Ferrari defend qualifying tactics

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: Ferrari say using scrubbed tyres in Q3 did not compromise their qualifying.

Thanks

Thanks to @WillWood who wrote and published the final practice and qualifying reports for the site yesterday as I was unavailable. Will, who more often posts on here as Magnificent Geoffrey, was doing so for the second time and did a first-rate job.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Ferrari defends scrubbed tyres tactic (Autosport)

Fernando Alonso: “We decided to start with the scrubbed [tyres] thinking it was not better or not worse. I don’t think there was any problem with that. We were positions seventh and ninth in Abu Dhabi [qualifying]. The car is more or less the same. We are positions seventh and ninth in Austin. It’s not surprising for us, to be honest.”

Ferrari’s Alonso staggered but will fight on (Reuters)

“We knew it would be a complicated weekend but clearly today we were too slow and we will start from too far back tomorrow. Having said that, the accounts are always done at the end of the race.”

Hamilton backs down in helmet row after being left red-faced by offensive message (Daily Mail)

Lewis Hamilton has been forced into his fifth embarrassing climbdown of the season after ditching a specially designed helmet for the USA Grand Prix which bore a highly offensive message.”

Ecclestone adamant on German GP future (Crash)

“We do not want to – and will not – lose the race in Germany.”

Exclusive: Perez Q&A (Sky)

“I think when you go to McLaren the target is to win the title – not to win races or to learn. I have a lot to learn but at the same time I have to be champion for the team as it is the best team and if we have a strong car that has to be the target for us.”

Red Bull RB8 – new rear wing (F1)

“Red Bull have brought a new rear wing with them to Austin. It features a new flap and new end plates with a revised gill section.”

Jim Williams: Formula One back in U.S. after a five-year hiatus (Washington Examiner)

Bob Varsha: “The builders have taken quite a few things from some of the great tracks in Europe and crafted them into this course. Also, it is set up so it can be configured for any type of racing as well as concerts and even soccer, so this is quite a sports complex.”

Throwback Kimi Raikkonen inhales atmosphere of F1’s bygone era (The Guardian)

“After the race, when the 33-year-old [Kimi] Raikkonen had won a grand prix for the 19th time, [Jenson] Button reflected on his old rival. ‘I don’t speak to him very often because I don’t normally get an answer. He’s a man of few words. But I flew back from Korea to Japan with him recently and I had a couple of beers with him and he opened up. He’s a good guy.'”

Tweets

Comment of the day

@DaveF1 on the fortunes of the championship contenders:

As an Alonso fan, watching him struggle doing those laps was really frustrating. I’m my opinion only two world championships doesn’t seem to do him justice. OK, he’s a controversial driver but watching him do his thing behind the wheel is just magic.

However that being said Vettel and Red Bull deserve a lot more credit than they are been given if the do take both championships. They’ve entered a sport that was seemingly only owned by two teams and along with the correct knowledge, drivers and equipment have managed to force they’re way into the very top of the pinnacle of motorsport.
@DaveF1

From the forum

Happy birthday to Matthew H and Ionut93!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

Three years ago today McLaren announced Britain’s two world championships Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton would partner each other from 2010 onwards.

But after today’s race there will be just one more left before the partnership ends as Hamilton heads to Mercedes.

Image © Ferrari spa/Ercole Colombo

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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74 comments on “Ferrari defend qualifying tactics”

  1. …calm down Daily Fail. The lenghts some people would go just to find fault in someone.

    1. What a joke! HAM is the first three letters of his last name, give it a break lol.

      1. If he hadn’t put full stops between each letter he might have got away with it.

        1. i’m not saying he shouldn’t have put it down. but the drama that article presents would make you believe it’s the worst thing to have happened this weekend.

      2. Hereafter. At. Mercedes.

        1. or Heresy.At.Mclaren

          1. Or “Ham and Mustard”, a reference to his favourite sandwich filling.

      3. H.A.M. is a Kanye West song apparently and stands for exactly the thing that the Daily Mail is reporting. Now, that does sound exactly like the thing Hamilton would do, wouldn’t it?

