2013 British Grand Prix Thread

[dj_bytedisaster]

Were they booing? I thought they cheered when he retired. I really cannot see anything wrong with that at all. It's not like it was a crash.

Booing a driver after a win or cheering his retirement, where's the difference? It's utterly classless in both cases. Nobody of us would be very happy if we failed in something through no fault of our own and we wouldn't take kindly to others cheering our misfortune. So why is it acceptable if it happens to others?

[Daniel]

Image of sportsmanship?, How old are you?, The land that gave the world the term "football hooliganism" was the place you believed booing was nonexistent?

As someone said, booing or cheering someone had a car failure is nothing to write about, and yet, you have 5 or 6 posts about it and you seem very angry at it. You really think anyone wants him to give away every 3rd race, or die?

Give it a rest, they were booing a very dominant driver of a team they don't support, an adversary of their favorite driver or drivers, they were booing Vettel, not his/your country.

He's allowed his opinion isn't he? I happen to feel it's poor as well. A lot of people are against drivers like Loeb, Schumacher and Vettel because they're dominant and people want artificial variety in terms of winners. If people just sat back and appreciated the skill of a dominant driver then they'd feel no need to boo.

You give it a rest now, k? :)

[Daniel]

Were they booing? I thought they cheered when he retired. I really cannot see anything wrong with that at all. It's not like it was a crash.

I agree somewhat, but it's still not pleasant is it? It still shows that they're just tribal morons who've come to see their favourite driver win and don't care whether it happens by bad luck or whatever. Like Ben says, it's boorish and unnecessary, though crime of the century it isn't.....

[henners88]

It's all banter and people boo. Seen it in Italy and Germany and with F1 fans is usually light hearted. I remember banter with Schumacher fans at Silverstone giving each other the thumbs down and smiling. Don't take everything so seriously. :)

[jarrambide]

He's allowed his opinion isn't he? I happen to feel it's poor as well. A lot of people are against drivers like Loeb, Schumacher and Vettel because they're dominant and people want artificial variety in terms of winners. If people just sat back and appreciated the skill of a dominant driver then they'd feel no need to boo.

You give it a rest now, k? :)

He is surely allowed an opinion, after 6 posts, it gets a little bit repetitive, I think everyone gets his point very clearly.
My point was that being so angry at fans just booing is an exaggeration, racial slurs, foul language, throwing things, intimidating or trying to intimidate other fans and/or drivers would be another thing, but just booing or cheering a car failure?

I like Vettel, I even own a couple of Vettel Red Bull caps, just like I own a couple of Alonso Renault caps, I like great dominant drivers driving great dominant cars, but have no problem with others booing or cheering a car failure.

[Daniel]

He is surely allowed an opinion, after 6 posts, it gets a little bit repetitive, I think everyone gets his point very clearly.
My point was that being so angry at fans just booing is an exaggeration, racial slurs, foul language, throwing things, intimidating or trying to intimidate other fans and/or drivers would be another thing, but just booing or cheering a car failure?

I like Vettel, I even own a couple of Vettel Red Bull caps, just like I own a couple of Alonso Renault caps, I like great dominant drivers driving great dominant cars, but have no problem with others booing or cheering a car failure.

He's still allowed to have his opinion and I still agree that booing isn't nice.

[Daniel]

It's all banter and people boo. Seen it in Italy and Germany and with F1 fans is usually light hearted. I remember banter with Schumacher fans at Silverstone giving each other the thumbs down and smiling. Don't take everything so seriously. :)

Sometimes it's lighthearted and sometimes it isn't. Personally it's not something I'd do unless there was a driver who was bloody dirty.....

[dj_bytedisaster]

I'm just old fashioned in that regard. I don't know if it was 94 or 95, when Hill buried his car in the gravel trap of turn 1 at Hockenheim and people started cheering and screaming things like 'in your face tommy'. I was so embarrassed by that, I left the grandstands and went somewhere else, where there were mostly foreigners. I just don't want to be associated with such football type behaviour.

