Official 2014 Brazilian Grand Prix Thread ***Spoilers***

07, 08, 09 November 2014FORMULA 1 GRANDE PRÊMIO PETROBRAS DO BRASILAutodromo Jose Carlos Pace
Circuit Length: 4.309 kmRace Distance: 305.909 kmLaps: 71Lap Record: 1:11.473 - JP Montoya (2004)2013 Winner: Sebastian Vettel

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.

Its meant to rain all weekend, and heavy rain so no idea what will happen.

It feels like a pointless race tbh as if lewis or nico win it changes nothing due to the stupid double points at the final race.

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marcl
It feels like a pointless race tbh as if lewis or nico win it changes nothing due to the stupid double points at the final race.

It could decide who needs to finish where in Abu Dhabi, but it's a shame Bernie's plan has worked.

Yeah I know what you mean but for me I'm just looking at it as winner takes all.

Lewis could have a 49 point lead break down at the last race and Nico wins. Its just such a nasty thought tbh.

Lewis just needs to finish 2nd in the last two races but I just don't trust the merc car, its been ok for the last 6 races so it means Lewis is due a problem lol.

weather you like him or not you have to admit it would be wrong for him not to be world champ this year.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2014 05:23PM by marcl.

Will be interesting if it rains on Friday, as with the new surface it could make qualifying and the race very unpredictable. Nice that they've made the pit entry a bit safer this year as well.

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X (@ed24f1)

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SchueyFan
Nice that they've made the pit entry a bit safer this year as well.

It's hard to tell from the shots, but in doing so they've made the last corner (the banked sweeper) tighter, and it might be a little tricky if it's really wet, despite the banking. It should be OK (you'd imagine if the weather was that bad that the red flag would be out, but it's hard to tell how much tighter it is).

Still, it looks like after about 700 attempts they've finally come up with a pit lane entrance which works. I didn't think there was much up with the previous solution personally though.

It's a bit hard to tell what they've done with the final corner. I've seen from photos of Ferrardura they've built the new pit entry over the existing grass bank between that corner and the pit straight, so I don't think necessarily any of the track has been re-aligned, but I'll need to see it in action.

I was also wondering if they were going to change the outside of the final corners in relation to the fatalities there in recent years, but I haven't noticed any changes yet.

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X (@ed24f1)

They've lengthened the pit in and added a chicane, which obviously has pushed the apex of the final corner out and it looks like it's tighter, though it's hard to tell from this angle. Obviously it's still piss easy in the dry, but in full wet conditions it might waken them up a little more.

I don't think it will be flat out anymore in these cars though which would be a shame.

If you look at these images you can see what they've done though, they've built out rather than over the existing track.

2012

2014



But I agree, it does look a little tighter, we'll just have to wait and see some onboards or something and compare, but there shouldn't be any reason they've changed the corner.

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X (@ed24f1)

marcl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yeah I know what you mean but for me I'm just
> looking at it as winner takes all.
>
> Lewis could have a 49 point lead break down at the
> last race and Nico wins. Its just such a nasty
> thought tbh.
>
> Lewis just needs to finish 2nd in the last two
> races but I just don't trust the merc car, its
> been ok for the last 6 races so it means Lewis is
> due a problem lol.
>
> weather you like him or not you have to admit it
> would be wrong for him not to be world champ this
> year.

Indeed, I'd be delighted to see Nico win the championship, up until Spa the title fight was relatively balanced and at that point both would be equally worthy of the title. But from Monza onwards Hamilton has taken it. It'd look really daft now to have won four races on the trot early in the season and then five and counting in the second half and STILL not be world champion.

Hamilton has never been amongst my favourites, but looking at performance across the whole season he clearly deserves this championship more than Nico does. But neither would take driver of the season for me. I think given the relative disadvantages of their equipment, Riciardo and Alonso have performed strongest. Bottas has been pretty close to their level as well but lacked the ultimate consistency as really.. given the relative strength of the Williams package he ought to have been the one to punish Merc at Spa.

From this weekend it'd be nice to see Massa have a really strong result in front of his home crowd but looking at the forecast... that won't be happening so if anyone is going to take the fight to Merc this weekend it'd be Red Bull and/or Jenson Button.

I thought Rosberg was the best and certainly most consistent performer in 2009 I think it was, but it's much easier to do that when there is little expectation of wins or challenging for the title. While Ricciardo, Alonso and Bottas have all had brilliant seasons, only Ricciardo managed to strap in and grab wins. OK all of his wins were when issues beset the Mercedes cars (if you count Hamilton holding up Rosberg at Hungary), but he was never expected to mount a title challenge realistically, unless Hamilton and Rosberg started beating the @#$%& out of each other.

Alonso has been his usual relentless self, and has utterly humiliated Raikkonen, though of course Kimi has had his problems settling back in. 2015 looks fun again with at least 2 world champions at Ferrari.

It's got to be Hamilton for the best driver. The mistakes he's made he's always recovered from (mainly in qualifying when he's come through to finish 1st or 2nd). It's been a mentally challenging year for him, yet when he's spat the dummy he's done something he's been unable to do before - come back strongly next time around and not let it linger. If Rosberg puts in a couple of stunning races at Interlagos and Abu Dhabi then he won't be undeserving of the title himself, but as it is he's been 2nd best in the few true head-to-heads we've had, though I feel some of Hamilton's defending has been too close to the edge when they've gone wheel to wheel.