        1. seriously, is this news? I wouldn’t have linked the two and i’m sure a lot of people will be in the same boat

          1. @dt Hamilton made a point of using the same phrase on Twitter during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend and specifically told his million-odd followers to look it up. I don’t think there’s any ambiguity over what it’s supposed to mean.

        2. I just don’t get it, what is the big deal?
          This is such a non-story.

        3. Does H.A.M stand for Hamilton Anger Management?

      4. Lewis needs to grow up a bit and stop acting like a rap star wannabe. Was a great fan of Lewis in his first year of F1 but has since grown into a guy that needs to be surrounded with rap starts to make him feel important and tough, he’s a racing driver and should stick to that; I doubt his dad approves of the way he is managed these days. HAM would be fine, but H.A.M isn’t.

        1. Oh god not this again…

        2. What are you on about IanMD?

        3. Traverse Mark Senior (@)
          18th November 2012, 15:46

          IanMD, were you as outraged about Vettel and Raikkonen’s swearing in Abu Dhabi a fortnight ago, as you are at this relatively ambiguous acronym?

    2. is everyone really so bored? H.A.M HAM Hamilton, who cares…

      1. exactly..

        1. You english-native-speakers are so angels, or what? You are the firsts to say the ‘F’ word in every statement and now y’all mind for an acronym, it makes me laugh! Hamilton and other drivers are not references nor exemples to the world, they are just drivers, just humans. Leave them alone and let them do what they want to, please

    3. To be honest I really don’t think this is such a big story in fact I found Lewis’ helmet logo quite entertaining ( however I admit I do curse quite a bit), however I also understand some people will find it offensive. On Lewis’ part its quite the blunder seeing how Seb and Kimi got slammed to the depths of hell by some people after the Abu Dhabi interviews. And before you say its not the same, well parents of young children following Hamilton on twitter and seeing it on his helmet this weekend would be the ones who get angry. As I said before I really don’t see a problem with it personally but I can see where people who do are coming from.

    4. Of all the things I think of when I see Lewis Hamilton, “Hard ass Mother” is… let’s see.. probably about 5,000th on the list. Lewis, you’re a fantastic driver. A gangsta, you’re not.

      Things Hamilton could be other than an F1 driver:
      1 – PC World floor staff
      2 – Telephone sales rep
      3 – Wal-mart greeter
      4 – Tim Westwood

      9,567 – Rapper
      100,023 – Hard Ass Mother

      1. @hairs Fantastic comment, made me chuckle.

  2. Fernando and I share the same feeling, we both think we could beat Vettel even if he has a faster car, of course we don’t actually know how we would do it, but we feel it. Better look out for someone on a grassy knoll.

    1. PS. Q3 on scrubbed tyres, does this mean a 2 stopper for Ferrari?

        1. @colossal-squid, I wouldn’t expect him to tell the world about if they thought it might work.

          1. Hehe yeah…I hadn’t thought about that! Guess we’ll have to see during the race, but based on everything I’ve heard from the lads at Sky and several teams it seems degradation is too low.

  3. Daily Mail needs to make a story about Valentino Rossi’s “WLF”

    1. Traverse Mark Senior (@)
      18th November 2012, 3:00

      WLF actually stands for “wants Lorenzo to Fail”

      1. LOL, could be… but it’s been around for longer than Lorenzo, really xD

    2. the letters WLF on his leathers stand for “Viva La Figa,” Italian for “Long Live Pussy.”

      1. Traverse Mark Senior (@)
        18th November 2012, 15:54

        @motor_mad
        I didn’t know “Figa” was endangered :-)

  4. Alonso used scrubbed tyres? I don’t see the logic behind this. It is not as if Austin is going to be a multi-stop race where saving tyres for race day is very important. In my book, this qualifying was similar to the one in Hockenheim. There, the track was getting better and better all the time as it was drying and the key was to stay out all the time, come in at the last possible moment for fresh intermediates and do one mega lap on them. Here also, the track was getting better and better all the time and one had to do a mega lap on fresh mediums as late as possible.

    Let’s see. May be Ferrari knows something I don’t. But this may decide the championship

    1. I think the logic was that you’re able to more quickly generate heat into a pair of scrubbed tires, than in a pair of fresh ones. And getting heat into the tires was crucial today.

