2010 Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix

I saving that video before FOM fucking pokes in.
 
Starts don't count. I'm not saying Vettel shouldn't win or do anything different but I can't exactly see the skill of this guy when all he does is drives in clean air.
DanRoM said:
In fact, he overtook Webber today. ;) And what do you want? RB to qualify slow on purpose so they can overtake others during the race? Slightly ridiculous, isn't it? The others have to get their act together.
If the technical rules cause overtaking to be difficult and therefore lay more weight on qualifying, he who takes up that challenge and does well in qualifying and consequently wins races because no one can overtake has deserved the championship. He copes best with the given situation.
Click to expand...
 
Xeon SX said:
Starts don't count. I'm not saying Vettel shouldn't win or do anything different but I can't exactly see the skill of this guy when all he does is drives in clean air.
Click to expand...

Maybe the skill is in outqualifying the likes of Kovalainen (Lotus) and Glock (Virgin) for Button and Kovalainen, Glock, Trulli (Lotus) for Alonso, Hamilton and Massa. They didn't even have any bad problems in qualifying. I can't really see the skill of Massa when he can only outqualify Chandhok, Senna and di Grassi all of whom drive for new teams and were seconds off the pace of even the slowbie Massa. Even Petrov was over 2 seconds faster than Button in Q1. Oh, and Senna I think overtook Trulli who had an engine problem. Does this in fact mean that Senna is better than Vettel who only overtook 2 cars in the start, driving solid laps for the rest of the race?
 
SchumacherM said:
Alonso and his perfectly functioning gearbox

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6S2IH285
+
http://www.megavideo.com/?v=0USXDYHN (wait a bit..processing)
Click to expand...

What I find most impressive is not that he handled the gearbox, but that he handled it while staying on the limit through the corners. The psychological distraction must be huge. You saw when Vettel had his Bahrain issue he started missing apexes, etc because he was distrated, while here he just keeps focus and isn't that much slower than Button when slowing down.

Xeon SX said:
Starts don't count. I'm not saying Vettel shouldn't win or do anything different but I can't exactly see the skill of this guy when all he does is drives in clean air.
Click to expand...

Have to agree. No doubt he's an amazingly talented driver. We just haven't seen if he's an amazingly talented racer like Hamilton/Alonso/Button.
 
Hazardous said:
I'm fairly sure the rule has existed longer than a few years. If not as a written rule then at least as a 'standard operating procedure', for the lack of better term.
Click to expand...
So I dug up the actual rule in the FIA sporting code.

*harrumph*

FIA Sporting Code, Appendix L, Chapter IV, Article 2., part b) <= click for PDF!

Overtaking, according to the circumstances, may be carried out on either the right or the left.
However, manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such more than one change of direction to defend a position, deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are strictly prohibited. Any driver who appears guilty of any of the above offences will be reported to the stewards of the meeting.

As always, that leaves the FIA all kinds of doors open to do pretty much anything to anyone, solely chosen by the stewards and their interpretation of the situation. I can not reconstruct when exactly this rule was established, but I am pretty sure it was introduced because of Michael Schumacher and his habit to weave around at the race start to prevent his opponents from pulling alongside. Must have been in his late Benetton or early Ferrari years, so around '94 to '97. Because several drivers complained to the FIA about Schumachers reckless behaviour on several occasions, the above rule was introduced to ensure that crossing the track to cut someone off is only legal one time.

Therefore, Lewis did not break that rule, because he did not cut off the Renault. All he was doing was preventing him from using his slipstream. And since no driver has a legal right to benefit from the slipstream of the car in front, that's not illegal. Whether or not it is good sportsmanship is a different question. The way the rule is worded in the FIA code however, they can declare pretty much any manoeuvre an "abnormal change of direction" and punish the driver for it.
 
Last edited:
Really good race, lots of stuff that looked like racing. Loved watching Lewis go at it like a madman before that weaving and blocking shit. What an ass.
 
I do not know if you guys have caught this on screen, but when Hammy was chasing Sutil, twice did the HRT car impede Ham.
On one lap, it was clear that Bruno blocked Ham unintentionally, and it was really frustrating to watch them block other cars.


When Schumi got out of his car, he took off his helmet, and waved to the crowds, and got on the moped and kept waving. I think this year, its like a relaxing season for him, he doesnt seem as intense as he was before.
Oh, and Schumi always gets on mopeds and even drives them around the track when he's here.
 
