2012 Santander British Grand Prix

[antyk]

Wtf is wrong with McLaren? They really need to improve or they can quite soon forget about the title. The constructors championship is already gone in my opinion.

JB managed to score only 7 points in the last 6 races! What an epic fail, especially after his team radio in Australia - “welcome 2009”

Spa extends until 2015

Great news

[iceman1]

No go on, I'd like to know what you mean. Biased against Kimi?

I just look at the numbers, and I simply don't see what they tell. I try to see it, but I simply don't find it.
More than biased against Kimi, they are so biased pro Romain that the thing turns silly.

TBH I think Grosjean could win the Bahrain GP if he was in Raikkonen's situation. Grosjean is "crazy" but in a good way.

If a few people inside the team are pro-Grosjean it doesn't reflect the situation of the whole team. Just enjoy the racing

[phil1993]

Back home. Traffic not actually too bad.

[Green Flag]

I don't have many hopes about that . Temperature should be good for Lotus, but I'm sure the team will screw Räikkönen's qualifying, again. After the diff and the KERS, they still have to brake his DRS down. Of course, the DRS will already be defective in free practice, just like it happened with the diff anf the KERS.

There, there you have another example of the team bias. Permane saying yesterday how impressive Grosjean's pace had been on the hard tyres in FP3. Räikkönen had no KERS at the time, what would have been impressive is Kimi being faster given the circumstances

Yeah, some teams go so far as to apologize their drivers for not providing them a 100 percent working car (or a good strategy or a fast pit-stop). I think I'll start paying more attention to Team Lotus' press releases...

On a brighter note I still think their driver management has improved since the Briatore era

[Mar]

yeah, at least they still don't have to drive against walls

[alex1369]

Germany has never been kind to Raikkonen, no matter if Hockenheim or Nurburgring...
Kimi will retire from race.... unfortunatley

[tderias]

Not a bad result for Ferrari, leaped to 2nd in the constructors. Keep it up Felipe!

[Ferrariman60]

Wtf is wrong with McLaren? They really need to improve or they can quite soon forget about the title. The constructors championship is already gone in my opinion.

JB managed to score only 7 points in the last 6 races! What an epic fail, especially after his team radio in Australia - “welcome 2009”

Spa extends until 2015

Great news

Maybe Jenson was referring to McLaren's 2009 season...

[naiego]

Seems Alonso's strategy could have been based on there being rain later in the race...

But why not make a long first stint ??
15 Laps on hard tyres doesn't make sense.

Covering a wet race that never came.

Be rate though, disadvantaged themselves but still finished 3 seconds behind the leader on tyres which just went away on the ferrari. Wouldve thought they would run longer on the harder tyres both stints and try do le old splash and dash at the end. but 2nd is still fantastic when we never expected pole, top 4 i thought would be gotten through luck in the first place.

Either road, 13 points lead still, it will change between webber and vettel, ferrari need to react fast and bring more and more to the car each week.

I rather think they wanted to cover off Webber who pitted a lap earlier

I agree with you about that but there is a chance that rain should come at the end of the race was in their minds when they planned their strategy.

[donald29]

Maybe Jenson was referring to McLaren's 2009 season...

Williams having to announce they are keeping the Senna S on their car after a Guardian article said they've removed it.

[mileso]

No go on, I'd like to know what you mean. Biased against Kimi?

I just look at the numbers, and I simply don't see what they tell. I try to see it, but I simply don't find it.
More than biased against Kimi, they are so biased pro Romain that the thing turns silly.

What you don't see is that Kimi is not the future for Lotus, Romain is. Kimi should be winning races if you look at what Romain is doing with the same car. Kimi should retire along with Schumacher. Too old, no b***, no risk taking. Plod along and try to finish.

[mileso]

I hope all the people bitching about "not enough overtaking" and "DRS makes overtaking too easy" will be quiet for a while. This was a fabulous race not the least because Mark Webber is the second 2 time winner this year and Red Bull has the best strategists.

[Mar]

No go on, I'd like to know what you mean. Biased against Kimi?

I just look at the numbers, and I simply don't see what they tell. I try to see it, but I simply don't find it.
More than biased against Kimi, they are so biased pro Romain that the thing turns silly.

What you don't see is that Kimi is not the future for Lotus, Romain is. Kimi should be winning races if you look at what Romain is doing with the same car. Kimi should retire along with Schumacher. Too old, no b***, no risk taking. Plod along and try to finish.

What Romain is doing with the same car? You mean crashing with drivers right and left and, in case there is nobody to crash with, just crash it all by himself?