[Daniel]

I'm just old fashioned in that regard. I don't know if it was 94 or 95, when Hill buried his car in the gravel trap of turn 1 at Hockenheim and people started cheering and screaming things like 'in your face tommy'. I was so embarrassed by that, I left the grandstands and went somewhere else, where there were mostly foreigners. I just don't want to be associated with such football type behaviour.

Completely agree, I'm hardly the classiest of people but that's simply cringeworthy.

[RedBullian1]

I understand why they cheered because Vettel wins all of the time. They're just British fans and they are very enthusiastic and they didn't want Vettel to win. Can't fault them or be embarrassed for them

[AndyL]

The stewards have found Rosberg guilty of failing to slow down sufficiently for yellow flags:
http://184.106.145.74/f1-championship/f1-2013/f1-2013-08/Formula%201%20British%20Grand%20Prix%202013%20Docu mentNumber-45.pdf
Just a reprimand though.

[BDunnell]

Come on, F1 fans are in reality very civilized compared to other sports. This is a non-issue really.

This is true, but that doesn't make the spectacle of it happening any more pleasant.

[Triumph]

Was Vettel's gearbox the same one that was used in Canada? If so, I wonder if the failure is related to when he hit the wall with his rear wheel.

I was half-expecting a problem to develop in Canada, but nothing went wrong at the time.

[airshifter]

Strange race to say the least. Sad to see the tire failures and RB failure change the race so much. I think Rosberg may have caught Vettel, but likely not made the pass. Hard to say, but it appears Lewis had pace to win. The tire failures caused a lot of shuffling of the deck, with all but Perez having time to come back and prove their worth in the race.

DoTR for me Felipe. That was a hard fight to come back after that blowout, and he has to be shaken after all the accidents lately. But Alonso, Lewis, Vettel, Nico, and several of the "mid packers" all had great races as well.

As for the tires plenty of blame to go around, and they all need to accept that to fix it. Pirelli and several teams want testing, the FIA and other teams prevent it. When Pirelli wanted to revert to the more durable tires, teams rejected it. But today we had no less than four drivers in the points lose tires, and worse yet create very unsafe situations on track. Both Kimi and Alonso drove through shards of flying debris... not a good thing.


Donkeys of the race for me were Button, Lotus, and FI.

[henners88]

Sometimes it's lighthearted and sometimes it isn't. Personally it's not something I'd do unless there was a driver who was bloody dirty.....
Very true, and I agree its an unsporting thing to do. Vettel was booed quite heavily in Canada too if I remember and it was also discussed then. Maybe his Malaysia incident has not disappeared from the fans minds just yet? Red Bull have quite a decent following at Silverstone and Vettel in particular as they are a local team. Its strange but I've always found Webber to be reasonably popular amongst the British fans so it could be for many reasons.

Still it was a good race to watch and this is pretty insignificant when you consider how much else there is to talk about. Hamilton seemed pretty peeved at the end of the race and for good reason. Hard to take having a victory at your home race snatched away. Hopefully today he'll be able to reflect on the race as a whole and realise that he put in a performance worthy of DOTR. There are some positives IMO.

[The Black Knight]

Gutted for Hammy in the race yesterday, absolutely gutted.

Ridiculous situation with the tires and it shows the short sightedness of some teams in blocking the modifications Pirelli wanted to make to their tires. F1 was very lucky that it did not have a serious accident yesterday and that all the drivers came away unscathed. In fairness to RBR, they are the ones that were making the most noise about htis all year, they saw there was a potential for this to happen. I don't believe it would happen in the Nurburgring but something has to be done now regardless of whether or not there is unanimous approval from the teams. I don't blame Pirelli for this, I blame Lotus, Ferrari and Force India for blocking the modifications Pirelli wanted to make to the tires. Wasn't Alonso lucky to not be hit on the head by Checo's rubber flying around the place? If he had been we could very well have had our first fatality in F1 since Senna.

I couldn't care less about the Vettel booing. If you really want to see misbehaved fans, try going to a Merseside Derby, it will make F1 fans look saintly.

