The 2013 Formula One Season

I find it strange and interesting to see the vast difference in social perception between the aggression/driving idiocy of Maldonado/Grosjean versus instances Schumacher produced over his entire career.

A lot of people are oblivious and almost neglect to remember the 'bad moments' of Schumacher, outweighed by his success. The most recent I recall being when he squeezed Rubens to the pitwall; or purposely parked his car at Monaco/hitting Villeneuve/Hill etc.

It begs the question, at what level of success allows you to erase your bad moments/overlook them?

If Maldonado and Grosjean were to become triple world champions in the future, I do wonder what the perception of these early accidents would become.


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2013 01:59PM by danm.

Exactly, Dan. I'll probably get a right flaming for this, but I remember watching an interview about Senna and someone said something along the lines of "One of the reasons that he was so great - you didn't mess with him. If he was coming, he wouldn't back off. You just kept out of his way."

As soon as I heard that... I thought of Maldonado!

I have to admit, though, that I'm a big fan of Maldonado since he upped his game towards the end of 2011. I think Australia 2012 sealed the deal with me, and since then I've seen him as a stupidly quick but stupidly aggressive driver. The aggression certainly works in his favour in that people are wary of him, but as we've seen so many times it can backfire badly.

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

Its a shame his reputation is tarred and has an auora of a pay driver still.

I would absolutely love to see him in a higher profile team, but I think he is already labelled 'Volatile'.

He is very quick, and very racey. F1 has too many conservative drivers who will coast and collect. Maldonado threw it in the bin when he had points in the bag. True racer.

Imagine Kimi and Maldonado paired up, the ultimate Don't-Give-a-Crap Team.


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

The big difference between those you mention and Maldonando, is that none of them had to bribe their way back into racing, after being banned from major events due to unsafe driving. He crippled a marshall under yellow flag conditions. It is only because high level officials in his country intervened and dropping a sweaty wad of cash, that he was ever allowed into Monaco again. There is a difference between being tough and actually maiming people.

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

Morbid Wrote:
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> The big difference between those you mention and
> Maldonando, is that none of them had to bribe
> their way back into racing, after being banned
> from major events due to unsafe driving. He
> crippled a marshall under yellow flag conditions.
> It is only because high level officials in his
> country intervened and dropping a sweaty wad of
> cash, that he was ever allowed into Monaco again.
> There is a difference between being tough and
> actually maiming people.

By that same line of thinking, Villeneuve and Ralf Schumacher were responsible for the death of Graham Beveridge, a marshal at Melbourne in 2001. At least one had to have been driving unsafely to cause that, and I don't know of any punishment that was given to them.

Riccardo Patrese was blamed for the death of Ronnie Peterson, was banned for like, one race and then began to have the lengthiest career until Barrichello surpassed him.

And then there was the death of Paolo Ghislimberti at Monza in 2000, which came due to a collision at the second chicane between both Jordans.

You can put all of these down to unsafe driving, but none of these drivers really faced many repercussions in the aftermath. You cannot therefore claim that Maldonado is any worse, and it was known that the reaction to ban him from Monaco was rather knee-jerk anyway.

Maldonado is a terrific driver. It's a shame that he is a bit crash-happy, and if he tempers that this season he's on for some excellent results.

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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

I'm not going to say too much on this subject, but let a video clip do the talking.





Watch it and make your own minds up.

I'll point it out again that that isn't Maldonado.

It was Alx Danielsson (who suffered a broken leg) and Stefano Proetto was the idiot coming over the top of the hill and crashing into him. WSR Zolder qualifying in 2005.

Incident 2k9 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Morbid Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The big difference between those you mention
> and
> > Maldonando, is that none of them had to bribe
> > their way back into racing, after being banned
> > from major events due to unsafe driving. He
> > crippled a marshall under yellow flag
> conditions.
> > It is only because high level officials in his
> > country intervened and dropping a sweaty wad of
> > cash, that he was ever allowed into Monaco
> again.
> > There is a difference between being tough and
> > actually maiming people.
>
> By that same line of thinking, Villeneuve and Ralf
> Schumacher were responsible for the death of
> Graham Beveridge, a marshal at Melbourne in 2001.
> At least one had to have been driving unsafely to
> cause that, and I don't know of any punishment
> that was given to them.
>
> Riccardo Patrese was blamed for the death of
> Ronnie Peterson, was banned for like, one race and
> then began to have the lengthiest career until
> Barrichello surpassed him.
>
> And then there was the death of Paolo Ghislimberti
> at Monza in 2000, which came due to a collision at
> the second chicane between both Jordans.
>
> You can put all of these down to unsafe driving,
> but none of these drivers really faced many
> repercussions in the aftermath. You cannot
> therefore claim that Maldonado is any worse, and
> it was known that the reaction to ban him from
> Monaco was rather knee-jerk anyway.
>
> Maldonado is a terrific driver. It's a shame that
> he is a bit crash-happy, and if he tempers that
> this season he's on for some excellent results.