Delll said:
Maybe the skill is in outqualifying the likes of Kovalainen (Lotus) and Glock (Virgin) for Button and Kovalainen, Glock, Trulli (Lotus) for Alonso, Hamilton and Massa. They didn't even have any bad problems in qualifying. I can't really see the skill of Massa when he can only outqualify Chandhok, Senna and di Grassi all of whom drive for new teams and were seconds off the pace of even the slowbie Massa. Even Petrov was over 2 seconds faster than Button in Q1. Oh, and Senna I think overtook Trulli who had an engine problem. Does this in fact mean that Senna is better than Vettel who only overtook 2 cars in the start, driving solid laps for the rest of the race?
Click to expand...
Qualifying pace is a lot different to the race pace even though both are very important to the overall result. I wasn't commenting on Vettel's quali results because he is great at it. Out-qualifying slower cars isn't worth much in my book. If you don't you show how bad you can be. Don't even start comparing drivers in Malaysian quali sessions. It's just pure luck when 1 driver comes out on top in these conditions. Webber again like Button in Australia gambled on the tires and it paid off. He would have been 10th had it rain just a bit more. I don't think he had shown a great performance, any other driver on those tires would have been faster than their full-wet-tire-lap. I absolutely hated Legard when he screamed Webber is 1.5 faster than the second guy, as if that was magic, idiot but anyway... dry sessions is where you see which driver is the quickest. Remember Canada 2008 and Abu Dhabi where Lewis was 0.6sec faster than the second guy and that was on the same tires at the same time. That's real pace. On topic of overtakes, 1 overtake on Alonso is more valuable than 5 on Buemi, never mind the new cars.
 
Last edited:
^- i'm not going to even start commenting on the amount of fail in this post.

freakster_991 said:
I do not know if you guys have caught this on screen, but when Hammy was chasing Sutil, twice did the HRT car impede Ham.
On one lap, it was clear that Bruno blocked Ham unintentionally, and it was really frustrating to watch them block other cars.
Click to expand...

As has been said before, being able to lap a backmarker was once a skill needed to win races. Then came the blue flags. As, for the first time since Minardi's demise we got real backmarkers, what we'll see once Virgin and HRT get their act together is backmarkers fighting each others for positions (and the best position to maybe slip into the top 10 when things go wrong in the midfield). As far as i understand the blue flag rules, a driver does not have to honor blue flags when he's fighting for a position himself, i.e. when Senna is fending off an attack by Trulli, none of them has to make room for Button in the lead wanting to lap. Maybe one should do away with blue flags completely.
 
Last edited:
Dr_Grip said:
Maybe one should do away with blue flags completely.
Click to expand...

Now there's an idea. That would spice up the overtaking. Problem is, once the new teams get up to speed it could be disasterous as the leaders just wouldn't be able to get past at all. Or if one of the fast cars is out of position, they would intentionally block the leader coming through to screw over their race as well. It's not a bad idea though...
 
the Interceptor said:
So I dug up the actual rule in the FIA sporting code.

*harrumph*

FIA Sporting Code, Appendix L, Chapter IV, Article 2., part b) <= click for PDF!

Overtaking, according to the circumstances, may be carried out on either the right or the left.
However, manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such more than one change of direction to defend a position, deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are strictly prohibited. Any driver who appears guilty of any of the above offences will be reported to the stewards of the meeting.
Click to expand...

To me that reads "Overtake, just don't be a knob about it. We'll tell you if you were a knob about it if you do something which would meet the definition, which will probably depend on certain sensitivities and probably the mood of the stewards. Have fun! ":p
 
Sir Stiggington said:
What I find most impressive is not that he handled the gearbox, but that he handled it while staying on the limit through the corners. The psychological distraction must be huge. You saw when Vettel had his Bahrain issue he started missing apexes, etc because he was distrated, while here he just keeps focus and isn't that much slower than Button when slowing down.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Plus Alonso set a couple of fastest laps with that downshift problem.

Ladamaha said:
Really good race, lots of stuff that looked like racing. Loved watching Lewis go at it like a madman before that weaving and blocking shit. What an ass.
Click to expand...

yup, he got a warning for that.

And another great race from Kubica. The Renault isn't looking so shabby this year hey?
 
^

Anyone else impressed with Petrov's pace? He seems to be doing quite well in that Renault, whereas the Kobayashi hype is dying down (maybe the Sauber car isn't competitive enough?)
 
Unfortunately he's still got a penchant for throwing it into the boonies every once in a while. He drove at Le Mans in '07 for Noel del Bello in an LMP2 Courage, and apparently, on his first lap in the test day a couple of weeks before the race, he crashed the car in a rather spectacular manner. Also, he's had some pretty big crashes in GP2, and he's already had some off-track acrobatics in F1 (although in Bahrain and here in Malaysia he was unfortunate to retire with mechanical issues). But his pace is good, he's not embarassing himself on that side and he can mature into a solid points-scorer by the end of the year.
 
I do think that BMW has given Peter Sauber a car that is only a little bit better than the F1.09. If the driver gets it together, if everything is ok, it might be good to take Williams, STR, backmarkers, and the odd Force India (maybe!), but it's far away from being perfect.

Kobayashi got into that Toyota at the end of the year...a time when weirdly Toyota always did better. At the begining and at the end. That's it. He could show his talent then...we have to wait now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top