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Lewis Hamilton has won the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring after fighting a battle all through the race with second placed finished Fernando Alonso and third man on the podium, Mark Webber. Only in the final stint did Lewis manage to pull a small gap to his closest competitors.
Mostly agree with you, but that's two races in a row where Vettel was not on the same pace as his team mate - albeit he had track position over him in Silverstone. He had a couple of things go against him in Germany but I don't think he was really on it at any point this weekend, regardless of those problems. He had his worst qualifying of the year, without car issues, and in early part of the race before his brake issues he seemed to be struggling to hold on to the leaders pace and was even passed by Alonso. Apparently, according to the BBC commentary, he'd had another weekend where he was a little pensive and moody off camera behind the scenes, so I think it's more that as the teams have adapted to the tyres his early advantage, where they seemed to just perfectly suit his style out the box, has been eroded.raymondu999 wrote:I think you need to also take in the fact that this weekend many things compounded for Vettel. He had a brake problem for a bit of the race, he has never been good in Nurby, and he's never had an *awesome* result in front of his home crowd. I think races such as Suzuka/Abu Dhabi will be more telling as they're tracks here Vettel has always excelled.
I think Red Bull have actually undone themselves this year. They have supreme downforce, yes, and that allows them to go super quick in the fast corners especially. But it seems that with these new Pirellis, this is just stretching them under load and chewing them up, overloading the Pirellis. Hence why their race pace in tracks such as Silverstone & Spain, ironically, have been lackluster
Don't forget he also did longer stints on both sets of soft tyres and was defending from Vettel for most of the second half of the GP. Massa wasn't on Alonso's pace but he wasn't really that far behind. He even set a faster best lap of the race, 1:34.609 vs 1:34.626. So the pace was there when he was given the chance to show it.Mandrake wrote:I believe that at max half of the gap is attributeable to Rosberg
In Germany Vettel fell back by mishap and without car damage. He spun in the first stint and flat spotted the tyres which lost him 1 - 2 seconds a lap for the remainder of that stint, and the rear brakes overheated which contributed to the poor pace at that point. From the second stint onwards though the brakes were fine and he had new tyres, however he was unable to make much impression on track. He failed to overtake Massa, made another mistake on the one time he got close in the DRS zone and overshot the corner, and had to rely on his pit crew to get past.Shrieker wrote:To the comments regarding Webber's performance in China I agree to some extent. But like Mandrake said back then Red Bull were A LOT faster than the rest of the field than they are now. Vettel had lost his radio and ran on squished tyres for a very long time so no fair comparision in there imho.
About Vettel being unable to slice through the field. If memory serves me right, we never had a situation where Vettel fell back by mishap (and without car damage) and had to just climb back. Had he been in Webber's shoes in China could he have pulled it off ? I have no doubts. Do remember that Webber didn't pass 5 Hamilton's and 6 Alonso's on track there.
@Hampusa,
Not a fighter with sharp teeth he is maybe, but with todays point scoring system you'd want a calm and collected driver in the cockpit rather than an all out attacking one, sadly. Sadly, because the ones who do attack are the ones who create excitement. Having said that, it's worth noting that had Lewis refrained from sticking his nose along Massa's rear wheel in Monza last year, he'd be a double world champion by now. IMHO Vettel wouldn't have done that. Now there's an arguement
Actually... they do and Ferrari have a link to Red Bulls and Everyone to Everyone, Radio feeds aren't masked so fernando doesn't mean anything strange by it.Redragon wrote:It is curious what Alonso says:
... The team asked me to cut the engine as a precaution and luckily Mark was alongside me and stopped to give me a lift. I don’t know how he knew I was shutting off the engine; maybe he has a radio link to my engineer!” ...
Can be a joke? I have noticed when they were getting ready for podium that Alonso asked directly Webber. How did you notice I have stopped the car?
It was nice to see both drivers/friends coming back to the pit lane in such a manner. But the question it is open, they have a link to the radio? is it a joke?
Byronrhys wrote:Actually... they do and Ferrari have a link to Red Bulls and Everyone to Everyone, Radio feeds aren't masked so fernando doesn't mean anything strange by it.Redragon wrote:It is curious what Alonso says:
... The team asked me to cut the engine as a precaution and luckily Mark was alongside me and stopped to give me a lift. I don’t know how he knew I was shutting off the engine; maybe he has a radio link to my engineer!” ...
Can be a joke? I have noticed when they were getting ready for podium that Alonso asked directly Webber. How did you notice I have stopped the car?
It was nice to see both drivers/friends coming back to the pit lane in such a manner. But the question it is open, they have a link to the radio? is it a joke?
I thought they were spot on, in my opinion DRS shouldn't be a push to pass button, that takes away all the skill in defensive driving. What it did do, was allow a following car to get close enough every lap to have a try even though they were running in dirty air - the cars aren't getting within a second or so and getting stuck there because of the disturbed aero any more.BreezyRacer wrote: And the DRS zones in these last two races were next to useless. There didn't seem to be any more passing than normal.
I don´t know about that. Alonso is a fighter but he´s calm when needed.Shrieker wrote:@Hampusa,
Not a fighter with sharp teeth he is maybe, but with todays point scoring system you'd want a calm and collected driver in the cockpit rather than an all out attacking one, sadly. Sadly, because the ones who do attack are the ones who create excitement. Having said that, it's worth noting that had Lewis refrained from sticking his nose along Massa's rear wheel in Monza last year, he'd be a double world champion by now. IMHO Vettel wouldn't have done that. Now there's an arguement
Well we seem to getting off RB stuff here but I only want to say that the end of a DRS zone shouldn't lead into a one line chicane.PhillipM wrote:I thought they were spot on, in my opinion DRS shouldn't be a push to pass button, that takes away all the skill in defensive driving. What it did do, was allow a following car to get close enough every lap to have a try even though they were running in dirty air - the cars aren't getting within a second or so and getting stuck there because of the disturbed aero any more.BreezyRacer wrote: And the DRS zones in these last two races were next to useless. There didn't seem to be any more passing than normal.
Thanks a lot!