Round 7 - Montrunreal

Obligatory track map I spent weeks plotting in a combination of 3DS Max and MS Paint.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/07/2014 08:49PM by gav.

Looks like we're well set up for a stunning race after qualifying. Seb took it to Ricciardo and the Williams cars, and might well be under pressure from both in the race.

It's still finely poised up at the top, but something inside tells me Hamilton will do Rosberg at some point tomorrow, and it might not be pretty.

But performance of the weekend goes to Marussia, who, not content with getting points in Monaco and obliterating Caterham today, were both just hundreds away from Q2. They're not far off Sauber (with the same engine) and Maldonado just eked ahead of them before his car melted (again). They're doing a stunning job at the moment.

Realling looking forward to the race. :D

And super accurate it is too

Good qualifying.

Notable performances;

Nico Rosberg, Pole on a track which has effectively been owned by his team-mate.
Lewis Hamilton, successfully managed not to sulk and instead engaged his lesser seen pragmatic mature response on day which he got beaten when he perhaps should not have been.
Sebastian Vettel, pulled that one out of the hat and over delivered on Horner's row 3 goal.
Williams, have been looking strong all weekend, both drivers looking good.
Jean Eric Vergne, another good job to get the Toro Rosso into Q3
Maurussia, Chilton and Bianchi narrowly missed out on out-qualifying Maldonado. If it wasn't for Ericsson's red flag they may well have managed it.

I think we're set for a good race tomorrow, hopefully it delivers. I expect Hamilton to push Rosberg hard and ultimately I think he;; either pass him off the start or around the pit-stop time. It seems finely balanced between Red Bull, Williams and Ferrari for fight for the final podium step. Obviously I hope Williams take it, but I have a feeling if Vettel maintains his position off the start then he'll be too strong for them and Ricciardo may also come through.

Will also be interesting to see if Force India can come back through into the points, the drivers are certainly capable but as it stands they're facing Williams taking a big chunk out of their points lead over them.

Gav, you should get Tilke's job. NOW.

Fantastic quali. Great job by Nico, he's driving brilliantly at the moment. Lewis handled it like a pro this time, and he'll still be a big threat for the win.
Great performance by Seb, and he and Kimi have had some spectacular moments.
Strong performance by Williams, especially by Massa early on, and it would be nice if they could get on the podium.

Hope this will be a cracking race!

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/07/2014 11:59PM by EC83.

HILARIOUS GAV!!!! hhahaha
Breaking News: Stewards are investigating Rosberg's Pole. apparently he did that on purpose.

I hope he gives his all tomorrow to win, because is going to take a lot and probably more to beat Lewis, but if he does the championship can turn quite interesting

It's so finely balanced. Don't know about anyone else, but I've begun to view every minor setback for a Merc driver(like a bad quali lap or slow pitstop, for example) in the way I normally view a DNF - as a big deal for him, and then I think "Hang on...!". If that DNF does happen, as Martin Brundle implied during quali commentary, it'll be massive. Amazing how we shift our focus.

Lewis potentially holds a critical advantage in the reliability Karma stakes, as he's had the DNF and so far Nico hasn't.

Increasingly fascinating rivalry.

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By the way(And if I'm wrong here someone can correct me), as far as I can see no team has ever scored more than 5 consecutive 1-2 finishes in F1 history.
So a record might get broken tomorrow.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2014 03:31AM by EC83.

Quote
EC83
By the way(And if I'm wrong here someone can correct me), as far as I can see no team has ever scored more than 5 consecutive 1-2 finishes in F1 history.
So a record might get broken tomorrow.

Lot's appendices here, but Ferrari had six 1-2 finishes in 1952 if you exclude the Indy 500. One of those 1-2s also featured a customer Ferrari rather than the works team. All the other likely possibilities I can think of (1955, 1988, 1992, 2002, 2004 and 2009) all fall short.

Big set back for lewis, great job by nico.

Race will be interesting as this is a fuel hungry track so if lewis can keep up with nico I do expect him to win.

gav Wrote:
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> Lot's appendices here, but Ferrari had six 1-2
> finishes in 1952 if you exclude the Indy 500. One
> of those 1-2s also featured a customer Ferrari
> rather than the works team. All the other likely
> possibilities I can think of (1955, 1988, 1992,
> 2002, 2004 and 2009) all fall short.

Since the Indy 500 was never a true F1 race, and since a Ferrari is a Ferrari(Certainly Wiki wasn't discriminating when I checked), I think that 6-race streak should stand as the record then. I can't believe there's been any longer streak since - we would've known about it. I also found none of the obvious candidate seasons match it.
Well spotted. I did wonder if that 1952-1953 dominant Ascari stretch might be hiding a gem somewhere but assumed because of the lack of professionalism in those days that no team would manage to put a run like that together.
So Merc have to finish 1-2 today and in Austria then. :P

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Marussia just arrived.

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WTF is happening with the Mercedes? Don't think I've ever seen two cars both have apparently identical problems like this.

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Wow, what an insane race now!!

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What a combination of circumstances. Nico is slow, Perez catches him. Perez can't really attack Nico because he DRS isn't working. The RedBulls would be quicker, but can't really attack Perez because he's getting a tow down the straights from Nico.
LOL.

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What an incredible finish. Just WOW.

Well done Dani!!

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Incredible!!!

about the Massa, Perez incident, imho Perez switched direction quite agressively and quite late he ruined a good Williams result!

That was Bahrain level of excitement, crazy frenzy.

I don't know if the Britney v Lewis rivalry saw them basically push too hard and cook the cars but it set things up perfectly for a nail bitter.

Massa and Perez's collision was frightening.

That has got to be one of the most weird, mentally knackering, yet brilliant, races I've ever seen! That's the first time I thought since Brazil 2007 that I thought "Bernie's pressed his magic button," when I saw that both Mercs had a problem at the same time. All 5 of the top runners in the last few laps were so incredibly hungry to win, you could see it. Brilliant. Just brilliant!

Gutted for Massa, though, I really thought he had this in the bag at one point. I thought he might sneak onto the podium at the end, too, until that dreadful accident...

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You know you want to. [judgegrudge.mybrute.com]




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2014 10:07PM by flat tyre.

this race proves to me exactly what I have always thought. drivers like mansell, senna, hamilton, montoya and many others, have been quoted as faster than their team mates, t an extent because of their setups.

the way i see it is that they are just willing to make a setup which will carry higher risks, but make you that bit faster. as we saw, hamilton's advantage today was all under breaking. he had such an advantage under breaking that we could just see it on tv. Such an advantage, that even the race engineer of nico told him that their break-bbalances are different. and the result for both mercs proves that.

Just My Opinion

Massa's last Pit Stop was unecessary he had this race in the bag for ##### sake, he had 2 cars riding shotgun for him.

All he had to do is keep going, look after the Tyres and build a Gap to Rosberg.

i have a headache

The Real Story of the Race was that the Renault's fell apart and the Ferrari's didn't.
Rosberg headed for the sliproad and retired, probably because of Nicotin starvation they have still not given him a helmet with a little hole in it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2014 10:15PM by Toki.