2012 Belgian Grand Prix - Spa

[RB7ate9]

Also hasn't Grosjean been involved in 7 first lap incidents? If so, the decision is wholly justified.

It's been 6 incidents (not 7), of which only 3 were clearly his fault.
Doesn't excuse him, but no need for poor reporting.

Australia: hit by Maldonado (not RG's fault)
Malaysia: hit Schumacher (RG's fault)
Spain: come-together with Perez (race incident)
Monaco: similair start-crash, hit Schumacher (RG's fault)
Britain: diResta clips Grosjean's win (not RG's fault)
Belgium: caused start-crash (RG's fault)

Nope, it has been seven; Germany. Trouble on first laps, seems to follow him everywhere.

He's still shaking GP2 intensity, one would suppose.

[Cam]

He's still shaking GP2 intensity, one would suppose.

I personally don't see the issue. It's good hard close racing with a huge spectacle, isn't that want the good boys and girls at the FIA and MrE want? Watching Webber tippy toe was terrible while seeing Vettel pushing through all those cars awesome - he could have clipped any one of them and sent them crashing - should he punished too? The fact that RG is prepared to push his car around and not step back just because it's Hamilton is actually quite refreshing.

Did RG make a mistake, no, it was a racing incident. It wasn't intentional. You have 20 odd cars going flat tack into a tight corner - what did we all expect was going to happen?

A 5 place grid penalty would have sufficed, but as mentioned on another thread, you can't take out the golden boy and not get a boot in the ar$e.

Lotus, keep RG, he's one of the most exciting things to happen to F1 in years. He'll learn.

[foxmulder_ms]

Lovely race. I enjoyed the crush, too

Button and Vettel drove beautifully.

Raikkonen's race was ruined by both Mercedes drivers. Otherwise, I think he had a chance for the second.

Also, Button's girlfriend is really beautiful, lovely lady

[raymondu999]

Of Maldonado - I just had a re-watch of the race. THe way the actual start was shown, (at an angle, rather than head-on) there was clearly a move before the red lights went out.

[Kiril Varbanov]

Of Maldonado - I just had a re-watch of the race. THe way the actual start was shown, (at an angle, rather than head-on) there was clearly a move before the red lights went out.

I wonder why it took the officials that longer to make a decision - the red lights and the driver telemetry data are immediately available. Perhaps it was the melee at La Source that was more important at that time ...

[raymondu999]

Yes - my thoughts too, but surely they investigated most of those after the race, no?

Btw, I just noticed that this is Grosjean's second F1 Grand Prix at Spa - and both times he has (directly or indirectly) taken out Lewis Hamilton.

[prince]

He's still shaking GP2 intensity, one would suppose.

I personally don't see the issue. It's good hard close racing with a huge spectacle, isn't that want the good boys and girls at the FIA and MrE want? Watching Webber tippy toe was terrible while seeing Vettel pushing through all those cars awesome - he could have clipped any one of them and sent them crashing - should he punished too? The fact that RG is prepared to push his car around and not step back just because it's Hamilton is actually quite refreshing.

Did RG make a mistake, no, it was a racing incident. It wasn't intentional. You have 20 odd cars going flat tack into a tight corner - what did we all expect was going to happen?

A 5 place grid penalty would have sufficed, but as mentioned on another thread, you can't take out the golden boy and not get a boot in the ar$e.

Lotus, keep RG, he's one of the most exciting things to happen to F1 in years. He'll learn.

Along with Maldonado, two of the SMOKING Drivers. =D> =D> =D>

I guess for the sake of aerodynamic advantage, these two drivers have removed their mirrors.

[Hail22]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32tm1jwIyek[/youtube]

[Cam]

Alonso can roll his eyes all he wants. It must be a nice view in that tower. We all start somewhere.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCXpspP41fs[/youtube]

[turbof1]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32tm1jwIyek[/youtube]

"wrong place at the wrong time" I would hardly call it that. The crashing and spinning cars of Hamilton and Grosjean took out everything accross the width of the track. Only cars substantially in front or behind could dodge this.

