2012 Singapore Grand Prix ***SPOILERS***

Quote
jbnd05
Imo his move shouldn't be getting the celebration it does

No celebration for the move, more the fact that he somehow managed to maintain control after Senna had squeezed him.

Actually, and this hasn't happened much of late, but credit to Massa for a strong race. In 2008 when his Singapore race fell apart, so did he in the head. I though he had a cracking comeback today - OK, he was helped by the safety car, but he was looking strong before that too.

jbnd05 Wrote:
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> He's not put a tyre wrong
> on track all season; he's been the equal of
> Alonso, who's had a spectacular rub of the green.

I've got to disagree on both points. Lewis has driven better this season than he ever has before, but there's still been the odd slip-up, like in Valencia. Also, he's had a faster car than Alonso but he's way behind him in the Championship; Alonso has been the most consistent but he's also been just plain better than anybody else this season, including Lewis. All the good luck he's had has been luck he's made himself.

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How can you say Valencia was Lewis' fault? Pastor vaulted his car into him, despite the fact that if he waited just a corner or two longer he would have passed safely. Alonso hasn't been let down by his pit crew numerous times; and though the Ferrari hasn't been the fastest car in the dry at any point (though it's never been quite the dog everyone made out), it's been a good car in the wet, which saw Alonso profit when we had a string of partly wet weekends.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2012 11:32PM by jbnd05.

Alonso's been the best driver in F1 for at least 3 consecutive years, every team boss in the paddock says it, but the media (party controlled by we know who) has not given him the recognition until this year.

Lewis is great, so is Vettel, Raikkonen, etc.. but Alonso is a few steps ahead of all them

i do believe however that unless Ferrari react soon, Mclaren have the best car right now and Lewis can still win the championship easily, they've just been the fastest everywhere ever since they brought those updates in Hungary

on the penalties, why was Webber penalized? his move on Kobayashi was awesome, why would they do that?, or is he being penalized for something else?

i think he had all four wheels on the wrong side of the white line when he overtook kobayashi

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

Williams were unlucky... Maldonaldo actually has a relatively clean race and so the car fails. Bruno puts in a impressive first half of the race and then suddenly remembers that he's lame and then the car gives up. Should have been a big points haul this weekend yet "nil point!"

Unlucky for Hamilton but it would have been interesting to see if he could have held off Vettel who looked very comfortable at the end. A fair result for Button who never really got the setup right all weekend... a few races ago this would have him meant toiling around down in 15th looking pathetic.

Yet another podium for Alonso, this man deserves the championship this year. Brilliant result for Di Desta, he seems to be a Singapore specialist but he needs a podium now.

Lol @ Schumacher, crashing into other cars seems to be a bit of a Singapore tradition for him (he'll be regretting that if by some royal fluke he takes pole at Suzuka) but at least he avoided the Saubers this time! Although they found plenty to bang against themselves.

Decent drive by Massa, although he at the very least should have warned against cutting corners by acres as opposed to feet, I think he took a few too many liberties with that (how the hell he didn't end up in a massive accident with Bruno feck knows), I feel if Webber's overtake of the Sauber was worthy of a "exceeding the tracks limit" penalty then so was Massa's. Also baffled at Webber's strategy as it seemed to be "pit as early as you can and get stuck in traffic" good to watch but baffling all the same.

button, massa and webber, senna were pathetic. all of them over a second per lap behind their teammates. massa at least has the excuse of the car being designet exclusively for alonso.

mitadumapaga Wrote:
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> button, massa and webber, senna were pathetic. all
> of them over a second per lap behind their
> teammates. massa at least has the excuse of the
> car being designet exclusively for alonso.


Despite the fact that Massa pulled off a rather good recovery drive?

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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

you have a point, mate. I don't want to blame it all on massa's skills, or rather point out the lack of them. For me he was a very good driver and pretty fun to watch (remember Hungary 2008 e.g.). Furthermore, we all know that the car is designed for alonso, everyone works for alonso, everyone loves alonso etc. BUT, it is simply unacceptable to be in a ferrari and NOT have a podium for 2 years now. again, on saturday his performance was rather lack-lustre and mediocre. even after the safety car phase he finished over 27 seconds behind his team mate and never actually made an impression on kimi/grosjean, when alonso finished over 20 seconds ahead of them on the road. so i would describe his performance as bad.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2012 01:31PM by mitadumapaga.

I think pathetic is probably an unfair assessment on all of them.

Button finished P2, so if that's pathetic I'd hate to think what P10 is. Yes Hamilton was comfortably quicker all weekend, but instead of assessing Button as pathetic shouldn't we concede that actually Hamilton was brilliant, likewise Vettel? And don't forget that Button actually started homing back in on both towards the end of stint 1, he didn't find a good setup this race but he still drove very well hence the podium.

Massa actually showed some very strong pace and he did indeed recover well from an first lap incident, even if he did drive like a dick towards the end, it was a respectable performance.

Webber was on a whacky strategy, it was never going to work in a month of Piquet crashing... But he still overtook cars aplenty and made the best of the situation he had.

