What a cracking race. Perez and Senna with absolutely phenomenal drives. I'm a bit sad Vettel didn't do better, but frankly he didn't drive all that well; a silly mistake with the HRT.
Finally had a chance to watch the race yesterday evening... incredible!
Alonso was immense, but Perez should have had that. Inexplicable message from his team near the end, and a really untimely mistake. The most impressive was Senna though, it was like the pack he was working through were standing still.
I'm still on Team Grosjean, but we'll see how he does in China.
I didn't have time to comment in here yesterday either so I now I can just echo all the things that you people have already said.
What a race! It was fantastic for the spectator (apart from the red flag) seeing so many critical moments, you really got the sense that every corner was a potential spin and every pit stop a win or lose decision.
I also understand the frustration from some of the drivers; Kimi said after the race that while he was happy he finished 5th what he really wanted was a normal clean race so they have any idea how good they are. Instead they get a second DNF for Grosjean and Kimi started 17th in Melbourne due a mishap and 10th here due to a penalty followed by crazy wet race where he made up 5 positions simply by staying on the track.
And what the hell is going on with Massa? I mean I understand if he can't match Alonso, very few can. But yesterday he was being overtaken by what 8 drivers? That surely can't be all Massa's fault? There must be something very different going on with the management and car setup of each driver for that to make any sense.
Yeah surely that has to be Massa's worst ever drive. He didn't have any incidents did he? No punctures or broken noses that I remember. Yet he finished 97 seconds behind, nearly a lap down on his team mate. I think that's around one and three-quarters of a second per lap?
I can't remember any incidents with Massa, although he seemed to be doing his best to create one with Button... I know Ferrari keep showing his support, but they're bound to be considering their options at the very least. Not sure if it was his worst drive though - it's a tossup between this race and silverstone 2008.
Definately a phenomenal performance from Perez and Alonso though. I'd like to see what they'd be like if they were both in a good car, which at the minute would be a Sauber. Senna quite impressed me aswell. His drive went a long way to showing that he deserves his place there.
Still wondering what happened to the Mercs though. They're phenomenal in qualifying, but their race pace is nowhere - the duct can't count for that much surely? McLaren were pretty poor this race aswell. They did manage a podium, but the number of screwups with strategy (out on the wrong tyres for too long) and pitstop screwups was very poor for them.
Well me and a friend heroed-up and put on the coffee, took a brisk midnight walk while they were playing GP2 on TV to get some snacks, mingled with the Vancouver weirdo night crowd and were back in time to watch the race. Speed in Canada gets all excited and the announcer says "and now we go LIVE to F1 from Malaysia!!!" and trumpets blast, and the screen fades to black, and
...
the screen stays black.
And we are sitting on the couch looking at each other after 5 minutes of this, checking our connections, going WTF? It turns out they black out the live race on Canada and we can only catch it 9 hours later. So I took my jittering caffeine laden body and walked 15 blocks home, laid in bed, and coffee-convulsed myself to sleep eventually around 5am. Spent the next day feeling hungover.
Managed to get a copy to watch and I guess I'm kinda glad I didn't watch it live! Red flag. But WOW, what a race. That was just so exciting! My thoughts:
As far as Massa goes, it was mentioned quite clearly that Ferrari had spent time tuning and building an entirely new chassis for Massa, so its really no wonder it was so far off from Alonso's car. But I honestly think Ferrari's engineers are going with chaos-theory-design and just throwing a bunch of carbon fibre into a paste bucket and slopping whatever comes out on the track.
Perez... can't say how elated and disappointed I was watching what happened. I'm firmly convinced that the team manager put words of doubt into his head, and with Perez being so young, it took just a bit of his concentration out of the car and he put the wheels on the curb. It doesn't take much. Stupid thing for a team manager to say to a pilot who is literally DEVOURING the lead car by .7 seconds PER LAP to hold off and enjoy second place, especially when you have a chance of blowing the freaking doors off of a) a Ferrari and b) an ALONSO, while driving a c) SAUBER!!! Would have been so cool, I really think Perez would have had it had the TM kept his mouth shut.
Otherwise, I love the tire rules, the red flag made things very interesting, Button is awesome and unfortunate, HRT's are very sharp Pylons, and Grosjean is going to make top 4 next race. Also, go Kimi.
The chassis shouldn't have anything to do with it unless it is radically different to the one Alonso is using, and I suspect it isn't because it would have had to pass all the crash tests again. I was under the impression that they gave him a new chassis in the first place because when they got to Melbourne he was so far off the pace that he'd set in testing that they suspected the one they had brought to Australia for him was somehow defective.
To bring this thread back from the dead, we're in China now and Nico Rosberg is somehow suddenly awesome, beating the crap out of everybody to take pole by half a second in an otherwise ridiculously close qualifying.
And the BBC hired the dullest man in the world, Gary Anderson, to do commentary. I didn't like him when he was with Star Sports, now he's being offensively boring elsewhere. Great move, BBC.
