Donkey of the race - China 2013

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Originally Posted by zako85

I must say RedBull overall were the donkeys. They underfill Webber's car during qualis, then set up Vettel with a bold but losing strategy. I don't get what was the point of this all. Alonso, Raikkonen, and Hamilton all started from the top 2 rows, and this is pretty much where they ended up finishing, so Vettel's convoluted strategy of saving tires for the race didn't buy him anything at all.

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Partly because the tyres are so crap this year and partly this year's car has a habit of eating its tyres.

In Malaysia Vettel had superior tyre strategy over Webber. Last year Vettel used the alternate strategy and nearly won in Monaco.

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Originally Posted by zako85

...These tires are not designed to make cars go fast. They're simply meant to create a good show with all cars in and out of pits every 10 laps. These tires have simply lowered the bar to make the race interesting to complete neophytes who get to see order shuffled frequently and constant pit action all the time. I don't really consider this good racing. I say bring back the tire wars now. ....

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I agree with pretty much all of that.

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Originally Posted by zako85

We already have different

Engines
KERS
Chasis
Pit crews
Drivers

Why not tires as well?

By the way, I don't really wish the tire war to be the decisive factor. What I want is to see tire manufacturers try to bring tires that allow the car to complete the race as fast as possible, whether it takes 0 pit stops or 5 pits stops, or anything between.. it's up to them. Instead we see these "show tires", tires that are meant to be an amusing and unpredictable handicap, being used for a second year in a row. Once Pirelli is competing with say Firestone, you know for sure they won't be bringing this joke tire to a race again.

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I could have written this.

This is spot on.

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Originally Posted by zako85

88/89 wasn't so bad as there was good competition within McLaren team. As for other examples, you don't need to go all the way back to 92. Enough to see 2011 or some of Schummy's WDC years. So what? There were many years like that and there will be more. That's the way F1 has always been. That's not an excuse to dumb down the sport to the least common denominator using gimmicks such as five laps tires.

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This too.

Could this be that the tires brought to the Chinese race were simply the wrong ones ?

By that , I mean that perhaps they chose the tires expecting cooler weather ?
Given the conditions , would the medium/hard combo have been better than the soft/medium one ?

Was it warmer than expected ?

Or , is there another reason that the track was more abrasive than normal ?



I guess it's just that I'm getting a little tired of the constant droning over the tires ruining the sport that goes on around here .
Get over it .
The FIA asked for these tires and got what they wanted .

Pirelli must be getting pretty sick of it as well .

Everyone gets the same deal .

Of course they got it slightly wrong in China , but it can't be an easy thing to do , making a tire that survives a specific number of laps .


Relax , and relish the fact that we sat on the edge of our seats due to Vettel's charge at the end , due to them having to run different tires , one's with vast differences in performance .

But honestly. Re Webber.

Were it Vettel running behind Vergne the team would have advised Vergne to move over for the senior team. Webber? No such thing. Vergne leaves a gap that the Queen Mary would have moved through and wonders why Webber gave it a shot. Then, mid-corner, Vergne turns in to Webber.

There is NO DOUBT Webber was late and did not have his car far enough around to make the move, but, really. It's their baby team. Surely some can see Webbers point that he felt Vergne had moved over to let him through. You guys should take a look at the move again. Webber is in the wrong, but Vergne certainly played a card too. Against another team Webber had no right to be there, but against STR?

Again, had it been Vettel we would be all annoyed with Vergne for closing the door on him.

PS: Webber, from the back of the grid, was ahead of Vettel at that point.

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Originally Posted by zako85

88/89 wasn't so bad as there was good competition within McLaren team. As for other examples, you don't need to go all the way back to 92. Enough to see 2011 or some of Schummy's WDC years. So what? There were many years like that and there will be more. That's the way F1 has always been. That's not an excuse to dumb down the sport to the least common denominator using gimmicks such as five laps tires.

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The problem is (as I've written before) that in this day and age people will turn away from the sport and it will die if it's not exciting. There is just so much entertainment from which to choose from. Watching a dominant car go around the same corners 56 times is actually quite boring.

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Originally Posted by zako85

Why not tires as well?

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Because they are the most decisive component of a formula one car, and an outsourced component.

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Originally Posted by Ari

Again, had it been Vettel we would be all annoyed with Vergne for closing the door on him.

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Marko would have paid him a personal visit in his garage and told him that that was absolutely not acceptable.

Sergio Perez and Jensen Button - Why Oh Why did I choose them for my team. Is it true one driver can affect a team that much (meaning - Hamilton had McL up near the podium. Where have they been since he left?).

Actually - Webber for me. He was too optimistic about that move.