There is a big @#$%& difference between that and 1) swerving/brake testing/braking too late under normal racing conditions and a subsequent freak accident happens with a loose wheel (RS/JV), 2) being blamed for something that is obviously is false, 3) something that again is a freak accident under normal racing conditions, that only happened because the marshall was out of his assigned positon.

If there is a yellow flag situation, and you ignore that, you are deliberately risking other people's lives to gain a competitive advantage. If you do it at Monaco, you are almost 100% sure that there will be marshalls on track while you do it. He mowed down a marshall under yellow flags at Monaco. The other things don't in any way come close to comparing. They actually used the video of that crash as a teaching tool to new marshalls at Monaco. So the analogies are simply not apt.

To compound matters, he didn't even do it in race conditions. He mowed down the marshal during a practice session. Seriously, what justifies ignoring yellow flags under practice??

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



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2013 02:11AM by Morbid.

Let me be the first to say it now: Jenson Button World Champion 2013. Watch this space...


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Sorry, but it's going to be Red Bull for the fourth time ..... trust me.


" Perfection is not a gift ....... it comes with practice."

Member of R.S.C.T Group

The difference is that Grosjean crashes by mistake. Maldonado crashes on purpose. Grosjean cannot discriminate between who he hits and who he doesn't where as Pastor is more choosy. Surely, combined with his rather convincing race win last year - puts him ahead of Grosjean?



Anyway... what is it about the new Williams which makes it illegal?

AND why are people banging on about the Sauber's side pods? I have looked from numerous angles and can't see anything special am I missing something?? :S

loque Wrote:
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> AND why are people banging on about the Sauber's
> side pods? I have looked from numerous angles and
> can't see anything special am I missing
> something?? :S


They're incredibly narrow (look at the wing mirrors compared to the sidepods). If you compare it to the Red Bull, you can see that the air intakes are roughly the same size. But, the Red Bull's sidepods get wider. The Sauber's sidepods do not get any wider.





If you compare it to the Mercedes, you can see how narrow they really are...




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

The Pirellis are playing havoc and degrading really quick, even in the cold. This could become interesting or very frustrating all season.

Button and Perez being are notoriously friendly on tire management. Know where my money is going!

And Bottas/Maldonado to both be on the podium this year.


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

danm Schreef:
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> Let me be the first to say it now: Jenson Button
> World Champion 2013. Watch this space...

Poor Jenson, now he's facing the Danm Prediction Curse

danm Wrote:
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> If Maldonado and Grosjean were to become triple
> world champions in the future, I do wonder what
> the perception of these early accidents would
> become.

The key difference between the two is that Maldonado's tendency to get involved in incidents is because of his temperament and impetuosity, whereas Grosjean's tendency to get involved in them is because he's prone to brain-fade.
That's why I think there's hope for Maldonado but not for Grosjean. You can calm a hot-headed driver down, but you can't educate a dumbass one.

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EC83 Wrote:
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> The key difference between the two is that
> Maldonado's tendency to get involved in incidents
> is because of his temperament and impetuosity,
> whereas Grosjean's tendency to get involved in
> them is because he's prone to brain-fade.
> That's why I think there's hope for Maldonado but
> not for Grosjean. You can calm a hot-headed driver
> down, but you can't educate a dumbass one.

Well I'd argue you could easily call some of Maldonado's accidents brain fades as well, it's a difficult line to draw.

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X (@ed24f1)

It is a very fine line, yeah. But Maldonado's incidents have tended to indicate a sudden loss of temper and overreactions to previous events rather than failure to realise what was going on around him.
It depends on what you think of as being brain-fade too of course, I guess that term is quite a loose one.

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Nico Hulkenberg's helmet is slightly different (sponsors aside) to what it was last year, due to being with his third team in three full seasons...





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2013 09:42AM by alexf1man.

Force India have just confirmed Adrian Sutil for 2013.

Can't say I'm particularly pleased. He had his shot and nothing came out of it. Of he wasn't good enough a year ago, then what has changed now?

While Bianchi has under performed in both GP2 and FR3.5 he at least still has untapped potential.

Sutil is a known quality and I think that pretty much tipped it for Mallya.

Should be a good fight between Sauber, Force India, Toro Rosso and Williams for 6th this year.

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

Latest rumour is Kovalainen to marussia...has seat fitting today and will drive saturday.