Official 2014 Chinese GP Thread

rosberg has his strong races. let us see what happens when we get there.

to me, spain and monaco will be crucial. Lewis has never won in Spain, never performed too well either. Same story for monaco. Apart from 2007 he has been wreckless there and 2008 was nothing short of an insanely lucky win. Yet, if lewis owns rosberg in monaco, the way he did in China, then it will make me seriously shift my opinion about this title in the direction some of you have.

with those of you, who point out that lewis breaking down the car is bad luck, i guess we have to agree on different opinions here. too aggressive drivers always wind up with more car failures than their teammates. keke rosberg; senna; mansel; berger; raikkonen; montoya (in his williams days) had problems much more often than prost; hill; piquet sr.; montoya (in his mclaren days)

in china, nico didnt have any telemtry and still didint manage to screw his start so badly, as to retire the way hamilton did in australia.

mitadumapaga Wrote:
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> rosberg has his strong races. let us see what
> happens when we get there.
>
> to me, spain and monaco will be crucial. Lewis has
> never won in Spain, never performed too well
> either. Same story for monaco. Apart from 2007 he
> has been wreckless there and 2008 was nothing
> short of an insanely lucky win.

My thoughts exactly. Nico is an easy driver to underestimate. He struggled at the weekend, but if he has to go through some pain adapting to the mindset of being a potential Champion, it's better if he goes through it now than later on in the season.
It's a long season, and it's hard to predict how this title battle will pan out, with so many unknowns.
Lewis has been on a great run, but that can go out of the window in a flash if he has a strop or a couple of bad races. Nico seems to have a much calmer and steadier head.
The last time Lewis was in this position, of being an obvious title contender from day 1, was in 2008. That year he made more than his fair share of mistakes. And while that was a long time ago now, I'm still not sure how far he's progressed mentally since then. The pressure on him will build as the season goes on. Either way, it should be interesting.

marcl - That's an interesting observation about the summer break, I hadn't even noticed that, LOL. Maybe he needs to clinch it by Hungary then. :P

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Quote
mitadumapaga
with those of you, who point out that lewis breaking down the car is bad luck, i guess we have to agree on different opinions here. too aggressive drivers always wind up with more car failures than their teammates. keke rosberg; senna; mansel; berger; raikkonen; montoya (in his williams days) had problems much more often than prost; hill; piquet sr.; montoya (in his mclaren days)

While I completely agree with you on Hamilton's insanely lucky 2008 win (puncturing his tyre when he did, meaning he had a worn intermediate at just the right time) (not many people see this, so thought I'd give you a thumbs up!), I completely disagree with you regarding the aggression causing failures.

You can't be aggressive now. Neither the tyres nor power unit allow it. Short of banging wheels, hitting something or crashing over kerbs, the only thing drivers can use to influence the reliability of their cars are the knobs on the steering wheel.

Kimi had a habit of having horrible reliability back in his days at McLaren, but even back then engineers were saying drivers can't break engines - the software doesn't allow it. He's having failures at Ferrari now (albeit small ones) and, since his comeback, he's been one of the smoothest drivers in the field.

Hamilton didn't even get off the line with a broken engine, so he broke it qualifying? I seem to remember (correct me if I'm wrong) that it was a failure in an electrical cable, which was shorting out on the cylinder head which caused his retirement at Melbourne. How on earth can he influence that?

Edit: Oops, forgot to change the Mita's quoted name from the place-holder I'd used. Sorry!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2014 08:47PM by gav.

gav Wrote:
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> Kimi had a habit of having horrible reliability
> back in his days at McLaren, but even back then
> engineers were saying drivers can't break engines
> - the software doesn't allow it.

I used to have arguments about exactly this with a mate who I used to watch GPs with, who was a staunch Kimi hater. He was convinced Kimi "broke" the cars and engines, and I used to point out this same thing that the engineers were saying. It was the same with Sato for a while too.

I guess the one time Kimi could've been said to have "influenced" an engine failure was Bahrain 2004, when his engine began to fail and in sheer frustration he absolutely floored the accelerator producing the awesome barbecue action we saw. But that was just brilliant, in fact I've wanted to see drivers do it more often when an engine/power unit fails. :P

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2014 12:26PM by EC83.

I fully expect Nico to win at Monaco if the Merc is the best, but I think that will be RBR best chance of a win. They are running short gears and top speed is no issue there.