[megz]

what?

He has no control of the red lights. When the green flag is waved at the back he presses a button to start the sequence. How long the lights stay on for is purely random. all he can do is abort (like Hungary)

Not sure if this has been pointed out already but...

Not true - 2010 in Turkey the red lights were on for an age because Charlie's starting device was not primed properly. You can probably find the clip on YouTube or the 2010 season review DVD.

[RB7ate9]

He's still shaking GP2 intensity, one would suppose.

I personally don't see the issue. It's good hard close racing with a huge spectacle, isn't that want the good boys and girls at the FIA and MrE want? Watching Webber tippy toe was terrible while seeing Vettel pushing through all those cars awesome - he could have clipped any one of them and sent them crashing - should he punished too? The fact that RG is prepared to push his car around and not step back just because it's Hamilton is actually quite refreshing.

Did RG make a mistake, no, it was a racing incident. It wasn't intentional. You have 20 odd cars going flat tack into a tight corner - what did we all expect was going to happen?

A 5 place grid penalty would have sufficed, but as mentioned on another thread, you can't take out the golden boy and not get a boot in the ar$e.

Lotus, keep RG, he's one of the most exciting things to happen to F1 in years. He'll learn.

That was my initial reaction to the race ban for Gro. So many folks go on and on about the risk and hard-charging, and then when it happens to the upper echelon, all manner of hammers are thrown down for punishments. Ultimately, I think the stewards are pointing to the fact that Gro cut across to Hamilton and kept himself interlocked (intention or not) leaving room for disaster with every 0.001s that it continued, especially since it was heading into turn 1.

For Lotus' sake, I hope they keep Gro. The last thing they need is another shake-up in the driver's listing, I think retaining Kimi and Gro into 2014 and beyond would be the wisest choice. The line-up remains consistent through the rule changes.

[Pandabeer]

Can anyone tell me why Schumacher was able to drive about 19 laps on medium tyres but had to pit 15 laps later again but this time he was on fresh hard compounds? How is this possible? I did see this on other tracks earlier this season. Is it just because he couldn't get the tyres in the right working window and thus destroyed the tyres this fast?

[raymondu999]

Not true - 2010 in Turkey the red lights were on for an age because Charlie's starting device was not primed properly. You can probably find the clip on YouTube or the 2010 season review DVD.

To memory he required two keys to start the red lights, one of which wasn't present. The red lights took a long time to start, but from the point of the first light starting up until the red lights blinked out, there was no difference to a normal race situation. Charlie can START the start process, he can ABORT the start process, but he cannot control the amount of delay the system goes through before the red lights blink out.

Can anyone tell me why Schumacher was able to drive about 19 laps on medium tyres but had to pit 15 laps later again but this time he was on fresh hard compounds? How is this possible? I did see this on other tracks earlier this season. Is it just because he couldn't get the tyres in the right working window and thus destroyed the tyres this fast?

Possibly it was mismanagement of the stint - maybe he started that first 19 lap stint knowing that he would have to manage to make them run long, and then tried to undercut the two stoppers after his second stop, lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that the new tyres were the longer-lasting hards (yay I have the hard tyres now... I won't have to manage them anymore!)

Or it was too cold for the Mercedes to switch on the hard tyres, resulting in excessive slip and graining.

The official story also said that it wasn't actually pitting for tyres because they were finished - but they were using the added grip of the medium tyres (for that final splash and dash stint) to offset the laptime loss of them losing 6th gear.

[f1316]

Can anyone tell me why Schumacher was able to drive about 19 laps on medium tyres but had to pit 15 laps later again but this time he was on fresh hard compounds? How is this possible? I did see this on other tracks earlier this season. Is it just because he couldn't get the tyres in the right working window and thus destroyed the tyres this fast?

He said that because he had to immediately push to get past Ricciardo after his first stop, he worked the tyres too hard and they wore out too quickly.

He also said that if he hadn't have lost top gear the 2nd stop might have worked out for him, being able to catch up Webber, Massa, Hulkenberg etc.