DOTR for me was Hamilton. He still finished 4th and had incredible pace given the damage to his car. I was really impressed by him and he showed why he is considered the fastest driver in the business today. It's the first race of the year where, since qualifying, I can safely say Rosberg had no answer for him. The race was his and it was lost through no fault of his own. He has had such bad luck the last two years. Definitely my pick for driver of the race.

[Daniel]

Gutted for Hammy in the race yesterday, absolutely gutted.

Ridiculous situation with the tires and it shows the short sightedness of some teams in blocking the modifications Pirelli wanted to make to their tires. F1 was very lucky that it did not have a serious accident yesterday and that all the drivers came away unscathed. In fairness to RBR, they are the ones that were making the most noise about htis all year, they saw there was a potential for this to happen. I don't believe it would happen in the Nurburgring but something has to be done now regardless of whether or not there is unanimous approval from the teams. I don't blame Pirelli for this, I blame Lotus, Ferrari and Force India for blocking the modifications Pirelli wanted to make to the tires. Wasn't Alonso lucky to not be hit on the head by Checo's rubber flying around the place? If he had been we could very well have had our first fatality in F1 since Senna.

I couldn't care less about the Vettel booing. If you really want to see misbehaved fans, try going to a Merseside Derby, it will make F1 fans look saintly.

DOTR for me was Hamilton. He still finished 4th and had incredible pace given the damage to his car. I was really impressed by him and he showed why he is considered the fastest driver in the business today. It's the first race of the year where, since qualifying, I can safely say Rosberg had no answer for him. The race was his and it was lost through no fault of his own. He has had such bad luck the last two years. Definitely my pick for driver of the race.

Pirelli haven't claimed that the modifications were anything to do with the failures we saw on the weekend. If Paul Hembrey had come out and said this, he'd have been laughed out of F1 because it would appear that the modifications are nothing to do with strengthening the sidewall.

BBC Sport - Teams block Pirelli's plans to change Formula 1 tyres (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/22894591)

The modifications they wanted to do were more to do with delaminations rather than failures of the sidewalls. Two separate things.

[MarkJones]

Well that was pretty farcical. Mercedes have obviously made a huge amount of progress in stopping their car from using up it's rear tyres. Bad luck for Hamilton and Vettel though. I just can't understand why Pirelli is unwilling to take the lead on this controversy. All they've been for the last couple of years is the whipping boy of F1 and the fans (with good reason). Now they're caught in a horrible situation where the only way they can make the tyres safer is by publicly admitting that the current ones are dangerous, which apparently they don't want to do. Their reputation must be taking an absolute kicking, why on Earth wouldn't they take the initiative and announce something along the lines of that in light of the politics and the lack of testing because of the current rules, they are forcing a change of tyres on all the F1 teams effective immediately. Be a damn sight better politically than being told to do it after yet more negative publicity.

And who on earth would want to supply tyres to F1 if Pirelli left?

[The Black Knight]

Pirelli haven't claimed that the modifications were anything to do with the failures we saw on the weekend. If Paul Hembrey had come out and said this, he'd have been laughed out of F1 because it would appear that the modifications are nothing to do with strengthening the sidewall.

BBC Sport - Teams block Pirelli's plans to change Formula 1 tyres (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/22894591)

The modifications they wanted to do were more to do with delaminations rather than failures of the sidewalls. Two separate things.
First of all Daniel, welcome back. I noticed you've been gone for quite a while from this forum.


Adrian Newey has come out this morning and said that the tires fiasco of yesterday would have been avoided had Pirelli been allowed to make the modifications they wanted to earlier in the year:


Silverstone tyre fiasco could have been avoided - Adrian Newey | British Grand Prix | Formula 1 news, live F1 | ESPN.co.uk (http://www.espn.co.uk/greatbritain/motorsport/story/113977.html)


I'll take his word for it ;)

[SGWilko]

First of all Daniel, welcome back. I noticed you've been gone for quite a while from this forum.


