had he by consensus done so, there'd be a clamour for him to be charged with attempted murder, not a mere slanging match.
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Maybe Lotus brakes are not as good? So very early braking.
I am not defending Kov as such. With the superior car why drive to close in the first place. I blame Webber.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Mon 28 Jun 10 at 23:48
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>> Maybe Lotus brakes are not as good? So very early braking.
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>> I am not defending Kov as such. With the superior car why drive to close
>> in the first place. I blame Webber.
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Webber's account
news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8766344.stm
Webber said he had been caught unawares by Kovalainen's driving in the much slower Lotus as they approached Turn 12 on lap nine.
www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/84843
Mark Webber refused to blame Heikki Kovalainen for his massive accident during the European Grand Prix on Sunday.
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>> Well before any braking point Kov braked. And moved around a lot before then.
Yes. He did a tiny subtle jink to the right and braked, when he had been drifting to the left. Webber was in rhythm to jink to the right around him, but he braked early. Horrendous crash but he can't have meant it to happen. Phew!
Twenty years ago it might have been another story altogether. Hope Mark Webber isn't too traumatised. The on-board film is surreal, calm evening sky, loopadaloop, holy whassername!
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>> Twenty years ago it might have been another story altogether. Hope Mark Webber isn't too
>> traumatised. The on-board film is surreal, calm evening sky, loopadaloop, holy whassername!
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He implies that thought the worst -
When asked whether anything went through his mind in such a high speed accident, he said: "Of course, yeah. It's headline stuff what goes through my head, but that's the game we're in and some days that happens."
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>> yeah. It's headline stuff what goes through my head, but that's the game we're in and some days that happens."
Cool, no? Chapeau!
Still hope he sees his Guru this week.
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>> Listening to the radio comms during the race, all Alonso was interested in was how
>> much the penalty had hurt Hamilton. Id have love to see the face without the
>> helmet when he learned that even with teh drive-thro, he was still where he was.
>> Priceless.
Just shows that Hamilton has Alonso beaten even before they get into the cars!
Would have been even better if Hamilton had beaten the safety car to the line and there had been no penalty, now did Hamilton slip up? or was he trying to get to the line himself but not give Alonso a chance to make it to the line before the SC?
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or was he trying to get to the line himself but not give Alonso a chance to make it
>> to the line before the SC?
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that's obviously what Alonso thinks...i'm not so sure, it's a possibility...or..he saw the safety car, hesitated, then thought it's ok I can still go (which if he hadn't hesitated he could have, because the safety car hadn't reached a white line) but misjudged it slightly
not sure which version is accurate, although i'm leaning towards version 2
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yes it looked that way to me westie.
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If he hadn't hesitated I think he'd have been fine. But was he smart enough to have worked the penalty out. Had he not hesitated might Alonso not have also got past ;-)
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Ferrari aren't letting it lie: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8769619.stm
Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo has warned events at Sunday's European Grand Prix have set a precedent that could damage Formula 1's credibility.
Ferrari maintain McLaren's Lewis Hamilton effectively escaped punishment after overtaking the safety car.
Hamilton was handed a drive-through penalty, but was able to retain second position in the race.
Di Montezemolo said: "That is a very serious and unacceptable event that creates dangerous precedents."
Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso, who was running close behind Hamilton when the safety car came out following Red Bull driver Mark Webber's spectacular collision with the Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen, did not overtake the safety car, and went on to finish ninth.
But the timing and nature of the penalty on Hamilton enabled the British driver to build up a big enough cushion to complete the drive-through without losing a place. In finishing second, he maintained his position at the top of the drivers' championship. Alonso is fifth in the standings.
In a statement on the Ferrari website, di Montezemolo said: "The result of yesterday's race was misrepresentative. Ferrari, which showed itself to be competitive in the European Grand Prix, paid a price that was too high for respecting the rules.
"Meanwhile, those who didn't follow the rules were penalised by the race officials in a way that was less severe than the damage suffered by those who did respect them. That is a very serious and unacceptable event that creates dangerous precedents, throwing a shadow over the credibility of Formula One.
"We are sure that the FIA will fully analyse what happened, taking the consequent necessary decisions. Ferrari will watch this with interest."
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Ferrari will quit F1 then... not. A lot of hot air. Alonso creating most of that.
The Ferrari is fast.... so why not just race.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Mon 28 Jun 10 at 22:49
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And McLaren are bitching about Ferrari's "testing", also on the Beeb's F1 page.
news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8765414.stm
I think it's just good old rivalry.
