Bahrain Grand Prix 6th April ***SPOILERS***

You could see on that video that Alonso took a defensive line into that sequence of corners and hence had a slower exit, Hamilton was just not expecting that and ploughed into the back of him.

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here's a picture of hamilton's broken wing in case anyone wanted to see it

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X (@ed24f1)

DaveEllis Wrote:
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> Yeah but the bridge wing disappears come the fast
> downhill esses and flies off over Lewis's head.
> There is no doubt the car was damaged, but McLaren
> actually said it was damaged less that the wing
> fell apart less than 2 seconds before he hit
> Alonso - which is just bollocks.

I'm not entirely convinced he didn't hit Alonso and Webber in turn 1 of lap 1 too (courtesy of another do-or-die lunge by Piquet). It was very, very close.

SexySam182 Wrote:
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> You could see on that video that Alonso took a
> defensive line into that sequence of corners and
> hence had a slower exit, Hamilton was just not
> expecting that and ploughed into the back of him.

this is so true, plus the slipstream effect, we see heaps of cars make overtakes like this, and yet hamilton didnt pull out of slipstream on time, and the whole of the british press (mainly planet-f1.com and itv) have to look for a blame besides their god.

Anyway, watching the reply, Alonso is not slowing down, Hamilton is on him since the very beginning of the lap. The Renault is not fast on acceleration (well, is not fast under any circumstance), so a not very smart move of Hamilton and a crappy race (18th to 13th at the end with a McLaren). I started to think, after Sepang, that BMW was as fast as McLaren. But after Bahrain I definitely think BMW is better car than the McLaren. They just need a wining driver (Kubica is very good, but one step behind Kimi and Alonso) and Heidfeld is a great professional and efficient driver, but not a World champion neither...BMW is great place for Alonso to go!!!

We normally see slipstream down a straight not out a corner with cars on full power. I think he just got caught out. Had alonso not moved right at the same time lewis would have passed without the contact, I am not saying alonso was wrong to move btw. And again had lewis not moved to the right and left alonso to move to the right they would not have touched.

The other option would be for lewis to have backed off but I dont think there was enough time for this.

Alonso and lewis dont seem to bothered they are not blaming each other. Alonso said they were to close and lewis just says they went the same way. The only reason why the topic came up again was due to mclaren saying the wing broke and lewis picked up a bigger slipstream due to less drag.

Alonso and lewis dont seem to bothered they are not blaming each other.

Exactly. You are making it much more of a problem than they do.

I was just saying what mclaren were saying, i dont think i was making a big deal out of it.

Tbh I do not think BMW are as close as it looked, both ferrari cars were on race 2 of the engine. The probably backed off and just ran at the pace of bmw. It does not matter if u win by 5 sec or 20 points are the same. But I do think they are ahead of mclaren as the last 2 races have shown.

Renault told piquet to retire so he did not get a gear box penalty for the next race, from what I understood the gear box must last 4 races if you break down you still get a penalty, am I right?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2008 05:09PM by marcl.

No. You only get a penalty if you have to change it prior to a race during saturday. If it breaks down during the race I don't think you get a penalty.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2008 06:08PM by Joe_Satriani.

Massa was on his first race with the engine. Kimi was on 2nd race with the engine.

*Sorry for the double post. Connection is weird here*



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2008 06:09PM by Joe_Satriani.

Fastest laps of Bahrain

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They did not change Massa engine he used the same one as in Sepang, well ITV said that anyway.

I cant see why anyone can debate the fact that alonso got crap acceleration compared to lewis and lewis stupidly ploughed into him. I dont like Alonso but it wasnt his fault. Cant see why people are still debating that that was what clearly happend

yeah it was just a minor mistake from Lewis that resulted in a collision, i don't see any reason to find facts to hide Lewis made a mistake, in 2002 Montoya ran on the back of MS car at the Brazilian gp, Schumacher closed the line once, wich is allowed, but Montoya never lifted, we've seen it before, drivers closing the line and the one coming behind lift, and then raise the punch and curse and everything but it's all legal and part of the game, i think we've seen Alonso doing that..., "Indy Last year?", Ralf on 2002 at the start of Australian GP, in the first move he tried on Rubens you can see he lifted when Rubens closed the door, it's just that sometimes the adrenaline or the desesperation to overtake the guy in front what makes you do this kind of stuff, protecting the line is part of the game, drivers coming behind just need to lift and try on another corner, or like marcl says, Lewis should've stayed on the normal racing line or tried the move on the outside and none of this would've happened, he would've find a way past in a couple of corners anyway, his car is far superior

People are only talking about what mclaren have said, no one is saying lewis did not hit alonso.

marcl Wrote:
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> They did not change Massa engine he used the same
> one as in Sepang, well ITV said that anyway.

Well, if it's true, it makes sense. This way both Kimi and Massa can arrive at Barcelona with a fresh engine. Plus, if you make the calculations and provided neither of them has a DNF for the rest of the season, it means a fresh engine for the last GP of the year at Brazil. Still, teams normally change the engine after a DNF, so I find it a bit weird because of that.

They wanted to complete 2 races with the engines so they could be given in, plus the Massa engine had alot of miles left on it.

Just checked the grid thing ITV do and it says E2 for both.

Ah yes, had forgot about that. They had not completed 2 races with an engine yet. Makes sense then.

marcl Wrote:
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> We normally see slipstream down a straight not out
> a corner with cars on full power. I think he just
> got caught out. Had alonso not moved right at the
> same time lewis would have passed without the
> contact, I am not saying alonso was wrong to move
> btw. And again had lewis not moved to the right
> and left alonso to move to the right they would
> not have touched.

Ah some others have said the same thing, but on close inspection it's not actually the case. Fernando only moved to the right when his car was hit by Lewis and not before. Watching the replay of the crash in slow motion confirms this.

Yep you are correct lewis was never going to make that he needed to move over at lest another half a car width and that was never going to happen alonso had it well covered.