Official 2014 Chinese GP Thread

Woah... never thought I'd be making one of these as there's normally some keen beans who get in and create amazing first posts... but seeing as qualy ahs happened thought we needed a thread for this.

Great qualy session I thought:
Hamilton mesmerising - just sublime. He is QUICK.
Ricciardo - great lap. Half a second up on Seb AGAIN. Continues to deliver, let's hope he can keep it up.
Seb - where you'd expect, right up at the pointy end.
Nico - balls it up a few times. Pushing too hard to match a team mate he knows has the pace over over him?
Felipe and Valtteri - good stuff! Great to see Willy up there!!
Kimi, the McLaren lads - face palm.

...and here's the obligatory track map (from last year sorry)...

[highpitchedindignantvoice]Last year?![/highpitchedindignantvoice] pffft not good enough

Not really surprised to see Hamilton on pole, a quick driver in the quickest car. But he did good another job on over psyching poor Britney, who overdrove his way to P4.

Ricciardo put another one over on the Fingermeister, having now out qualified him 3 to 4 is a turn up for the books and at this stage quite impressive.

Did Alonso really set a record for the most times qualified on P5? If so, some staticians have far too much time on their hands

Given the wet nature of the day, and the apparent weakness of the FW36 in wet and cold conditions, it was pleasantly surprising to see it up in P5 & P6, I wonder if Massa will be subject to a protest after his moment with Kimi in Q2 though. But good progress overall for Williams.

I kind of expected the Hulk to be further up there to be honest, but still top ten, he ought to move forwards in the race as the Force India does seem to handle the tyre life very well.

Fair job by Vergne, I guess he needed to put one over on the boy Kyvat, and well doe to RoGro for dragging that shambles into the top ten.

McLaren seem to have inherited the Williams weakness in the wet, a "meh" day for them.

Bad day for Kimi and Perez for being today's weak links in their respective teams.

Supreme weekend so far MaldonalDOH, worst driving seen in F1 since Yuji Ide on Friday, and a mare of a day today. Apparently he may have to appeal to the stewards to be cleared to race, I almost hope they say "LOL, no".

Despite me loving the new regulations and the stunning race we had at Bahrain (I'm still dragging my jaw along the floor), I couldn't have cared less about this race for some reason. I've never liked it. It just reminds me what a smog-ridden hellhole this area of China looks. No history in the area, or in motorsport, or in anything it seems - the whole area seems to have zero character.

I just realised on another forum that back in 2004, this was the first F1 race I'd missed live since I started watching in 1989. I remember wandering out of my tent at Donington and seeing Barrichello up on the podium on the TV of one of the teams there. Seems in a decade, not much has changed in my attitude to this place.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the track itself, and I'm well aware that other countries are throwing money at Bernie to get another generic F1 track in their bid to get more interest in their otherwise mainly third world country, but for some reason this and Bahrain stand alone in my detestation. Possibly because overnight they propelled Tilke from a part-time track designer into a soulless steamroller of his own (at least he's designing better tracks now, though his traits of long straight, hairpin, 50 metre wide track remain, are getting worse and piss me right off).


Anyway, words on qualifying. I only saw Q3 because I thought sleep might be more interesting, but it looks like Nico is rattled, Vettel is the new Webber and, even though I didn't actually see them on track, McLaren are in much worse shape, relatively, than last year.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2014 11:05AM by gav.

regarding roseberg:

"Then on my final timed lap, I was half a second quicker going into the last corner - but my time delta on my steering wheel display said that I was two tenths slower. So I just took a big risk and spun because I mistakenly thought I had nothing to lose anyway."

WTF?? he was half a second up on lewis??

From Free practice - just brilliant reaction from mechanic for maldonados crash

[vine.co]

Quote
mitadumapaga
regarding roseberg:

"Then on my final timed lap, I was half a second quicker going into the last corner - but my time delta on my steering wheel display said that I was two tenths slower. So I just took a big risk and spun because I mistakenly thought I had nothing to lose anyway."

WTF?? he was half a second up on lewis??

I suspect half a second up on his previous time, but his delta was showing against a another lap. He wouldn't have beaten Hamilton, but he might have pipped Ricciardo for second.

hmm, you have a point.

what i found interesting, though, is that on his penultimate lap (the he locked at the end of the long straight), rosberg was .6 ahead of lewis after sector 2. and hamilton improved his overall lap by 0.4.

so maybe rosberg has the speed to challenge tomorrow. who knows

Well, the start as ever could be interesting, so far at least one Merc and one Williams has got a belter of a start in each race.

lewis mentioned he shifted his setup completely for the wet qualy.

will be interesting too see how his car handles in the dry

Interesting given that they normally only change front wing angle in the wet now. I'm fairly confident his setup will be just as quick as Rosberg tomorrow.

