Spanish GP 2010 - Barcelona

[WhiteBlue]

.. from what i believe it was the rim, again. It happened before in 2007 and 2008 too, i believe even in 2009 but i cant remember that one. It seems to be a structural mclaren problem.

Kovalainen 2008 was very similar. The wheel rim disintegrated in a hard race. McLaren at that time speculated about a stone getting between the wheel rim but they never really came back and told the story of the failure after the analysis. I remain convinced that their wheel design isn't up to it for this track.

Today they had a repeat of what looks very much the same design problem. I can not understand why someone can blame Hamilton for the failure. He drove a beautiful race.

Webber could cruise it home due to his better qualifying. He made no mistakes.

Hamilton, Alonso and Schumacher all drove very well. I'm sorry for Hamilton. Alonso was rewarded above his race pace due to Hamilton's bad luck. Vettel was also unlucky to loose his brakes 15 laps before the end of the race and again Alonso profited.

Man of the race for me was clearly Schumacher who managed to pass Button on the outside and defended masterfully for 40+ laps. He did it without a single unfair move and he got some hard earned points.

[Giblet]

The only time Webber was holding the gap was when it was at 11 seconds for most of the race. He turned it up as soon as Vettel fell back. Webber was pushing, ripping of fastest times in all 3 sectors up to 0.4 seconds a sector faster than Hamilton. While this was happening Vettel was going a little slower than hamilton. I don't believe Webber is that quick that he can take his time and be 4 tenths per sector faster than he teammates best, even when Vettel was on softs.
Webber saw Alonso pick up the Pace, so did Lewis and he responded.

11 to 17 seconds is not holding a gap. He relaxed when Lewis carried the 17 seconds back down to 10.

All in all the Mclaren is just as fast as the redbull on track. 2 races now Mclaren have had the fastest lap.

If Webber was conserving in the last third of the race, which is what he said and likely, and Hamilton got fastest lap while pushing like crazy and on a light fuel load, it makes the achievement a little less.

What I get from that though is that as usual Mclaren have a development pace that few teams can match.

[ISLAMATRON]

MS defender of the race maybe, but not man of the race, Webber, Hamilton, Alonso and maybe a couple others drove better races and got more out of their cars, lets not forget that MS was over 40 seconds behind Alonso at 1 point.

Good to see MS up there battling, but not at Rosberg's expence... the more top drivers we have battling up at the front the better the race viewing... I hope the Merc team can figure out how to make them both comfortable for the rest of the year... they seemed to have this see-sawing between drivers last year.

[RacingManiac]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/83485

Button didn't think it was fair....I didn't see any thing odd about it....opportunistic at most...

[ringo]

Yes the redbull maybe had more in the bag, but i am not sure if it would have been the 1 second a lap gap we saw in quali, Vettel would have made good use of that kind of pace.

Not much about the race, really. Shumacher did well to defend. His experience was too much for Button. He calmy saved up his one defending move and used it at the right time to keep button behind. Button soon gave up and trailed behind with Massa.

I wonder what would have happened had Massa has all his front wing? It would have been a 3 way fight with Button.

[vall]

About Lewis problem, i don't think it was his style per say. He was not sliding around or understeering, the pace was there. So it could be said that the tyres had enough grip left.

... but this was also the case in Turkey. no? And yet his tire failed. Not arguing it was his style, but it may be, given his record...

Yes and Alonso blows up FErrari engines, given his record... and Vettel just destroys the whole car... given his record.

Don't be naive, Alonso blew his engine when had severe gearbox problem.

[wesley123]

@Ringo; from what i believe it was the rim, again. It happened before in 2007 and 2008 too, i believe even in 2009 but i cant remember that one. It seems to be a structural mclaren problem. Or, if you are correct it is just an problem of hamiltons driving style, this isnt the first time it happens to him and he is the only driver to wich it happened in the past years.

Have you forgotten Heikki's huge shunt because a stone machined down his wheel... at Spain of all places? Some of the selective memories on this board are amazing.

plenty of drivers have had tire related problems since BS has taken over a couple years ago.

yes i did, but a stone breaking the whole rim? my doubts... and afterall that still does not explain why the rim failed for hmilton in 2007 and like it seems now. sure, it happens 3 times for mclaren and all three times it is caused by a stone...

[Skinn3r55]

The drivers are saving their tires during the race. Webbo's qualifying time was 1:19:995. Best lap of the race 1:24:357 LH (qualifying 1:20:800). So the times were nowhere near qualifying. I understand that no one will push in the race as hard as during qualifying but I believe times would be around two seconds off qualifying not four (if 10kg of fuel=0.4 tenths/lap that's like 100kg difference in weight). Also You have to take into account tire degradation but I still think the difference would be smaller than it is now, since the tires degrade less during the race because the track is a lot more rubbered in.

And regarding LH's retirement that's really a shame, but Martin Withmarsh said it was a slow deflation so IMO it could have been caused by LH's style (he does like to lock his unloaded wheels a lot )
Anyway IMO a rather nice race.

[ISLAMATRON]

yes i did, but a stone breaking the whole rim? my doubts... and afterall that still does not explain why the rim failed for hmilton in 2007 and like it seems now. sure, it happens 3 times for mclaren and all three times it is caused by a stone...

So Hamilton has 3 punctures over 3+ years, and that makes him hard on tires... what does that make Alonso that has blown 3 engines in Winter testing and less than 4 races? Or Vettel broken how many parts off the car inthe first 5 races? Or how many engines SV blew uplast year?

Punctures happen... --- Webber alone has punctured 2 or 3 of Hamilton's rear tires in the last couple years by running into the back of him.

There is not 1 driver on the grid that you can say has not had multiple tire problems.

[Holm86]

Fastest lap of the race. Almost if Redbull is geared to be fast specially for qualifying. In the race the Mclaren is the quickest once again. Or maybe it's the driver.

That's right. It's always been like this, Red Bulls are fast in qualifying but in the race it's the Mclaren who's got the the better car.just look how many overtaking Hamilton has done this season, this guy's really got the talent and I think he's the best out there.

its just sad he's followed by all that bad luck.

[ringo]

How can a driving style deflate a tyre?! What kind of poorly designed tyres would tht be?

He is not to blame at all. A slow deflation is almost the same as a rim failure, or tyre manufacturing fault, or even something on track puncturing his tyre for a slow leak.

Unlucky race. If he finished i could have seen him sitting pretty to seal up the championship with consistent podiums and maybe some wins. DNF happens to the best of them, Alonso, Vettel are a few. It's good he gets all the bad luck out of his system from now.

[timbo]

its just sad he's followed by all that bad luck.

I guess he could've been easier on the tyres.
No need for that FL.

[vall]

yes i did, but a stone breaking the whole rim? my doubts... and afterall that still does not explain why the rim failed for hmilton in 2007 and like it seems now. sure, it happens 3 times for mclaren and all three times it is caused by a stone...

So Hamilton has 3 punctures over 3+ years, and that makes him hard on tires...

+ how many times BS ordered him a special tire strategy? And in Aus his team pitted him twice?

[Morteza]

The scene reminded me of last year's Monza race that on the last lap Hamilton had a crash

[Skinn3r55]

I think that by pushing too hard (hard braking, taking too much curb) that can affect the tire's structural integrity, looses a bit of pressure, it deflates a little => the contact patch increases and it begins to overheat which affects the structural components of the tire, it then can not cope as well with the centrifugal forces and rips.