Donkey of Malaysia

[Dave B]

Donkey of the race is Horner for not being able to control his driver. Compare Ross Brawn's clear, concise instructions to Rosberg with Horner's "this is silly". Rosberg knew where he stood and why he stood there; Vettel just ignored Horner and as predicted was protected afterwards.

Alonso & Ferrari come close for losing his wing in a run-of-the-mill first lap contact but then not pitting for a replacement - it's unclear who's decision that was.

Hamilton gets an honourable mention for the wrong box, but drove a superb race otherwise; and Force India in general for their pitstops.

[truefan72]

So did they give him less fuel than they gave Rosberg? That would be quite weird, why would they do that?

trying to be too aggressive, counting on more wet laps, who knows, its a blunder regardless
but fair play to Nico he was the faster car today...at the end

[Garry Walker]

Donkey of the race is Horner for not being able to control his driver. Compare Ross Brawn's clear, concise instructions to Rosberg with Horner's "this is silly". Rosberg knew where he stood and why he stood there; Vettel just ignored Horner and as predicted was protected afterwards.
.

Except that is the reality when your driver is spoilt like he is. He was dirty back in Turkey and what happened? His team just attacked Webber and protected him. The guy thinks he can get away with everything and has shown that kind of mentality many times. RB has spoilt him like no other driver ever before has been spoilt and that is the reward.

[jens]

Donkey of the race is Horner for not being able to control his driver. Compare Ross Brawn's clear, concise instructions to Rosberg with Horner's "this is silly". Rosberg knew where he stood and why he stood there; Vettel just ignored Horner and as predicted was protected afterwards.

Can't help but feel that this is a pretty decent evaluation of the situation.

But it gets more complicated, when we are comparing Vettel and Rosberg, and you see that Horner's job was more difficult. Why?

Vettel knows that he can go and win and the team can't do anything about him, because he is their main man for the championship anyway. Horner was in a pretty uncomfortable situation to be honest. He can hardly sack Vettel to put it this way. It is not like forcing your #2 driver to yield and say that "if you don't listen, we can sack you and find another #2, no probs".

It comes down to how important each person to a team is. The stakes are higher in talking to Vettel than talking to Rosberg. The bigger the star is, the less you can "force" him to do something.

In the end the way it was pretty logical in how the results panned out. Rosberg has more to lose by having an intra-team conflict, so he decided to yield and keep team harmony - which was more important at that point than having a "mere" 3rd place. Vettel doesn't have anything to lose with the exception of some PR-problems. But he sure wanted a win and more points compared to whoever is going to battle with him for the WDC. Although I am sure Vettel is now more aware of the situation too, because he can't do the same thing for the second time and again say "sorry".

[The Black Knight]

Ferrari for not calling Alonso into the pits. Hamilton for driving into the McLaren garage LOL!

[zako85]

To be honest, I really don't understand the order that RBR gave to its drivers. Why hold position? Let's get serious. The logical order should have been to let Vettel through. It's not like we had here Prost vs Senna racing. Does anyone still have a doubt that Vettel is faster than Webber? Does Horner still toy with the idea of giving Webber a fair shot? Look, at the end of year the battle for the championship most likely again will be down to Alonso vs Vettel, and Vettel sure will appreciate the extra points he had earned at the beginning of year.

[zako85]

The donkeys were two:

Alonso and Force India (rest of team, not drivers).

[keysersoze]

It was quite the donkey parade today! I thoroughly enjoyed it!

[pino]

The donkeys were two:

Alonso and Force India (rest of team, not drivers).

So for you and (many others in here) Fernando deserves the award, while Vettel did nothing wrong and doesn't deserve to be mentioned

[wedge]

Donkey of the race is Horner for not being able to control his driver. Compare Ross Brawn's clear, concise instructions to Rosberg with Horner's "this is silly". Rosberg knew where he stood and why he stood there; Vettel just ignored Horner and as predicted was protected afterwards.

And just how do you control your driver?

Carlos Reutimann was contracted number 2 at Williams and still broke team orders.