I'm still staggered at how poor McLaren are relatively. In pre-season (always dangerous of course) people were tipping them for the title, but they're much worse than they were last year, relatively speaking. Of course they have far more points (thanks to Melbourne), but they're now the slowest Mercedes team, having been overtaken by Force India and Williams. By my reckoning, if every team had Mercedes engines, they'd only have Caterham and Marussia behind them and be around the level of a very underwhelming Sauber. Even Grosjean was faster today, and his car has work-experience kids designing it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2014 08:19PM by gav.

I think Nico threw Pole away as much as Lewis went out and took it. Can't remember the last time he made so many mistakes in a quali session. He should have been much better on a track where he took Pole in 2012 in a much less competitive car. He wasn't in the zone at all.
Good Pole from Lewis though, and not surprisingly - he's a Shanghai specialist too, as he showed in 2008 and 2011.

Good to see Ricciardo outqualifying Seb again, and the weather conditions so far this season have flattered the RedBulls considerably.

Great performance from Massa too.

Macca and Ferrari continuing to generally be @#$%&.

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why judging mclaren so harshly?

they did great in melbourne; screwed up in malaysia; and were about for some good points in bahrai too, be it not the engine problems.

we know button is a sunday driver (i.e. he delivers on sunday afternoon rather than on saturday). so let us wait and see where he winds up tomorrow.

EC83 écrivait:

> Good Pole from Lewis though, and not surprisingly
> - he's a Shanghai specialist too, as he showed in
> 2008 and 2011.


2007 too. he trashed them all - alonsos raikkonens and massas.

gav Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Despite me loving the new regulations and the
> stunning race we had at Bahrain (I'm still
> dragging my jaw along the floor), I couldn't have
> cared less about this race for some reason. I've
> never liked it. It just reminds me what a
> smog-ridden hellhole this area of China looks. No
> history in the area, or in motorsport, or in
> anything it seems - the whole area seems to have
> zero character.

I'm usually excited for Formula 1 races wherever they maybe and make an effort to see all sessions live+buildup, but I have to agree China is so incredibly dull. I couldn't be bothered to get up for FP2 nor the buildup to Qualy. Only place where you see fans are on the main straight (even then it's on the main grandstand and right in the middle) otherwise it's just empty. No massive elevation change, nothing there to challenge drivers. Additionally, because of the constant smog that seems to live in China, it's the dreariest race of the lot (Now that Korea's gone). I'd rather they get rid of this and bring back Istanbul. Now that was a fun track.

@Monil, funnily enough mate, Turkey's attendance figures were terrible, despite its location just outside of Istanbul.

Hey guys, would appreciate your thoughts on my musings from qualifying.

[wp.me]

What is everyone thinking for tomorrow? Got to be Lewis for the win surely.

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2014 12:19AM by Ferrari2007.

So, Vettel just ruined podium finish for Riccardo. Well done.

___________________________________________________________________________
For a list of EVERY download for GP4, look here:[docs.google.com]

Quote
Ferrari2007
What is everyone thinking for tomorrow? Got to be Lewis for the win surely.

Yeah, probably.

Quote
mitadumapaga
so let us wait and see where he winds up tomorrow.

Ahead of a Toro Rosso, a Lotus, the other McLaren, a broken Williams and the also-rans. I stand by what I said - if everyone had the Merc engine, McLaren would be around the same pace as the Sauber only.

Quote
Soutsen
So, Vettel just ruined podium finish for Riccardo. Well done.

I highly doubt Ricciardo would have been able to pass Alonso. Alonso wasn't especially in tyre trouble, and had him in control. Plus, even with DRS the Red Bull was only the same speed as the Ferrari without it. It would have taken a mistake from Alonso, and Alonso doesn't do them.



Some nice petulance from Vettel today. Must be incredibly frustrating for a 4-times champion to have to wave his new teammate through for 2 consecutive weekends. Have to say I'm shocked at the relative speed between Vettel and Ricciardo.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2014 11:08AM by gav.

gav Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > What is everyone thinking for tomorrow? Got to
> be Lewis for the win surely.
>
>
> Yeah, probably.
>
>
>
>
> so let us wait and see where he winds up
> tomorrow.
>
>
> Ahead of a Toro Rosso, a Lotus, the other McLaren,
> a broken Williams and the also-rans. I stand by
> what I said - if everyone had the Merc engine,
> McLaren would be around the same pace as the
> Sauber only.


+1

they were sad to watch

So the race result has changed to finishing after only 54 laps, because the chequered flag was accidentally shown early, which, according to the rules, if that happens, the result must be taken at that point. This means Kobayashi's overtake on Bianchi didn't count.

While nothing important changes, what a clusterfuck.