Last edited by: Webmaster on Mon 12 Jul 10 at 00:35
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>> "Meanwhile, those who didn't follow the rules were penalised by the race officials in a
>> way that was less severe than the damage suffered by those who did respect them.
>> That is a very serious and unacceptable event that creates dangerous precedents,
Alonso says he would never pass the safety car. He says the result was "manipulated". He seems to have forgotten about the manipulated result at Singapore when Piquet's actions resulted in a safety car which allowed Alonso to get to the front.
news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8766420.stm
gives Hamilton and Alonso's views on the incident.
Hamilton - "As I was coming around Turn One, literally as I got to the safety car line I saw the safety car was pretty much alongside me. I thought that I'd passed it so I continued and that was it." And when news of Alonso's anger was relayed to him, Hamilton said the Spaniard should stick to analysing his own performance. "It's good to know his weak point, I guess," Hamilton, who spent a tumultuous season alongside Alonso as team-mates at McLaren, told BBC Sport. "I just focus on my job, so maybe he should have done that." Hamilton said he had acted instinctively when the safety car came out in the wake of Mark Webber's horrific crash. "I thought I'd passed him as we went over the line so I didn't think anything was wrong," he said. "That's why I continued. "It was much, much later in the race that I found out I had a penalty - I didn't even know what it was for. I haven't seen the data so I don't even know that I did [overtake the safety car]."
Alonso - "It's a shame, not for us because this is racing, but for all the fans who came here to watch a manipulated race. It is the first time I have seen someone overtake the safety car. All the kids that were in the stands know that you cannot pass [the safety car].
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I allways thought that the safety car itself controlled the speed of the cars.
Now we know that drivers are given lap/sector times to meet and penalised for going to fast (Button & Co) why do they have the safety car at all?
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I think Hamilton is now really trying to wind up Alonso. Accusing him of getting emotional is a real dig at him. Can only improve things, id give the psychological edge to Lewis so far and id bet he will keep on now he has him rattled.
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>> I allways thought that the safety car itself controlled the speed of the cars.
>>
>> Now we know that drivers are given lap/sector times to meet and penalised for going
>> to fast (Button & Co) why do they have the safety car at all?
>>
The delta times are simply to allow the pack of cars to form up behind the safety car without running flat out to catch it, once they are behind the safety car then it controls the speed of the pack.
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IIRC the commentary implied something a little different - that the drivers were notified lap and sector times which they should maintain during safety car - it comes up on their wheel apparently.
I imagined this was so that the lead car couldn't drop too far behind (e.g. for tyre warming purposes) when it was anticipated that the SC was going to pull off, or for that matter anyone further back in the pack. Otherwise they could be strung out along the entire track - and the idea of the SC is to maintain a pack.
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On one hand Ferrari were simply unlucky in that both Alonso and Massa were past the pit entrance when the SC was deployed though not past the pit exit so as to run ahead of the SC and come around behind it as Vettel could legitimately and Hamilton did wrongly. It affected Alonso and Massa only because Button et al had not past the pit entrance when the SC was deployed so entered the pits.
Ferrari's issue is that Hamilton slowed much more than necessary as soon as the SC was deployed, had he not done so then all four leaders, Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso and Massa could have past the pit exit before the SC emerged, this can be interpreted in two ways:
1/ Hamilton was unsure what he should be doing how fast he should be going and it was only when he saw the SC alongside him that he reacted hence in effect overtaking the SC which is not allowed.
2/ Hamilton realised that he may be able to trap the cars following behind the safety car so slowed so as to judge his pass of the pit exit.
Either way it is right that Hamilton was penalised and it is also wrong that the penalty awarded was ineffective. However if 2/ above was Hamilton's intention then the question is does this strategy alone contradict any regulations.
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From what you saw on the box, it wouldn't be possible to determine between the two. It looked more like a bit of a dither to me, but could also have been version 2. I bet there was no traffic on the ship to shore radio at that time which might give the game away.
It does always surprise me how little the teams seem to know about the rules.
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I believe Ham did slow down quite a lot, as in the replays of him passing the safety car Vettel was nowhere to be seen, he had long gone. Just before Webbers crash they were all pretty close.
As for safety car controversies, now with the lack of refuelling I can see no reason not to simply close the pitlane when the SC is deployed, and open it once it has come in.