Senna actually had a very strong drive from the back, don't forget that he was shadowing Kimi & Schumacher on merit and was in genuine contention for points. It's shame the s/c spoilt that and he lost KERS and 1st gear which almost explains his lame final stint. He was terrible in practice but he pulled out a excellent drive in the race.

Not pathetic here at all, praise where praise is due.

n00binio Wrote:
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> i think he had all four wheels on the wrong side
> of the white line when he overtook kobayashi

It was explicitly stated in the drivers briefing that going all four wheels over the line would not be tolerated. If Webber did that, so be it.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

jbnd05 Wrote:
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> How can you say Valencia was Lewis' fault?

I never said it was. I said he slipped up, which he did, by trying to defend a position on tyres which were completely finished against a driver who's known for not backing down. If he'd just conceded the position there wouldn't have been a problem. As it was he defended overly aggressively and squeezed Maldonado off the track, which was asking for trouble, and the trouble happened. Thus he threw away a certain 4th place, which could make the difference between winning and losing the title, especially in a season as close as this one is.

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Oh well another 25 point Mclaren have cost Lewis this year, thats 65 now if he finished in the position he was in when Mclaren cocked up.

I think Bruno drove really well as did Massa, but that move Massa done was not on he totally cut the corner. He cut many corners.

Webber was a prat he was always going to lose that place he over took off track.

Great drive by PDR.

As for MS he needs to quit how many more times is he going to drive into the back of people.

Lewis is thrashing Button at the mo you can see why he was so pissed off at Spa now.

mitadumapaga Wrote:
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> button pathetic. all
> of them over a second per lap behind their
> teammates.

Go look at the laps yourself. In the first stint for the first 8 or so laps (I cant remember exactly) Lewis was about that much quicker (if not more!) but it soon became clear Button had saved his tyres as over the time Lewis and Button were on track together Button reduced a 8/9 second gap to 4.

So over the course of 30 odd laps? Lewis was 4-5 seconds quicker. So let's be generous to Lewis and say near 2 tenths quicker?

I know Lewis is quicker but let's not exaggerate just how good he is/how bad you think Button is.

Get real.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

I read today that Button had saved his tyres to the point of having a four lap advantage over Vettel, and two over Hamilton. Had the safety car not intervened and turned it into a straight fight, McLaren reckon they had a distinct tyre advantage.

I'm not sure Button had the pace to come back at Hamilton, but it looks likely that he could have had some crucial time in his pocket over Vettel. Of course, he simply didn't have the same pace on an equal strategy.

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chet Wrote:
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> mitadumapaga Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > button pathetic. all
> > of them over a second per lap behind their
> > teammates.
>
> Go look at the laps yourself. In the first stint
> for the first 8 or so laps (I cant remember
> exactly) Lewis was about that much quicker (if not
> more!) but it soon became clear Button had saved
> his tyres as over the time Lewis and Button were
> on track together Button reduced a 8/9 second gap
> to 4.
>
> So over the course of 30 odd laps? Lewis was 4-5
> seconds quicker. So let's be generous to Lewis and
> say near 2 tenths quicker?
>
> I know Lewis is quicker but let's not exaggerate
> just how good he is/how bad you think Button is.
>
> Get real.

chet, i respect your opinion, but i account for what lewis said after the race: "i had much pace in the bag if needed". thus, i conclude he would have gone at least 2/3 of the second, up to over a second faster than button. Vettel was clearly trashing webber during the course of the race. so did alonso to massa, because only for 17-18 laps (SC was out until lap 41 or so) massa managed to finish 35 sec. behind alonso.

also, i don't get that whole fuzz over schumacher. that circuit is obviously difficult for him. what about lewis misjudging the 7-th corner with massa last year ? it does not mean he has to retire, or that his reactions are slow, does it ? I will try to put it in the most unbiased way possible: if nico is as fast as everyone rated him before he started beating schumacher (ironically no one has ever mentioned how fast rosberg goes, only how slow schu is), then Schu is doing a very good job at mercedes.

I thought Massa's move on Bruno had a lot of Alesi/Villeneuve about it. I liked it.
And yeah, I thought he drove a great race altogether too.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2012 11:21PM by EC83.

Speaking of Massa's move, believe it or not, I actually saw a car have a very similar save in the wet in suburban Sydney a few months - lost control under braking downhill in the wet and had a double opposite lock moment before SOMEHOW bringing it under control at the red light! Here's a gif of it for anyone that's interested.



If they had crashed on the bridge I guess it would've been a red flag, because I don't think they could've retrieved any stuck cars there.

Slash Wrote:
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> Alonso's been the best driver in F1 for at least 3
> consecutive years, every team boss in the paddock
> says it, but the media (party controlled by we
> know who) has not given him the recognition until
> this year.

Correct for 2010, but the Team Principals' rankings only had Alonso 3rd in 2011.


Source: Autosport

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X (@ed24f1)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2012 12:01AM by SchueyFan.