It was always expected that Rosberg would find it harder in the run in to the title. He's not been in this position before, whereas Hamilton has had 3 or 4 title fights, so he was always going to find it harder dealing with the pressure, so 2015 might be more of an even fight if the two Mercedes drivers are still the two contenders.

Tbh I put nico in the same league as dc, Rubéns, Webber etc.

A great number two that on their day no one can stop them but they just lack that extra bit to make them be able to beat their better team mate.

I was impressed with Nico in some races but on paper he really has been well and truly beaten by lewis. In the best car to only win 4 times when your team mate has won 10 is poor, plus one of them wins was in Australia where lewis started on pole and broke down.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2014 12:47PM by marcl.

Marussia's administrators have confirmed the team has ceased trading.

All 200 staff made redundant.

Deeply sad.

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

Awful news, so sad for them

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GPGSL -
GPGSL-3 - Pizza Party Racing manager and driver
Nations Cup - Team Scotland manager

It's such a shame for them.

By the sounds of it their money will go to Sauber by default (assuming Caterham don't stay alive in their current guise). We'll have to wait and see if Manor manage to fulfil their entry for 2015.

Clearly the final turn isn't much tighter than it was. Just a deceptive camera angle. Good, because we don't want another Webber 2003.

marcl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tbh I put nico in the same league as dc, Rubéns,
> Webber etc.
>
> A great number two that on their day no one can
> stop them but they just lack that extra bit to
> make them be able to beat their better team mate.
>
> I was impressed with Nico in some races but on
> paper he really has been well and truly beaten by
> lewis. In the best car to only win 4 times when
> your team mate has won 10 is poor, plus one of
> them wins was in Australia where lewis started on
> pole and broke down.

I see your point but what you say is a little unfair. First, you cannot be sure if the controversies around the crash in spa did not affect rosberg - his driving in Monza was suspiciously bad, even for the WC Jackie stewart. Singapore you cant really say that Hamilton has beaten rosberg. As for suzuka and America, both have been equally fast, Hamilton just got ahead by a sec or two.

In addition, hungary, Silverstone and Canada - rosberg was leading all of them but was not able to win through no mistake of his own. What he did in Canada was quite stunning actually.

And a last quite important point: A lot of things happened between 2010 and 2012, while rosberg was paired with MS. As a MS fan I have analysed their performance thoroughly and I am not surprised at all that Hamilton is faster in the most races. If you remember, everyone was criticizing Schumacher for being outqualified by rosberg- yet in race pace, somehow, rosberg was always going backwards, and Schumacher forwards - so in the end they would finish 6th 7th or 5th 6th etc. Rosberg's strength has always been qualy and pace on low fuel. The sad thing is that he has not been able to keep his nose ahead in japan and America, otherwise we would be talking different story now. yet rosberg had no trouble to keep Hamilton behind in Austria?? jeez, he did not even get mad after the drive off by Hamilton in USA. My opinion is that team politics had impact on rosbergs performance and booing from fans did not help either. Now that he is coming back to it, he's been on par with Hamilton even on circuits where lewis has been better through FPs.

Finally, ted made a good point that the ban of driver coaching ma be reflecting worse on nico than on lewis. We know lewis wasn't listening to his race angineer anyway :D :D

I agree that Rosberg's telling off is affecting his driving. He had every right to hold his own against Hamilton at Austin, to the point where if he'd attempted to stay on track, Hamilton would likely have finished up pointing the wrong way, and the team would have had a hard job pointing the finger at Nico on that one. It's something Hamilton does - run Rosberg (in particular it seems) off the track. It's not the way to go about racing and certainly isn't going to gain a driver any respect, but Rosberg has to jump out of the way now after Spa (which I maintain is an incident Hamilton wasn't blameless in). It's getting to the point where it's similar to when Montoya was always played as the victim when Schumacher pulled some cheap moves on him. How many times has Hamilton passed or defended against Rosberg cleanly this year (ie not pushing him beyond the limits of the track)?

Thinking about it, Rosberg's explanation of Spa (not wanting to let Hamilton bully him off the track at every opportunity) looks to have rather backfired on him, and looking at the season as a whole, perhaps it's a bit harsh on Nico. What's the saying - nice guys don't win? I'm beginning to wonder if Nico's niceness has inadvertently made him into a villain. I'm not for a moment saying Nico was innocent at Spa - certainly the majority of the blame lay at his door, but I wonder if you swapped the races around a bit, and even the drivers, if the vitriol spat by the Mercedes hierarchy would have been different... would it have made for interesting viewing in a parallel universe?



Back to today, I can't remember many worse practice days than Kimi's, with his 34 spins and offs. Poor show for a former champion. Very poor show. There aren't many champions who have performed as badly as Kimi has this year. Graham Hill was humiliated by Clark in a similar manner, and Damon Hill's showing up by Frentzen is certainly the worst season by any champion ever. Hunt and Fittipaldi had a few poor years, but for different reasons. People are laying into Vettel this season, but he's had a stunning year compared to Raikkonen.

Hungry lewis started at the back not his fault.

Silverstone lewis made an error in quali but was closing in before nico had his problem.

Canada who knows what would have happened tbh.

There does seem to be a patten though, soft tyres nico is faster but Hards and medium lewis is better.

I'm not saying nico is not good as he is, he should have moved on from Spa now I cannot believe that is still bothering him.

He seems faster in Brazil anyway but again on the softs.

Dan r actually has the fastest race sim.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2014 10:32AM by marcl.

[www.youtube.com]

nico seems to have a sweet spot for Hamilton's rear tyres :p