Adrian Newey has come out this morning and said that the tires fiasco of yesterday would have been avoided had Pirelli been allowed to make the modifications they wanted to earlier in the year:


Silverstone tyre fiasco could have been avoided - Adrian Newey | British Grand Prix | Formula 1 news, live F1 | ESPN.co.uk (http://www.espn.co.uk/greatbritain/motorsport/story/113977.html)


I'll take his word for it ;)

Red Bull, supporting Pirelli? I don't believe it!

[Daniel]

First of all Daniel, welcome back. I noticed you've been gone for quite a while from this forum.


Adrian Newey has come out this morning and said that the tires fiasco of yesterday would have been avoided had Pirelli been allowed to make the modifications they wanted to earlier in the year:


Silverstone tyre fiasco could have been avoided - Adrian Newey | British Grand Prix | Formula 1 news, live F1 | ESPN.co.uk (http://www.espn.co.uk/greatbritain/motorsport/story/113977.html)


I'll take his word for it ;)

I literally just found the same link and posted it on another thread :) Perhaps the changes were not just limited to the bonding as suggested.

If Newey says that then that's good enough to at least make me consider that the newer tyre wouldn't have had the issue, still, could be gamesmanship from Newey, Red Bull certainly aren't above that ;)

[zako85]

The broadcast on NBC was bad. Incessant commercials. In fact, Hamilton's tire blowout happened during a commercial break. The other time I believe there was a race restart during a commercial. This is silly. I am personally willing to pay a few bucks per race just to watch it uninterrupted. When are we going to get F1 on Netflix or something?

[SGWilko]

When are we going to get F1 on Netflix or something?

When they lock Bernard Charles Ecclestone up!

[airshifter]

The broadcast on NBC was bad. Incessant commercials. In fact, Hamilton's tire blowout happened during a commercial break. The other time I believe there was a race restart during a commercial. This is silly. I am personally willing to pay a few bucks per race just to watch it uninterrupted. When are we going to get F1 on Netflix or something?

IIRC it was the final restart that happened during commercial. This "side by side" crap just doesn't cut it. You do have video, but at about 15% screen size. Not large enough to see what is going on unless you get up on the TV and then still not fun!

[N4D13]

IIRC it was the final restart that happened during commercial. This "side by side" crap just doesn't cut it. You do have video, but at about 15% screen size. Not large enough to see what is going on unless you get up on the TV and then still not fun!
Here's a comparison: Antena 3, in Spain, is free and we get commercials during the race, but we get a split screen with ads and the actual race. Both parts happen to have the same size.

[wedge]

Driver of the Day - Webber. Crap start as per usual but redeemed himself with a storming final stint after the SC.

[truefan72]

Well that was pretty farcical. Mercedes have obviously made a huge amount of progress in stopping their car from using up it's rear tyres. Bad luck for Hamilton and Vettel though. I just can't understand why Pirelli is unwilling to take the lead on this controversy. All they've been for the last couple of years is the whipping boy of F1 and the fans (with good reason). Now they're caught in a horrible situation where the only way they can make the tyres safer is by publicly admitting that the current ones are dangerous, which apparently they don't want to do. Their reputation must be taking an absolute kicking, why on Earth wouldn't they take the initiative and announce something along the lines of that in light of the politics and the lack of testing because of the current rules, they are forcing a change of tyres on all the F1 teams effective immediately. Be a damn sight better politically than being told to do it after yet more negative publicity.

And who on earth would want to supply tyres to F1 if Pirelli left?

I completely agree. I fell bad for pirelli and think the only reason they are taking the lead in the blame is because millions of dollars are at stake.
But it would be nice to see them stand up for themselves and lay the blame on the "cutting kerbs" of Silverstone.
When you look at all the information, and given that pirelli has been running tires in F1 for years now, the only change I can see is that of the silverstone track, along with teams not listening to the recommendations of tire supplier in terms of appropriate psi etc. Teams will never accept blame for their low ride height, unbalanced loads, low psi and any other contributing factor to the fiasco. Ans I bet you that mclaren sent perez out without the +2 psi change as well. To me prielli have proven that they can make durable tires and these are the same spec tires that were brought o canada, another "kerb heavy" track, with no problems. it is not as if they suddenly changed everything for this race. so to me the i'd allocate 60% of the blame to the silverstone track, 30% to the teams and only 10% to pirelli.

