Vodafone McLaren Team 2012

[f1316]

Does anyone else think that, despite Hamilton doing very well to get up to 8th, he got a certain distance - mainly in the first stint - and the nature of the Pirelli tyres prevented him from getting any further, despite his obvious pace?

I'm just thinking that, having made it up to 4th after others had stopped and he hadn't, it would once have meant they all had two stops left and he would have been in a very strong position to push on. Granted, he wasn't carrying extra fuel at the start by running a two-stopper (as he once would have been) but I can't help but thing he got a certain way by driving quickly and then the nature of the current formula meant he could not push any more for the sake of his strategy.

This is an instance where, I think, Pirelli tyres are limiting what everyone likes to call "the show"; that is, preventing someone from producing a truly great performance. I should point out that I'm not a McLaren or Hamilton fan (quite the opposite!), but that's my objective opinion on what he might have been able to achieve and the fact that I'm increasingly sceptical about the tyres and the "show".

[zoro_f1]

[myurr]

Does anyone else think that, despite Hamilton doing very well to get up to 8th, he got a certain distance - mainly in the first stint - and the nature of the Pirelli tyres prevented him from getting any further, despite his obvious pace?

I'm just thinking that, having made it up to 4th after others had stopped and he hadn't, it would once have meant they all had two stops left and he would have been in a very strong position to push on. Granted, he wasn't carrying extra fuel at the start by running a two-stopper (as he once would have been) but I can't help but thing he got a certain way by driving quickly and then the nature of the current formula meant he could not push any more for the sake of his strategy.

This is an instance where, I think, Pirelli tyres are limiting what everyone likes to call "the show"; that is, preventing someone from producing a truly great performance. I should point out that I'm not a McLaren or Hamilton fan (quite the opposite!), but that's my objective opinion on what he might have been able to achieve and the fact that I'm increasingly sceptical about the tyres and the "show".

It came down to track position, traffic and tyre life. Were it not for the two slow pit stops he possibly would have come out ahead of Rosberg and then we would have been talking about an even stronger performance.

[GrizzleBoy]

Considering he finished the race just 0.2 seconds behind Rosberg and his first stop alone easily cost him at least 2 seconds. With a smooth stop, it's more than probable that he'd have been out of the pit lane in front of instead of behind Di Restas dirty air and would have finsihed over a second in front of Rosberg.

On the other hand, the bad stop gave Button a chance at fighting back at Lewis.

Using Skys "race center" on the sky sports website (awesome btw), I was able to view the main race broadcast, the live timings, the driver position tracker and onboard shots all on one screen (I have a 37 inch monitor).

I noticed that Button was at a time, getting close to or into the 1 second window to Lewis, but never seemed to be able to challenge for the overtake.

It seems like Button may have been pushing to try and close the gap and killed his tyres as Vettel just steamed by him and he begin losing masses of time per lap while on fresher tyres than Lewis.

[Shrieker]

Did McLaren use different wheel nuts and threads last race ? Or were they the same as the ones that have been used in the previous races ?

[JMN]

They ran the integrated nuts in practise at least.

[stefan_]

Any predictions about what else can go wrong tomorrow during the pit stops?

[ArchAngel]

^ They've already done something about the rear wheel nuts, so I reckon it's gonna be the fronts this time.

[Red Schneider]

Here's betting they will triple check for those things they left in the sidepod a couple years back. Heh.

[chepoi]

another bad race ... "as usual"...... come on McLaren........

[chepoi]

Jenson Button: "The problem is that I'm not the first car that's going to be thinking about doing another strategy"

what does it mean?

[Nando]

Here´s betting they will mess up the pit stop for Hamilton loosing half a second.

Here´s betting they will play chicken race with the pit board and Hamilton´s head.

Here´s betting they will once again destroy as much as they can without making the same mistakes every time.

The most incompetent team on the grid. Bar none.

[Boost]

I believe that he was talking about a one stop strategy with a long first stint on the softs, however several cars infront of him were also looking like doing the same, including Vettel.

[waynes]

will post this in the team thread



mrs bought me this for my birthday, wore it today, lovely shirt.

looks good on the drivers, looks better on waynes

[Red Schneider]

I like the idea of team apparel but I can't exactly bring myself to shell out big bucks just to be a walking billboard for Vodafone or whoever else is sponsoring my favorite team. A nice ball cap or shirt with the prancing horse or McLaren's logo (whatever that thing is) would be worth a look at, but it's a little too corporate for me, especially McLaren's merchandise.

Someone should tell them there are no fans of telecom companies.