Funny that the snail who just plod along got the fastest lap of the day, was involved in some of the most aggressive movements of the first lap (but was smart enough not to ruin his or somebody else's race on it) and passed exactly the same number of first order (not back markers) cars as the one that is really racing.

Kimi should be winning races? Of course, but why don't we begin with the team giving him a car with working KERS for qualifying, for example, so he has a bit of clean air to race every now and then?

[mileso]

Yes it is all clear now! Lotus is in a conspiracy to keep one of their cars from winning! Brilliant strategy.
You do understand we are comparing a driver with 16 starts to a driver with 164 starts? And for all his "crashing" is only 22 points behind Kimi?
I understand there is no arguing with die-hard Kimi followers, so I will just have to live with your goofy prejudices.

[Mar]

Yes it is all clear now! Lotus is in a conspiracy to keep one of their cars from winning! Brilliant strategy.
You do understand we are comparing a driver with 16 starts to a driver with 164 starts? And for all his "crashing" is only 22 points behind Kimi?
I understand there is no arguing with die-hard Kimi followers, so I will just have to live with your goofy prejudices.

Maybe I'm goofy, but you might also need to learn how to read.

Could you please point out where I've written Lotus is conspiring to keep one of their cars from winning?
I'm waiting, tick, tack, tick, tack, tick....

Oh, I do understand Grosjean has 16 F1 starts for 164 of Räikkönen but, even being goofy, I also understand that the guy is 26 and has a huge racing experience. I'm so goofy, that I have kept an eye on him since some time before his first F1 stint in 2009.
BTW, by your theory of Räikkönen being too old to drive F1, being just 32, Grosjean should be winning the championship this year. Next year, he will already be past his due date. He's going to be 27!!!!!

So, we do agree that he is behind Kimi. I thought he was leading him by at least 100 points.

And now back to the point and my goofyness. Let's start with some of the things I wrote yesterday and that you seemed to over-read, since they didn't fit into your idea of what I was talking about:

I have a rant against Lotus and their biased PR, but I better shut up

Did you miss the part where I specified "PR"?

Another one:

...
I have always defended the guy. I think he is very fast, but I simply don't see in the timings some of the things he's supposed to be doing.

So yes, as you say, I'm just a die-hard Kimi fan with goofy prejudices.
The thing is that even with my goofy prejudices and my die-hard Kimism, which should blind me and let me notice just what happens to Räikkönen and nothing else, I was able to notice during the race that, while Grosjean's direct rivals where trapped in Michael Schumacher's traffic, he was mostly running in clean air and gaining back the time he had lost changing the nose.

Just for your information. Considering a lap in traffic those started less than two seconds from the car in front and according to the F1 timing application, Räikkönen had 34 laps in traffic out of the race 52 and Grosjean 18. And I'm so goofy, that I could notice it live during the race. Also just for your information, it's true that Grosjean had to pass 5 backmarkers (Pic, Kar, Dlr, Glo, and Kov), but in all cases, he passed them in the same lap he got close to them and was faster than Schumacher (who was holding Grosjean's rivals) in every single one of them. And in my goofyness, I was able to notice it during the race.

Maybe I'm stupid, but I can understand that you have to take into consideration how many pits every body has done and how many are there left to understand which is the real track position of each driver at each moment... and I always understood that Grosjean's real track position, once everybody did their pitstops was much higher than some people seems to understand. As a matter of fact, when the first cycle of pits is done, and all top drivers are on sync, Grosjean is 8th.

I have never said the guy did badly, even if looking closely to it, he had one of those weekends where other drivers would be rubbished non-stop:

- he had a dangerous off on the wet on Friday, while pushing too hard on the wet track trying to prove I don't know why
- almost crashed with his teammate and sent him off-track in Q1. How much of it is Pérez's fault can be discussed, but you can't move to where there is another car.
- should be jumping in joy and kissing Whiting for the red flag in Q2 because, at the time, he was out of Q3, being slower than his teammate, who had a broken car.
- was given the second chance the red flag meant, he managed to improve his time but binned it pushing when he was mathematically classified for Q3 (eight cars had already seen the checkered flag with worse times than his by then).
- is involved in another first lap incident, which could have cost him the race. He should go and hug Schumacher for holding everybody and Hembery for bringing Bridgestones instead of Pirellis to the race (as proven by the fact that the times continuously improved as the drivers burnt fuel, up to the extent that Räikkönen's fastest lap and Grosjean's best lap take place in lap 50).
- is very fast on clean air, as his teammate, but on real traffic (the one of more or less the same speed), he has the same difficulties/easiness to pass cars as his teammate.

So, nope, I try to, but I don't see where he was impressive this weekend.