[Knock-on]

In fairness to RBR, they are the ones that were making the most noise about htis all year, they saw there was a potential for this to happen. .....

.....I don't blame Pirelli for this, I blame Lotus, Ferrari and Force India for blocking the modifications Pirelli wanted to make to the tires.

I agree with the rest but wanted to pick up on these two points.

Red Bull will do and say whatever benefits their team as will all the others. There is no difference apart from on what side they are on in this debate and in other discussions, the protagonists will be reversed.

[Zico]

I completely agree. I fell bad for pirelli and think the only reason they are taking the lead in the blame is because millions of dollars are at stake.
But it would be nice to see them stand up for themselves and lay the blame on the "cutting kerbs" of Silverstone.
When you look at all the information, and given that pirelli has been running tires in F1 for years now, the only change I can see is that of the silverstone track, along with teams not listening to the recommendations of tire supplier in terms of appropriate psi etc. Teams will never accept blame for their low ride height, unbalanced loads, low psi and any other contributing factor to the fiasco. Ans I bet you that mclaren sent perez out without the +2 psi change as well. To me prielli have proven that they can make durable tires and these are the same spec tires that were brought o canada, another "kerb heavy" track, with no problems. it is not as if they suddenly changed everything for this race. so to me the i'd allocate 60% of the blame to the silverstone track, 30% to the teams and only 10% to pirelli.


The kerbs at Silverstone have been in place since 2009..

Former grand prix driver Derek Warwick - president of the British Racing Drivers' Club that owns Silverstone - rejected the idea that the kerbs could be at fault.
"These kerbs have been in since 2009 and we have had thousands and thousands of cars go over these kerbs and they have been absolutely fine," he said.
"We have had them checked by the FIA and they conform fully with the FIA."

From here- BBC Sport - F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone dismisses talk of boycott (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/23132957)

I don't think we should be playing the blame game though especially without knowing all the facts. The most important thing is to just ensure this doesn't happen again.

[RedBullian1]

Driver of the Day - Webber. Crap start as per usual but redeemed himself with a storming final stint after the SC.

Either him or Hamilton with that blown tire incident early on

[D28]

And who on earth would want to supply tyres to F1 if Pirelli left?

Exactly. Presumably Pirelli are in F1 for the commercial advantages available to promote tyres for passenger vehicles. With all the bad publicity, especially to casual observers of the sport, why would they, or any manufacturer want to participate, with the current conditions?

[The Black Knight]

I've long been critical of the tires that Pirelli have been producing but for this case, with what happened Sunday in Silverstone, I really do not hold them accountable. They wanted to change the tires and FI, Ferrari and Lotus blocked them. Ferrari nearly lost their star driver too, permanently, as I doubt he'd have survived had that tire hit his helmet straight in the head.


Anyway, for once I feel sorry for Pirelli. They tried to correct the issue but were not allowed. F1 squabbling teams caused this.

[wedge]

Well Pirelli had the chance to correct the issue by changing the tyres on the grounds of safety but didn't so it left to the teams with vested interests to veto which perhaps seems absurd in hindsight.

As much as it is easy to be angry at Pirelli I also agree with Truefan's points.

Anyway, I was reminiscing on the 1986 Australian GP. One of the myths/misconceptions on Mansell's spectacular blow out was that he drove too hard when the reality was that in hindsight Goodyear wrongly advised times that they could do a whole race on a set of tyres.

[A FONDO]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWYKRVrd75g&feature=player_embedded

:D

Im going on Friday with my old man, and my 6 year old who has been let out of school for the day - his first F1 track experience (he went to the Red Bull Home Run a couple of years ago).