2013 German GP Thread

Interesting race. From beginning to the very end. Worth watching. :)

Nice race by Vettel, had to deliver under pressure all race. Strong comeback by Räikkönen, but if you lose out narrowly, you would always ask questions whether the strategy was exactly right. Reminded me how Alonso chased down Räikkönen in Abu Dhabi last year, but couldn't really catch in the end. Nice performance by Grosjean, good to see him finally having a strong race pace too. He needs to keep that one up now for the rest of the year to save his seat.

Alonso wasn't far behind in the end, so Ferrari is there or thereabouts, but as usual - always missing a tiny bit to truly challenge (for the championship). Pity about Massa. For two consecutive races he has been ahead of Alonso before "issues", so we haven't really seen, what could he do in a competitive position by the end of the race. A pity about Webber too. One of his strongest circuits, where he got his maiden F1 win. Was a real contender for a win this time too.

Fortunately for Vettel he does not have a consistent rival, so even despite the British GP DNF he is still in a strong position in the championship. Sometimes he battles with Lotus, sometimes with Ferrari, sometimes with Mercedes. However, all of them take points away from each other like Alonso was left fourth today, which enables Vettel to pull away.

Great race. Though the safety car did change things some, I think it would have panned out very similar except for Webber being allowed to gain his lap back... that ended up with points implications and is wrong IMO.

Great drive by Seb and RB, but they were feeling the pressure. Shame Mark was out so early, same with Felipe. Both could have had major impacts on the race and constructor standings.

The thing I loved about the race was that SC. They decided to send it in when it was already pretty much useless... so I guess it was more for the show than for safety reasons. And hadn´t they tried this thing with the lapped cars before and decided it was dumb... why did they change their minds? what changed?

As for RBR... next time they should tell the lollipop guy too about their little show. they put a man´s life in danger today.

[quote="Big Ben"]And hadn´t they tried this thing with the lapped cars before and decided it was dumb... why did they change their minds? what changed?
QUOTE]

Yes. They had this rule from what I remember for a season a few years back and the same happened. Races held up while backmarkers plod round. So they got rid of the rule and again a few races were affected by Lapped Cars in the middle of the que. So low and behold we have it all over again.

The only ways of slowing pitstops down is to either, bring back refueling. Or have less mechanic's as Dj said. Or have a rule of a 5 second pitstop for all.

All these idea's have problems. For me a compulsary 5 second stop would be annoying. I wouldnt be adverse to tyre and fuel strategy being key and in the proccess slowing stops down.

All in all, this was a good race. I enjoyed the fight between Vettel and Lotus cars in the second half. I think the race might have been different without the safety car. Right before safety car, I thought a good battle was brewing between Vettel and Grosjean. Granted, Grosjean still managed to catch up with Vettel later on. It's nice to see Grosjean on the podium again.

The RBR pit error is no worse than any other unsafe releases that ended up with pit lane collisions. Refueling poses more hazards IMHO. Someone may have been hit by the dangling refueling hose when the team released Massa few years ago; then someone would have argued the need to ban refueling. The cameraman shouldn't be near the pit during pitstop anyway.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AndyL

The F1 journos are now tweeting that Red Bull have been given a €30,000 fine for the unsafe release of Webber's car. They've got off lightly IMO.

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How much of that €30,000 do you think the cameraman will get?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by call_me_andrew

How much of that €30,000 do you think the cameraman will get?

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Probably nothing.

I don't understand why he was in the middle of the pit lane either. If Mercedes has to pit wouldn't he have been hit by a car anyway?
I never paid attention, are they usually standing there?

Here is one thing I don't get about Webber's tire accident. I was watching the F1 show on NBC. The camera was positioned above the pit crew. As the screw was changing the tires, I hear in the voice of Will Buxton: "But a delay on a rear right!". After rewinding this moment and watching it like 10 times, I still don't get it how Will Buxton was able to tell what's going on at that instant. The moment he said that, the right hand rear crew was actually ahead of the left crew in putting the wheel on the car. It's almost like Buxton's voice was able to foretell the incident by 2-3 seconds. What's up? Was the pit stop not translated live, so that Buxton knew in advance what was going to happen?