The F1 Thread

[Nando]

It's never going to be easy going into a team alongside Alonso halfway through the season. He's been excellent in GP2 and was incredibly impressive when I saw him at Silverstone.

 

[jlo]

For this weekend Team Lotus are going with a slightly different name
http://twitpic.com/6b2hrr

Oh big rumours that Team Lotus are going to become Caterham very soon. Possibly even by Monza (branding only, but name change next year).

I say rumour. We'll see.

 

[Wolf Hunting]

Cock up from Button's team.
He's was told to slow down and cool his tyres then told to come into the pits.
Seems they didn't realise he could have just got through the chequered flag to do another fast lap, but he came in and misses out on Q2!
Cock up!!

Schumacker crashes out too!
I think Hamilton banged wheels too....

 

[Wolf Hunting]

Seconds to go and Hamilton gets pole but wait!
Vettel flashes over by half a second Pole! Hamilton 2nd, Button 15th! for fucks sake!

 

[Nando]

Jenson told to move out of the way for Lewis apparently. Shit from Alonso.

 

[Psychowolf]

5 place grid penalty for Maldonado and a reprimand for Lewis after their incident. I've seen the highlights and feel that's a bit harsh on Lewis as he just seems to be sticking to the line from the angle behind but from the front he seems to move more to the right but no reason at all for Maldonado to move so far over. He's doing the passing so should know exactly where Lewis is and there is no reason to want to be on that side of the track. Bit of a Hamilton fan though so wondering if I'm just being a bit bias as he does move right. What are all your thoughts on it?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Looked like Maldonado deliberately sideswiped him to me (I have no idea why) and he's lucky that he hasn't been dumped right to the back of the grid or barred from the race. Way out of order.

 

[Nando]

He deserves his penalty, Lewis moved a little but not to the extent of Pastor. Idiotic behaviour.

 

[Psychowolf]

Brundle seems to suggest he should be sent home which I'm guessing he meant disqualified. Yet to see the whole show though to get a whole picture of the commentary. It was a very stupid thing to do and no idea why anyone would even think of doing that. All the safety etc the sport works tirelessly to put into the sport only for 1 of the drivers to do something like that. Don't think Lewis helped the situation too much by initially swerving right though but I'm not sure if he was trying to get onto the line or just letting him know he was there. Still no excuse for Maldonado just driving into him, definitely deserving of the penalty if arguably a little lucky to only drop 5 places.

 

[jlo]

Need to see it again. Seen it 3 times now and I'm on Brundle's thought path also, but I did see Lewis move slightly to so have to wonder if Pastor's move would've made contact without Lewis's change of direction also.

But otherwise, delighted for Mr Senna and Alguersuari who I've long been a fan of and have had to defend countless times to others. He isn't far off champion potential, you'll all see.

 

[Psychowolf]

I can't help but feel the problem both Torro Rosso drivers have is that Vettel performed pretty well while at the team and also won a race. I personally like both drivers who are there and feel Alguersuari would do well at a better team but for some I feel until they get similar results to what Vettel got there (regardless of how good/bad/similar the car is) they won't be seen as good enough to move onto better teams. Just saw he qualified 6th though which really is a great achievement for him. Senna 1 second faster than Petrov too. I really need to get round to watching qualifying .

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Annoyingly the BBC took the bizarre move of taking it off the red button at around 6pm (not even as if they replaced it with anything). So I only saw the last seven minutes of Q3, a couple of interviews and a replay of the Hamilton/Maldonado incident, being as clearly today watching it live was not an option and I didn't get home until after 5.30. Don't understand the logic of removing it so quickly when they never normally do that - FP1 and FP2 were still on this morning for instance.

 

[Psychowolf]

BBC sometimes don't have a clue what they're doing with the red button, at least on freeview (although might just be my box being rubbish). During Wimbledon, Practice 3 was scheduled so I set the reminder. When it switched over I'd discovered they'd actually taken it off to put Wimbledon on but forgot to mention it or change the schedule and to make it worse the match they were showing was the same match that was on BBC2!. Had to go and watch it live on the website at which point it was nice of them to let me know on there in the live text commentary.

Seeing as they don't have a replay or highlights show scheduled tonight I don't see why they don't keep showing it on the red button instead of the Reading and Leeds festival which they're already covering on BBC3.

 

[Nando]

Lewis wasn't on a hotlap, I'm guessing Pastor wasn't either to make that move

 

[Nando]

Both Red Bulls blistered their tyres in quali, and asked to have them changed on safety grounds which has been refused. Lewis and Jaime have slight blisters but not to the extent of the Red Bulls. Should make an interesting first stint.

 

[FrankMunro-371]

I would not be surprised if Hamilton takes control of this race very early on. His tyres are in better condition, and his car looked very good.

 

[Nando]

Ferrari in shit strategy shocker.

 

[The Bear]

Not really a shit strategy, but an inability to get heat into harder compounds.

 

[Nando]

I didn't expect them to win the race, should have finished 3rd (although they were clearly not as quick as the RB's and McLarens). Vettel pulled out 5s on Alonso after the safety car, had Alonso pitted during the safety car (they would have lost virtually no time), they'd of been able to go longer therefore reducing the time needed on the medium compound, plus been able to stick closer to Seb.

 

[FrankMunro-371]

I enjoyed the race, and was very impressed with Michael Schumacher. He showed the youngsters that he still knows how to drive a F1 car. Great race from Jenson as well. While Hamilton never really seemed to be in with a chance of winning, and as often happens in such situations, he was involved in a racing accident.