2012 Spanish Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS***

You speak as if it's something new. Teams were doing this halfway through last season. You're only bringing it up now because Hamilton broke the rules and got disqualified. Had Hamilton not stopped on track you wouldn't be half as vociferous.

Perhaps there should be a rule change, but they had ample opportunity to do so over the winter after teams such as Force India, Mercedes and Sauber continually did this last year.

As it stands, the fact of the matter is that McLaren got disqualified for breaking the rules. Neither Red Bull nor Mercedes broke any rules.

Well I guess the issue is the relative strength of penalties - just look at what Maldonado himself got at Spa in qualifying for a much more serious offence. And if they want to clamp down on it, fine, but why not clamp down on dangerous driving like Rosberg's in Bahrain, that's a much more serious cause to look into.

But two wrongs don't make a right...

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X (@ed24f1)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2012 08:20PM by SchueyFan.

Gav I was saying it last year as well about teams not running in Q3. I said on twitter and FB as well even before the Lewis thing was mentioned. I also said the rules need changing as its simply not fair for drivers who do run.

I said I agree that Lewis got a penalty they broke the rules. I do think its a tad harsh as do many but they broke the rules and have to pay.

Looks like rain tomorrow anyway so those saving tyres might have just cost themselves anyway.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2012 08:26PM by marcl.

Oh, I agree. Dangerous driving should be far more heavily penalised than technical mistakes*, and technical infringments like this are always a shame for fans of certain drivers or teams, but the rules are there. They know the rules and they know the penalty, which is presumably a fixed penalty in this instance. If they didn't cock it up, then they looked to have a really easy win tomorrow. But they did. It's harsh, but it's not like they couldn't have done something about it.

* though I'm still not convinced that what Rosberg did should be considered dangerous - as I said at the time, there was nothing stopping them going to the outside of him - he was clear and consistent in his driving.

gav Wrote:
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> Oh, I agree. Dangerous driving should be far more
> heavily penalised than technical mistakes*, and
> technical infringments like this are always a
> shame for fans of certain drivers or teams, but
> the rules are there. They know the rules and they
> know the penalty, which is presumably a fixed
> penalty in this instance. If they didn't cock it
> up, then they looked to have a really easy win
> tomorrow. But they did. It's harsh, but it's not
> like they couldn't have done something about it.
>
> * though I'm still not convinced that what Rosberg
> did should be considered dangerous - as I said at
> the time, there was nothing stopping them going to
> the outside of him - he was clear and consistent
> in his driving.

I agree with everything you've said gav, including the rosberg smallprint. The rules have always been there, and the fact they haven't needed to use that specific rule recently (that i can remember?) doesn't mean its disappeared. McLaren ignored the rule despite knowing the penalty, and voila. I admit i have found mclarens qualifying situation here to be quite funny though...

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2012 08:39PM by truecrysis.

Mclaren been doing this for a while now and have been running away with it, remember Button in Brasil?

it's the same pattern i wonder if they do this on purpose... at Istanbul 2010 i think they fuelled their cars low and drivers had to save massive ammounts of fuel during the race.

after seeing Vettel and Schumacher cruise (so far no rule prevents them from doing it) i tought somebody has to step up and go for it, i knew Maldonado but still, it seemed nobody was giving any importance to it. but i tought well Hamilton at least is going for it, as if he would think inside his helmet "fukc it i'm here to race" was a good thing to do, but now the team flushed it all down the toilet...

Kimi's first win is looking good, unless Alonso pulls out something out of the bag



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2012 08:59PM by Slash.

It makes you wonder if Lewis did intend to do 2 runs and only did due to people beating his 1st timed run and then they rushed out and the error happened?

Its just a shame it happened tbh Lewis done a great lap and was the fastest driver today by some margin.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2012 09:18PM by marcl.

Im not sure what the rules are but I would have thought stripping his last time would be more sensible. Absolutely rediculous decision.

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It's harsh, but fair.

You MUST provide a 1-litre sample and you MUST get back to the pits under your own steam. Underfuelling your car so you run out prior to reaching the pits is rather underhand and allows derivation of an unfair advantage. McLaren weren't totally honest about it either; they used a non-descript 'problem' as cover for the fuel issue.

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GPGSL: S6 - TafuroGP Tester (14th) /// S7 - ART Tester (6th) /// S8 - Demon Driver (13th) /// S9 - Demon/Snake Driver (13th) /// S10 - Snake Driver (???) ///]
"My ambition is handicapped by laziness" - Charles Bukowski

It would have been more sensible, but I think they have to consider the bigger picture. McLaren have under-fuelled a car and gained an advantage from it - without so they may not have been on the front row - using pure maths, they would have, but they weren't at the time they sent out a lighter car.

When BAR ran underweight in 2003 or so, the FIA wanted to ban them from the entire championship, and only last-minute pleading resulted in a 2 race ban. Tyrrell were thrown out of the championship in 1984 for running underweight. It is a serious offence, and while it seems clear that McLaren didn't intend to break the rules, they have to show strength and impose the penalties that come with such an offence. An STR would suffer the same penalty, only it would barely be reported.