    2. Alonso used scrubbed tyres? I don’t see the logic behind this.

      Two ideas come to mind:

      1) The tyres are taking a long time to get into the optimal condition. By running with scrubbed tyres, they could get up to speed quicker.

      2) Ferrari knew they would qualify down the order, but they also think that two stops might be a possibility, and so ran Alonso with scrubbed tyres to take a enough life out of them to make two stopping more of a realistic strategy, but not so much life that they’re committed to it.

      The latter in particular might explain Alonso’s buoyancy when he talks about beating Vettel and having a feeling that the race is going to be very different to qualifying.

      1. A lot of people say Vettel was not brilliant last race; he had luck with safety cars and he had a ‘race-setup’. Well, if the ‘race-setup’ made him that much faster than everyone else, I wondered; why wouldn’t Alonso do something similar? Get into Q3, set the car to the perfect race-setup and try your skills from there. That’s what I would do if I was in his place, seeing that qualifying performance is just a dream at Ferrari.

    3. A comparison of their Q2 and Q3 times shows it was definitely a mistake unless they wanted to save a set of options.

      1. *Tinfoil hat time, Yay!*
        Perhaps they plan on Massa engineering a safety car scenario ;)

  5. “We do not want to – and will not – lose the race in Germany.”

    “The prosecutor told me that if I made sure the German Grand Prix went ahead, he’d drop the charges of bribery.”

    1. Thank you @prisoner-monkeys, and welcome to the club.

      1. @hohum – I’m just going to assume that a) you know there is a punch line here and b) you are choosing to ignore it, because the alternative is that you have missed the joke altogether and it’s not as funny when you have to explain it.

  6. Traverse Mark Senior (@)
    18th November 2012, 2:54

    Lewis Hamilton has been forced into his fifth embarrassing climbdown of the season after ditching a specially designed helmet for the USA Grand Prix

    All of this commotion over a crash helmet, what has the world come to :P

    1. I’ll thank you not to make light of the sanctity of the sacred essential apparel that is the crash helmet!

      1. Traverse Mark Senior (@)
        18th November 2012, 3:00

        ;-)

      2. Did you get the news Vettel also had to tape over something on his helmet? (It had the Red Bull – Gives you wings – slogan on, that is not allowed on the top!). Seems they even managed to get wood colored tape in the end!

    2. @tmcs88 – I doubt much would be made of it if it weren’t for Podiumgate in Abu Dhabi.

      1. In Abu Dhabi it could possibly have offended.

        1. But in Abu Dhabi, they read from right to left.

    3. one remembers the quote from kimi when asked ” what is the special significance of your helmet ? ”
      ” it protects my HEAD “

  7. The Nurburgring should be the most likely track to attract a full house of F1 fans and yet the accountants at the receivers believe it will make a loss if it hosts a race next year, this should be cause for concern. Bernie is very good at screwing every last dollar out of the circuits but the cost is high in the long run, without a National race to relate to many fans will turn to their local racing format faster than new fans can be cultivated in new markets, but then again Bernie doesn’t have too far ahead to worry about.

    1. Well, yes and no. Look at it this way. There are already five German drivers and one overtly German team in F1. That’s quite a national representation, and it’s arguable that even without a German GP that the current level of fan interest would be maintained. There is enough ‘German-ness’ in F1 without the need of a race to sustain it.
      Conversely, you could say that even they had two Grands Prix in Germany, current fanbase would not improve significantly because everyone who could be persuaded into watching already is watching!
      The opposite is true in countries where there is no current national representation. In these countries – such as Poland, Argentina, Portugal etc – adding a race dramatic affect in viewing figures, and create entirely new sponsorship and earning opportunities there.

  8. maybe in the race, but one lap performance needs fresh rubber. poor strategy; i think Ferrari(as the whole world knows) that the 2012 titles already belong to Redbull and Vettel so they just experimenting

  9. Bob (@bobthevulcan)
    18th November 2012, 3:19

    We do not want to – and will not – lose the race in Germany.

    Good to see that Bernie has come to his senses – the German GP is both a major fan draw and a race of outstanding heritage – but what measures does he intend to put in place? Slash the punitive race hosting and sanctioning fees?