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Hamilton dithered for a split second, just as I sometimes do when approaching traffic lights you see the amber come on and you have to make split second decision whether it is safer to brake or safer to carry straight on.
On the official Formula 1 website, the explanation for the penalties is given by the FIA, and comments by the drivers.
FIA - All nine men will have five seconds added to their final race time for speeding under the safety car during their in-laps prior to pitting following Mark Webber’s dramatic crash in the early stages of the European Grand Prix.
Button - I was very close to the pit entry when the Safety Car was triggered. I was warned by the team beforehand, who said, ‘There might be a Safety Car, in this lap,’ so I dived into the pits. There was no room to lift off or hit the brakes, so to be honest I can’t really see why I was called to the stewards.
Hamilton - Whenever a Safety Car comes out, it’s difficult to compute all the information. There are all these beeps in your ear, and lights flashing on your dashboard too. There’s got to be a certain time between the ‘Safety Car One’ line and the ‘Safety Car Two’ line, and between those two lines you can go fast. So it’s all a bit complicated. So I pushed past the last Safety Car line, and was obviously then trying to close the gap to Seb. But as I came out of the first corner, all of a sudden I saw the Safety Car coming out, so I backed off and went across the line as I did that, so I thought I was okay.
Alonso - “The race was ruined by the Safety Car and everything that followed on from that. I am disappointed most of all for the thousands of spectators who were here today and saw how the situation was handled. I am very bitter about what happened today. I was in third place, a metre behind Hamilton at the moment the Safety Car came out on track and, at the chequered flag, he was second and I was ninth, even though we had made the same choice of strategy. The penalty he was given came when it could no longer have any real influence on his finishing position. From then on, my race was compromised. "
Massa - "On the lap when the accident happened, we were coming into the final corner and there was nothing, then suddenly, the Safety Car came out on track and I saw in the mirrors that the cars behind us were pitting: our chance of fighting for the podium went up in smoke at that moment. The difference between us and Hamilton is that he committed an infraction and we did not, but his penalty had no effect on his result."
Domenicali - "Then came the unfortunate blow linked to the safety car period, which arrived at the very worst moment for us in that both our cars had just gone past the pit lane entry and therefore were forced to do a full lap behind the Safety Car."
Tough luck for some, but that it how it plays out most times when a safety car comes out. It ill behoves Alonso and Ferrari to whinge when they lose out on the roll of dice in a safety car situation.
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Thanks, hadn't seen that.
Your last para sums it up - sometimes in racing you get lucky, sometimes not.
The safety car could have played a big part in the Le Mans 24h this year. They deploy 3 safety cars due to the length of the track, and the Audi's were stuck behind the second one due to a slower car between them and the Peugeots at the wrong time and you could have said it ruined their race, but justice was done and the Peugeots dropped out later in the race with mechanical issues. (Safety car was due to the Mansell incident).
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>> Tough luck for some, but that it how it plays out most times when a
>> safety car comes out. It ill behoves Alonso and Ferrari to whinge when they lose
>> out on the roll of dice in a safety car situation.
>>
Tough luck for Ferrari v Vettel though it should not have been tough luck for Ferrari v Hamilton because he commited an infringment, Massa's quote sums it up:
>> "... The difference between us and Hamilton is that he committed an infraction and we did not, but his penalty had no effect on his result." >>
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I don't particularly support any driver but Hamilton got a penalty but such was his skill or tactical prowess (??) it didn't have a significant effect. Same as penalties in football - the goalie can save it, this causing the penalty to be insignificant.
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I assume Ferrari wanted a penalty that resulted in them getting an advantage, e.g. Hamilton stops for Alonso and Massa to pass?
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>> I assume Ferrari wanted a penalty that resulted in them getting an advantage, e.g. Hamilton stops for Alonso and Massa to pass?
>>
The penalty should match the crime, after all if a drive-through were the published penalty for overtaking the safety car then many drivers / teams would do it as a matter of course to be able to complete an additional lap at racing speeds and avoid team mates stacking in the pits thus making the principal of a saftey car pointless.
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>> The penalty should match the crime
What happens if there wasn't a 'crime'....and it was a simple hesitant mistake. If he'd kept his foot down he'd have been home and dry...you could easily argue Hamilton was hard done by, he suddenly came upon the safety car driving much more slowly than him, in the pit exit, hesitated, then thought about the line rule, but slightly got it wrong on his timing...which conversely if he hadn't backed off and thought about it, wouldn't have had him in the wrong.