McLaren might not have been forthcoming with the press but there's no suggestion they weren't with the stewards.

I very rarely comment on the F1 forum, but I have got to say that this penalty is ridiculous! I'm not a Hamilton fan and agree that a rule was broken here, but the penalty just doesn't seem to fit the infringement in my eyes. I would have thought that his best time would have been excluded or a drop of 5 places on the grid. Or even excluded from Q3 would have been more appropriate.

The stewards just can't seem to go a season without making at least one outragous decision!



5 x WCC - S5, S6, S7, S8, S10 | 4 x WDC - S5 Nick van der Voort ; S6, S7, S8 Ed Greenhalgh | 2 x WTC - S6 Stuart Ingers; S8 Andrei Sevastian

Look Lewis was on pole but .5 thats a huge gap, even with the correct amount of fuel in the car he would have been on pole. So people saying they done it to gain an advantage are looking at it the wrong way.

A mistake was made, just like when people do not secure a wheel on the car properly errors happen.

Just Mclaren seem to keep on making them again and again. This is what I am more angry about.

but the thing is it's not the first time they've done it, they always seem to play around with it, i think it was in 2007 or '08 that FIA introduce the "minum lap time to return to pits" rule, whatever it's called, precisely because they were returning to the pits dead slow to save fuel, and caused dangerous situation with other drivers, in Malaysia i think it was. and it involved Mclaren
in Canada '10 they did it with Lewis, Jenson stopped after the checkerd flag in T1 after the race in Brasil '11, they raced Istanbul '10 with low fuel... they always claim is a claculation issue, and that seemed to have worked for a while but really?. the pattern is there.

in Bahrain i think Rosberg and Vettel stopped after qualy, maybe FIA tought it was getting out of control and they wanted to set a precedent, sadly it involved Hamilton, but that's the same team that been doing it for a while.

The rule does not count after the race though so they can stop the car, maybe it should count in the race as well after all what is the difference?

All teams push it to the limit and this is also why they stopped drivers cutting corners on their in laps.

marcl Wrote:
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> The rule does not count after the race though so
> they can stop the car, maybe it should count in
> the race as well after all what is the
> difference?

it should you're right... also Jenson in Suzuka 2011... someone in Mclaren just likes to play around with the fuel

Quote
marcl
Look Lewis was on pole but .5 thats a huge gap, even with the correct amount of fuel in the car he would have been on pole. So people saying they done it to gain an advantage are looking at it the wrong way.

I agree with what you're saying, but they didn't calculate the fuel retrospectively.

gav Wrote:
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> > Look Lewis was on pole but .5 thats a huge gap,
> even with the correct amount of fuel in the car he
> would have been on pole. So people saying they
> done it to gain an advantage are looking at it the
> wrong way.
>
>
> I agree with what you're saying, but they didn't
> calculate the fuel retrospectively.

also cars behave different with different ammounts of fuel.

Ralf Schumacher and Montoya used to go with different strategies for the races because one was better than the other under different circumstances, like Ralf win in Malaysia '02 or '03 where he had to go for 1 stop whereas Montoya used to do 2, Ralf wouldn't match Montoya under a 2 stop strategy but with a 1 stop with a heavier car his laptimes were similar to Montoya's and that meant faster at the end.

or even Alonso with Hamilton at Mclaren, Lewis used to go for a 3 stop sometimes and Alonso for a 2, with a 3 stop Alonso was slower, but with a 2 he would end up being faster than Lewis's 3.

what i'm trying to say is the exact measure of (Fuel - Performance) is not as accurate as it seems, maybe Lewis with a bit more fuel would've been slower than the way he performed with the fuel they sent him out for his last run, or maybe he would've done the exact lap time and that would've meant theorically that he "underperformed"..

Stoopid Wrote:
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> I very rarely comment on the F1 forum, but I have
> got to say that this penalty is ridiculous! I'm
> not a Hamilton fan and agree that a rule was
> broken here, but the penalty just doesn't seem to
> fit the infringement in my eyes. I would have
> thought that his best time would have been
> excluded or a drop of 5 places on the grid. Or
> even excluded from Q3 would have been more
> appropriate.
>
> The stewards just can't seem to go a season
> without making at least one outragous decision!


Totally agree. Not only am I not a Hamilton fan, sometimes I'm a Hamilton hater (no, it's not just because of Brazil 08 neither last year's trouble, those of you looking at my sig, hehe), but I'm impartial, and this was a total injustice. His lap was superb, he deserved pole and knowing how this track works, I'm pretty sure he's been stripped of a win. Let's hope DRS will change that.



Stats: 139 Starts / 7 Wins / 9 Poles / 5 Fastest laps

SchueyFan Wrote:
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why not clamp down on dangerous driving
> like Rosberg's in Bahrain, that's a much more
> serious cause to look into.
>
> But two wrongs don't make a right...

It wasn't dangerous driving... he was defending his position. That happened in every race until the mid 00's.