    1. @bobthevulcan,that is what is needed, the world is in recession and money is tight everywhere I don’t see why Bernie and the investors in CVC shouldn’t feel a little of the pain till things improve, it’s not like they will have to drink NV instead of Crystal more like settling for Dom.

      1. Bob (@bobthevulcan)
        18th November 2012, 8:24

        @hohum – Somehow, Bernie will still find a way to squeeze every last cent out of the organizers. Old habits die hard.

  10. I can’t make a link to Formula1.com for the RBR rear wing story but their headline coverage of qualifying definitely states that Vettel used a new FRONT wing flown in Friday night. Did Webber also have this new wing? anyone?

    1. I don’t know, but its a bit of a non-issue. If the front wing brings performance and there’s only one why on earth would they give it to their driver who cant win the championship?

    2. This is the right link http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/2012/882/1027.html

      It features a new flap and new endplates with a revised gill section (see red arrow at the top).The endplate’s lower section also boasts multiple vertical fins (see lower red arrow), similar to those used – but not raced – by Ferrari.

  11. Keith, the RB8 rear wing story link does not seem to work…

  12. I thought Lewis would be more likely to go for FIGJAM…

  13. It would be nice if Hamilton just removed the full stops.

    Regarding Kimi smoking – who else? I thought about Schumacher who is also an insecure man, who at least admitted to having a cigar with Hakkinen after their legendary battle at Spa. And he wants to pick up rodeo! And Rosberg must know him inside out. And I don’t think Kimi would be having a cigarette at the drivers briefing, so how would Rosberg know? Maybe he just played the journalist…

    1. I thought it might be Pedro dl Rosa or even Narain Karthikeyan.

    2. Well I really don’t think Kimi is the one who smokes all the time. He strikes me as a guy who smokes when in company and after a few beers. In fact I heard on another forum that someone saw DiResta light up a few times during the Silverstone weekend.

  14. What was the message on hamiltons helmet?
    (if there are any rude words, then just use the first letter and use asteriks

    1. Surely just read the link?

    2. Read the link, or if you’re feeling lazy, google “ham acronym”.

    3. @xjr15jaaag Hard As a Mother something something

  15. William Brierty
    18th November 2012, 11:56

    On what authority does the Mail know that HAM stood for that? A completely unrelated and unquoted tweet? This article is the definition of poor journalism, no evidence, and simply the product of social trend. Everyone listen up, go elsewhere, if this is the standard that the Mail is offering then read the Times or the Independent, because this is utter rubbish, and has been correctly ignored by other newspapers. And for those that want real journalism, HAM is the initial of Hamilton’s name as it appears on the FIA time-sheets, and not anything else. And also Hamilton did not change helmets because of some untoward meaning, but it is common for drivers to revert to their normal helmets for the qualifying and the race, as Webber did in Singapore, swapping his competition designed helmet for his normal one. You see, that’s how you do it. Make a point, and then give some kind of evidence!!!!!!!!

  16. OmarR-Pepper (@)
    18th November 2012, 13:50

    H.A.M can be anything, as someone pointed out yesterday about MSC insteaed of SCH in the abbreviations used in races… probably is something like “My Skills Crumbled”

  17. Aw, Hamilton, bless him. I don’t think any F1 driver is anywhere near cool enough to describe themselves H.A.M! I guess it’s his glittering music career that is influencing him.

  18. F1 Digital+ = Best F1 coverage ever & the most exciting time for me throughout the time i’ve been involved in Motorsports TV coverage.

    We had so much technology available which other broadcasters didn’t from the tracking systems to the computer systems we were using towards the end to automatically alert the director of cars going off or moving offline to potentially try a pass.
    We were the 1st to use a ground based system to pickup the onboard camera pictures which eliminated the problems of the helicopter based systems used to that point. It eliminated the image break-up under tress, bridges & tunnels & also allowed us to keep onboard pictures regardless of weather conditions.

    10+ big rig transporters linked together to produce the 7 video feeds we produced, Hundreds of highly skilled, passionate, dedicated & imaginative employee’s to put everything together.

    The service had been running in europe since Hockenheim 1996, The UK only got it for 2002 & I was there from 1997 right upto the end & stayed with FOM in one form or another through to the end of 2007.

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