The fact that he was quick enough in the race to be able to swallow a pit drive through is his good fortune and a testament to his driving skill.
Alonso comes across as a total 'male bird'. It's a shame that Massa, Dominecali and Di Montezemolo (spelling?) have got wrappped up in it as well. Quite why a driver should be discussing this whilst racing in an F1 race defeats me. Alonso's race engineer should have told him to 'shut up and get on with it'.
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Seem Mr Alonso has seen the folly of his ways. Or maybe he was feeling some bad karma about to descend.
news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8774122.stm
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>> Seem Mr Alonso has seen the folly of his ways. Or maybe he was feeling
>> some bad karma about to descend.
>>
He has been leaned on, and told to wind his neck in.
Who says there are no team orders? :)
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 29 Jun 10 at 22:21
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> if 2/ above was Hamilton's intention then the question is does this strategy alone contradict any regulations.
Throw the book at him Cheddar
Rule Infraction 1: Car not Red
Rule Infraction 2: No flying horse on car
Rule Infraction 3: Car not builtin italy
Rule Infraction 4 Car not built in Modena
Rule Infraction 5 Car not called Ferrari.
Penalty for infraction 5 - all past and future points docked.
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>>.......... all past and future points docked.>>
Yawn!
Last edited by: Cheddar on Tue 29 Jun 10 at 10:25
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yes thats exactly how we feel about your bias.
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Funny, I see a lot of bias on here from all sides
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>> yes thats exactly how we feel about your bias.
>>
We?
And what bias? I have presneted an overview of the case where as for you the sun shines out of Hamilton's backside so you wont accepct that he can do wrong.
Last edited by: Webmaster on Mon 12 Jul 10 at 00:35
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Not at all, you will see I have no preference to Hamilton, and in the past (on the other place and here) said nasty things about him.
I am not completely and utterly blind to anything other than a team in red like you. If you had your way, only one team would take part.
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Yes, "we", Cheddar... if you look back of your history of comments on Hamilton, both on here and HJ, its clear that you don't like him and will not accept any views to the contrary... I'd suggest that you step back for a moment and try to read them as a neutral and you'll see where Zero is coming from...
I won't comment on this incident as there have been clear gains by other teams from dubious decisssions in the past and in this case its gone Hamilton's way... some you win, some you lose... perhaps Ferrari should be concentrating on getting their car to work?!
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Yes you win some you lose some though that does not remove the need for improvements or in our case it does not take away the discussion.
To answer you more general point I am always neutral on these matters, on the Schu passing Alonso in Monaco debate I said it was right that Alonso lost his place and still RF, er Zero said I was biased towards Ferrari!
In this case Zero quoted my question "(if it) was Hamilton's intention then the question is does this strategy alone contradict any regulations." and again accused me of bias, where is the critisism of Hamilton or the bias towards Ferrari in that !!
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Sorry, m8, but when it comes to Hamilton you are not and never have been neutral! Please try to reread you many posts about Hamilton as a neutral and you will see what I mean... you don't like the guy, thats obvious, so there's no point in denying it!
Having said that there's nothing wrong with healthy debate as long as people accept that sometimes they can be wrong and just for the record I'll admit my bias as being a bit like Tony Vandervell in that I don't particularly like red cars... which can also come across sometimes!
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Pretty pointless argument developing here which might ends in tears. Shall we move on?
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>> Pretty pointless argument developing here which might ends in tears. Shall we move on?
>>
One final point.
Speed at the pit straight at Valencia is typically around 90 metres per second.
Assuming that at the 2nd safety car line Hamilton had already slowed to 50 metres per second (unlikely, he was much faster), and remembering that the helicopter video shows him falling foul of the no-overtaking rule by about 1 metre, it means that Hamilton got caught out by the rule due to a lapse of 1/50 th of a second, i.e. 0.02 of a second.
That is how close a call it was.
www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm
Last edited by: John H on Tue 29 Jun 10 at 23:08
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Stripping out all the Alonso paranoia and tantrums, and the Ferrari team's embarrassing endorsement of his conspiracy theories, leaves one valid question raised by this incident. Even though Hamilton was penalised (presumably for overtaking the safety car after the line, rather than slowing down just to stuff Alonso) the transgressor still profited from his offence even after the punishment.
The FIA might consider whether it is desirable, when there has been a rule broken, whether as a principle the penalty should at least outweigh any advantage gained.
Alonso detracts from his ability by whining though. He needs to take a leaf out of Webber's book. Heaven knows what theory Fernando would have come up with had he run into the back of Heikki.