I dont think we can look at past races, Lewis in the past has never been that great at Sepang either yet won by miles so I think he will be ok in Spain. Just look at the pole lap he done with Mclaren in 2012 before he got DQ and then how he came through the field.

Canada is Lewis all the way and then we get to tracks like Hungry, Silverstone etc and going by last year Lewis tracks all the way.

Nico needs to win the next two races and stop Lewis running away with this.

All depends if lewis keeps his head and if Nico can raise his game. Its going to be very interesting.

Getting really fed up though with people saying Lewis only wins in the best car. F1 has always been this way, the best driver car combo wins simple. Its not like the 80's and 90's where a driver can get an extra half second out the car (unless your name is alonso). Lewis has also shown in the past that he can win in not the best car.

I am a bit shocked with Vettel this year tbh. I never thought in a million years Dan would be beating him like this.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2014 01:47PM by marcl.

marcl Wrote:
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> I am a bit shocked with Vettel this year tbh. I
> never thought in a million years Dan would be
> beating him like this.

The one obvious remaining weakness in Seb, I think, is that when the car is relatively uncompetitive his chin seems to drop and then his teammate gets the upper hand over him more often. The first two-thirds of 2012 is a good example.
Along with the regulation changes for this year and Ricciardo's arrival in the team, it's a unique combination of circumstances that's played nicely into Dan's hands so far, and in fairness he's making a great job of it as well. Time will tell whether this is just a honeymoon period for Dan or whether he's genuinely a bigger threat to Seb than Webber was, but it's nice to see Seb not dominating the team for once and a bit of variety going on there.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2014 02:20PM by EC83.

Another possible explanation for the relative struggles of Vettel at the moment could have something to do with the elimination (as far as practically possible) of exhaust blown - diffusers etc.

Whenever Red Bull and Renault made a step-forward in that area it was always Seb who used it to it's best advantage. Now that one of the best weapons in that arsenal has been taken away.. it looks like he is struggling more.

But, exhaust blowing or not.. you don't win four championships on the bounce without being a little bit special in the driving department. He'll get on top of his troubles.

Indeed. I'm surprised it has been as one-sided as it has - and staggered the team have just waved Ricciardo by twice now (that would never have happened with Webber), but as Jim said, he's not a 4-times WDC by luck. The guy is seriously talented, but has got a heck of a lot on to make Ricciardo his pet, and this time he hasn't got his team bowing to his every wish.

I wonder if any of his performance is down to him just becoming a father?

gav Wrote:
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>
> I wonder if any of his performance is down to him
> just becoming a father?

I don't know, it seemed to work wonders for Grosjean. I mean, he had his sprog and suddenly was the form guy at the end of 2013 (barring Vettel, of course!).

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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

Vettel just looks really moody and down, if that was Lewis doing that people would be slagging him off.

Vettel was like this the other year as well but came back to win the champsionship, once they changed the tyres after Silverstone lol.

I think it will do him good tbh to have a year away from winning everything.

marcl Wrote:
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> Vettel just looks really moody and down, if that
> was Lewis doing that people would be slagging him
> off.

Not really. There's been quite a difference so far between Vettel this year and a vintage Lewis strop.


Regarding the point of top drivers becoming dads:

I remember Martin Brundle saying during one race that Keke Rosberg once told him the barriers suddenly looked a lot closer after he became a dad, and he felt like he lost half a second off his lap times or something. It seemed to have a particularly profound effect on Keke. Another example would be Mika - he seemed not to be the same driver after Hugo was born.
For others(Prost, Mansell, Schumacher) it seemed not to have an effect at all.
I guess it depends on when in their career a driver becomes a dad. If they have kids early in their F1 career when they're still highly motivated and have a lot of unrealised potential, it won't have much effect. If they become a dad late on in their career, it probably will.

Seb is an interesting one. He's achieved more already in his career than many others have in many more seasons, but still has many years ahead of him which he could spend breaking every record in the book. So he doesn't really belong to either group, and his instincts as a human being are probably tugging him in both directions.
So, maybe it's causing a temporary blip in his form?

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2014 01:57PM by EC83.

Being a dad really affected Mika and Modena, neither were the same after the birth of their first kids.

I think Mika would have been ok, but he had that crash in Australia and then Germany which really seemed to rock him.

Tbh I just think the car does not suit Vettel, he needs to learn again. The others have driven in F1 in cars with less downforce and a blown rear end that never worked as well as the RBR. Once he addapts he will be ok.

The others also had all winter to get used to it, Vettel did not do many laps.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2014 03:01PM by marcl.