Rosberg basically managed an absolutely perfect lap. And since Schumacher qualified third and Hamilton got a 5 place grid penalty, there will a be an all-Mercedes front row. Should be interesting.
Kobayashi in 4th, ahead of Räikönnen and Button, is also pretty impressive.
In other news, the Ferrari still sucks - if Vettel hadn't screwed up with his exhaust choice, not even Alonso would have made it to Q3.
Yeah that was a surprise, interesting that we will have no McLaren, Red Bull or Ferrari on the first two rows. This season is really a weird one so far.
It's odd that it seems to be turning into what a lot of journalists were predicting... anyone's championship. Granted, they were making that case based on there being six world champions in the field, but it has been a pretty accurate prediction either way.
Lot's of the season left to go, but hopefully it stays like this.
Posts
My other sig sucks as well...
My other sig sucks as well...
My other sig sucks as well...
My other sig sucks as well...
My other sig sucks as well...
3DS friend code: 4811-7214-5053
I'll have to try and watch it, as everything I have read thus far is that it was a great race.
Alonso was immense, but Perez should have had that. Inexplicable message from his team near the end, and a really untimely mistake. The most impressive was Senna though, it was like the pack he was working through were standing still.
I'm still on Team Grosjean, but we'll see how he does in China.
What a race! It was fantastic for the spectator (apart from the red flag) seeing so many critical moments, you really got the sense that every corner was a potential spin and every pit stop a win or lose decision.
I also understand the frustration from some of the drivers; Kimi said after the race that while he was happy he finished 5th what he really wanted was a normal clean race so they have any idea how good they are. Instead they get a second DNF for Grosjean and Kimi started 17th in Melbourne due a mishap and 10th here due to a penalty followed by crazy wet race where he made up 5 positions simply by staying on the track.
And what the hell is going on with Massa? I mean I understand if he can't match Alonso, very few can. But yesterday he was being overtaken by what 8 drivers? That surely can't be all Massa's fault? There must be something very different going on with the management and car setup of each driver for that to make any sense.
Oh well, lets hope China brings some answers.
3DS friend code: 4811-7214-5053
Definately a phenomenal performance from Perez and Alonso though. I'd like to see what they'd be like if they were both in a good car, which at the minute would be a Sauber. Senna quite impressed me aswell. His drive went a long way to showing that he deserves his place there.
Still wondering what happened to the Mercs though. They're phenomenal in qualifying, but their race pace is nowhere - the duct can't count for that much surely? McLaren were pretty poor this race aswell. They did manage a podium, but the number of screwups with strategy (out on the wrong tyres for too long) and pitstop screwups was very poor for them.
...
the screen stays black.
And we are sitting on the couch looking at each other after 5 minutes of this, checking our connections, going WTF? It turns out they black out the live race on Canada and we can only catch it 9 hours later. So I took my jittering caffeine laden body and walked 15 blocks home, laid in bed, and coffee-convulsed myself to sleep eventually around 5am. Spent the next day feeling hungover.
Managed to get a copy to watch and I guess I'm kinda glad I didn't watch it live! Red flag. But WOW, what a race. That was just so exciting! My thoughts:
As far as Massa goes, it was mentioned quite clearly that Ferrari had spent time tuning and building an entirely new chassis for Massa, so its really no wonder it was so far off from Alonso's car. But I honestly think Ferrari's engineers are going with chaos-theory-design and just throwing a bunch of carbon fibre into a paste bucket and slopping whatever comes out on the track.
Perez... can't say how elated and disappointed I was watching what happened. I'm firmly convinced that the team manager put words of doubt into his head, and with Perez being so young, it took just a bit of his concentration out of the car and he put the wheels on the curb. It doesn't take much. Stupid thing for a team manager to say to a pilot who is literally DEVOURING the lead car by .7 seconds PER LAP to hold off and enjoy second place, especially when you have a chance of blowing the freaking doors off of a) a Ferrari and b) an ALONSO, while driving a c) SAUBER!!! Would have been so cool, I really think Perez would have had it had the TM kept his mouth shut.
Otherwise, I love the tire rules, the red flag made things very interesting, Button is awesome and unfortunate, HRT's are very sharp Pylons, and Grosjean is going to make top 4 next race. Also, go Kimi.
PSN - sumowot
3DS friend code: 4811-7214-5053
I understand Vettel's frustration, but his comments are a little unfair.
And the BBC hired the dullest man in the world, Gary Anderson, to do commentary. I didn't like him when he was with Star Sports, now he's being offensively boring elsewhere. Great move, BBC.
Kobayashi in 4th, ahead of Räikönnen and Button, is also pretty impressive.
In other news, the Ferrari still sucks - if Vettel hadn't screwed up with his exhaust choice, not even Alonso would have made it to Q3.
Lot's of the season left to go, but hopefully it stays like this.
Means little for the race, but really nice to see it.
(Am I just talking to myself in this thread now? Seems like we usually have 4-5 people on race nights at least.)