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>>
>> The FIA might consider whether it is desirable, when there has been a rule broken,
>> whether as a principle the penalty should at least outweigh any advantage gained.
>>
That's the key point.
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>> One final point.
>>
That doesn't work out though, he had eased off a lot proven by the fact that Vettel had long gone and the Ferraris were right on his tail though couldn't overtake because of the SC lights. I reckon he saw the safety car lights on his s/wheel as he entered the pit straight (after all Button who was three cars behind had time to react and enter the pits) and then slowed up along the pit straight, he had lost seconds before he got to the pit lane exit.
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"Vettel had long gone " Had he? I don't know the stats but even after his penalty he was only, was it 14 seconds, behind? So Vettel can't have been "long gone". H was even close enough to mount a realistic attempt to catch Vettel.
JH
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In the context of the pit straight and first corner Vettel had long gone, he kept his foot down and was many seconds ahead of Hamilton when Hamiton passed the SC, had Hamilton also kept his foot down then it is certain that he and Alonso could have passed the SC line before the SC crossed it and it is possible that Massa may have done so too.
Of course Hamilton then closed on Vettel when the latter was behind the SC.
The BBC article says "On seeing the safety car to his right, Hamilton's instinctive reaction was to lift off" however I reckon he lifted off earlier when he saw the SC lights on his s/wheel. This would explain how Vettel was suddenly a good way ahead and how Alonso had to brake hard to avoid passing Hamilton.
While it may have been Hamilton's intention to pass the SC and block Alonso etc from also doing so there is no evidence to suggest this. However he transgressed and the punishment was not fitting.
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To make this accusation stick, you would have to say that Hamilton knew exactly when the safety car was coming out of the pit, slow the entire field down, time his run to the safety car line to meet the safety car, then accelerate leaving the field trapped behind.
Alonso may think Hamilton is capable of hatching and executing this plot to millisecond precision, but I dont really think he is that good! Alonso probably thinks the whole thing was planned, starting with Hekki throwing webber in the air.
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"Alonso probably thinks the whole thing was planned, starting with Hekki throwing webber in the air"
I'm sure he does! That Kobayashi must have been doing something illegal as well... :-)
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"starting with Hekki throwing webber in the air. "
Shhh!!! That's supposed to be a secret!
JH
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>> That doesn't work out though, he had eased off a lot proven by the fact
>>
>> In the context of the pit straight and first corner Vettel had long gone, he
>> kept his foot down and was many seconds ahead of Hamilton when Hamiton passed the
>> SC, had Hamilton also kept his foot down then it is certain that he and
>> Alonso could have passed the SC line before the SC crossed it and it is
>> possible that Massa may have done so too.
>>
I know I am wasting my time replying to Cheddar, but here is hoping that he will at least look at these links of videos and lap time charts -
Hamilton, Alonso, Massa meeting the safety car
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEo5eqjjfXc&feature=player_embedded
notice how Alonso and Massa are unable to slow enough to let the medical car get through
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKYyvHvO-jA&feature=related
In the above videos, it is clear that Alonso was not "one metre behind" Hamilton as he claimed on his website and in his interviews.
www.f1fanatic.co.uk/charts/201009r.html
Tick/untick drivers’ names to leave Alonso, Hamilton, Massa and Vettel to show their lap times and positions (then click and drag to zoom)
The time chart shows that Hamilton had not " eased off a lot ", Vettel was getting away from Hamilton by few tenths of seconds every lap who crossed the finish line 3.01, 3.37, 3.49, 3.73, and 4.13 seconds behind Vettel at the end of laps 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
Last edited by: John H on Wed 30 Jun 10 at 10:04
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I cant see anywhere there that says he didnt ease off unless I am missing something? It deem seem a little one sided that aswell. There is an interesting article on the whole Ham-Alonso-Mclaren story about Monaco when Dennis was shown to favour Ham and thats where it all started to go wrong..
Anyway, without his telemetry data I dont suppose there is any way you could tell.
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After reading the bickering above I hope the don't intoduce goals to F1. :)
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Cheddar, you made a good point in respect that the punishment should fit the crime... but in a race thats very difficult to do as this scenario proves, he was given the appropriate penalty and it made no difference, but it could have done... The fairest way is to put the driver back in the position he would have been in if he had not infringed, but we all know thats not possible in a race (or after it for that matter) and so we have to have a compromise, it can work both ways, sometimes the penalty goes ott (such as that one on Hamilton at Spa a few years ago)... at best penalties are a compromise, and Alonso has to accept that... after all he could be the one gaining the next time!
