Red Bull Team orders

[peteskar]

Did any elsa find it a bit odd that Sebastian Vettel had "engine trouble" around lap 20 until Webber passed him? As a Mater Audi technician I can't speak for the Renault engine, but I can say that engine problems don't just go away in a matter of minutes and not come back again to haunt you. "Must have had some friction" was Vettels response if I remember correctly. Meaning what? Loss of oil pressure,a failed cam adjuster, causing the cams mistimed which cam cause a friction fault. Both of these issues in my opion would do major engine damage especially at 18,000 rpm. Or maybe it was engine braking from taking his foot off the gas pedal. I would love to see the telemetry. I only really bring this up beacause of all the comments and big stink that was made with Ferrari's team orders.

[marcush.]

yes it is quite amusing that.
official statement was a stuck brakepad slowing vettel down...well carbon brakes are quite powerful so a sticking brake would of course give the impression of loss of power..but it would of course also tend to pull the car to one side..I would suppose...so if that was for real it was on the rear ..i´m a bit surprised this would not pop up instantly as an alert with braketemps soaring on that particular brake and
it seems odd that his masters voice was quickly speaking of airbox fires and Horner of something as stupid I do not even care to remember .

[raymondu999]

I believe the brake pedal was binding slightly, so the brake pressure would've been symmetrical. If they were team orders, then they failed. Seb finished in front anyways.

[Giblet]

If it was team orders, I would find it strange that it was the driver who initiated them. I think in this case what happened was exactly what was said and what we saw.

Not everything is cloak and dagger.

[marcush.]

so thats the cause according to motorsport-total.com:

"Motorsportberater Dr. Helmut Marko spekulierte über ein Feuer in der Airbox, Teamchef Christian Horner über ein Abreißvisier, das sich in der Airbox verfangen haben könnte.
Doch wie sich anschließend herausstellte, hatte keiner der beiden Recht.
Nach Analyse der Telemetriedaten stellte sich nun heraus, dass mit dem Motor alles in Ordnung war. Vielmehr zeigte die Analyse nach dem Rennen, dass sich wohl eine der Bremsen nach der Durchfahrt durch die Ascari-Schikane nicht korrekt gelöst hatte und das Auto dadurch abgebremst wurde."
what happened to Vettel was officially one not correctly releasing brake after Ascari chicane .according to telemetry data.

So the engineers in the garage asleep not instantly giving out a warning...isn´t there a threshold for such things so you do not have to stare at the screen the whole time?
headscratch.. for what would you log and transmit all that data if nobody does look into it?

[ecapox]

Not everything is cloak and dagger.

Can you relay this message to the Ferrari haters anytime something comes up with Ferrari?

[piast9]

what happened to Vettel was officially one not correctly releasing brake after ascari chicane .according to telemetry data.

Maybe his brake pedal was stuck because of faulty carpet.

I if the telemetry shows the pressure in the brake system so any malfunction of the pedal would show such result.

[marcush.]

looking at the amount of sensors in the brakedrum there is brakewear and temperature monitoring at all times. Maybe they reduce sampling rate for the race a bit .
If a caliper piston got stuck this would of course not show in pressure on the line .
But obviously it would be more likely a piece of debris wedging the pad to the disc as anything else..something that would go away as soon as you aply the brakes again.

[747heavy]

Yeap Marcus,
if it was brake issue, I think you are on a good explaination.
If a stone or something got stuck behind the pad, or the pad jammed in the caliper (due to lateral impact for example), you will neither see it in the brake pressure nor in the brake wear sensor (which is normally piston travel afaik), but you would see slightly higher brake temp on this side.
As the brake wears down it will get less and less, until the poblem is gone, which should not take too long - IMHO.
As for the induced yaw, I agree with you that this should be perceptable, but the diff is probably compensating (trying to compensate) for it, so it may does not show up as such.

[andrew]

What a non-thread this is. Time to blast an F1 car shaped hole in your so called theory.

Vettel finished ahead of Webber.

So how could this be team orders exactly? Someone's been reading too much Agatha Christie novels again.

[Sean H]

Exactly. Had they wanted to give Webber a few more points, they could of simply held Vettel on his pit stop. Rosberg is no threat, so his benefit in points wouldn't effect the WDC. They went for maximum team points. Now, had Webber been directly behind Vettel, that pit stop might not have been so quick.

[zmiles2]

Looking back on the Turkish Grand Prix, there could have been some team orders issues there.
First of all, I am a big believer in the Ayrton Senna mindset- You must take the compromise to win, or else nothing. That means: you race or you do not. I also like the RBR team, but they had an EASY 1-2 ahead at Istanbul when Seb tried to overtake Webber.
Not accusing them of anything by any means, because IF it were a team order issue, Mark wouldnt have tried to block him, but I'm not sure why Horner and Newey wouldnt have told them to secure the 1-2 and not make any dangerous passes.
Just a thought.

[andartop]

The argument that it could not have been team orders since Vettel finished ahead does not stand IMHO: obviously both drivers and the team would have known by then they were on completely different strategies and not really racing each other at that stage of the race. It is exactly in such circumstances that team orders are necessary to avoid a)a possible collision, b) delaying the driver following and c) unnecessary pressure on the leading driver. In short, both drivers would benefit by Webber overtaking Vettel at that stage.

One (EJ) could argue that it was all a BAFTA award winning performance, well scripted and expertly executed. After all the outcry for Ferrari's team orders it would be reasonable to assume all teams must have discussed different scenarios with their drivers to cover various possible situations. Except McLaren of course who never cheat. Sorry Heikki.

That said, it looks more likely that it was indeed a "problem" that simply happened to appear as soon as Webber closed in on Vettel and disappeared right after he was in front.

[lolzi]

I think it's a bit strange that nobody has commented on the fact that the tv telemetry actually showed brake pressure, so there isn't really that much point in talking about stones in the braking system or a faulty engine - and I don't understand why RBR needed such a long time to find out - Horner didn't seem to know after the race!
I watched the BBC's coverage, and on lap 21, as Vettel drives from the first to the second chicane, we see the tv telemetry showing the brake being pressed at the same time.
Doesn't the commentators watch the same feed as the viewers? It's very weird that they didn't pick up on the brake thing.

[ecapox]

What im getting at is this:

It was a strange time to have a "problem" with Vettel's car and it is 100% possible that he did have a legit issue. It was just odd that no one knew what was going on during and after the race. Not until everyone got together and talked about it did we get some clarification from RedBull.

Not all things are conspiracys....unless it is Ferrari. At which time, EVERYTHING is a conspiracy. That's stupid but boy do you guys come out in droves when there is something "strange" happening at Ferrari....and not so much when it happens elsewhere.