Quite frankly I think F1 is far too hidebound with rules and regulations... and this race has just proved it again when the result at the end of the race was then changed!
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>> The fairest way is to put the driver back in the position he would have been in if he had not infringed,
The fairest way is to give every driver back his time advantage, adjusted so that everyone is where they were before the the safety car was deployed.
snippets from BBC website link posted by Zero
news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8770322.stm
It was Whiting who handled the safety car and penalty situation at Valencia on Sunday - but on this occasion, when looked at in detail, it is clear he acted absolutely correctly and that Alonso and Ferrari were simply unfortunate.
The safety car's job in this situation was to escort the medical car to the scene of the accident at turn 12. It exited the pit lane which funnels into Turn One just as Hamilton and Alonso were coming through that corner.
On seeing the safety car to his right, Hamilton's instinctive reaction was to lift off. He then realised that actually they had yet to reach the safety car line, so he accelerated again.
Had it not been for that momentary hesitation, Hamilton would have passed the safety car before the line and thereby been allowed to make for the pits at racing speed, so long as he acted accordingly to the yellow flags at the accident site.
Whiting was primarily concerned with attending to the Webber accident.
There is the option of having the safety car wave cars past until it picks up the leader but it is not a regulatory requirement.
Whiting adjudged that escorting the medical car was the priority - without regard to which competitors it affected - and so no-one was waved through until after the accident site.
Only once the Webber incident had been cleared and the race restarted could Whiting begin looking at the Hamilton incident. In determining whether an offence had been committed he had a few key difficulties.
There was no timekeeping loop at that part of the track, so the evidence was going to rely on footage and the transponders of each car - Hamilton's and the safety car - as they crossed the safety car line.
The in-car footage from Hamilton was far from decisive in that it was such a close call that the angle of the view could not support a conclusion. He then ordered aerial footage from the official Formula 1 Management helicopter - and this took some time to be found.
The complication of the transponders in the two cars was that they were almost certainly at differing lengths from the frontal extremities of each car, so Whiting was seeking this information too. Only once he had all this compiled did he feel confident in confirming that an offence had taken place.
At this point, he could have chosen a harsher penalty that would have had a greater detrimental effect on Hamilton's position. But the precedent for this offence is a drive-through. It is not in the regulations, but is at the race director's discretion.
Whiting was reluctant to subjectively apply a different penalty - because doing that would establish a new precedent: that the outcome of the race should be at the whim of whatever the race director wished it to be. Then every decision he made would be liable to be seen as 'manipulation'.
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>> >> The fairest way is to put the driver back in the position he would
>> have been in if he had not infringed,
>>
>> The fairest way is to give every driver back his time advantage, adjusted so that
>> everyone is where they were before the the safety car was deployed.
I was talking generally, John, not re this specific incident... But even your suggestion could not take into account the effect of that Driver being out there in a different possition to where he would have been had he not made the infringement and his effect on the progress of the other drivers!
I think the last paragraph sums it up nicely, at least he seems to realise just how much the "manipulation" of results by their decissions has a negative effect on the Sport and the Fans! At best it has to be a compromise, anyone who has raced knows that even the most calculating individual can get caught out and thus allowances have to be made, sometimes the justice is effective, sometimes not enough, sometimes ott... they just have to learn from it for the future... But try not to go overboard!
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>> He didnt ease off a lot.
>>
>> Read this
>>
>> news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8770322.stm
>>
That was a well balanced informed article, wan't it...and it echoes my thoughts entirely.
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I've had a wicked thought. Hamilton moves to Ferrari. Gives Cheddar a problem! :-)
JH
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I'm about thirty miles from Silverstone, as the helicopter flies, and there's been a lot of them today!
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Silverstone heliport handled 1200 helicopter movements on race Sunday last year and about the same in 2008.
Each heliport ( north and south) can handle 44 movements per 15 minutes) so keep your earplugs handy Tom.....
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Just been watching the practice session - Vettel's front wing just dropping off was quite something, never seen that before, something to watch for the quali and the race.
Looks like Ferrari have gaine some speed, McLaren have had little success with their updates and are well down, but we shall see when they qualify.
Well worth watching it online as you dont get all the infill with the TV broadcasts, just good solid info and comment.
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Valencia - Focusless
