Horner wary of threat from Mercedes

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In the round-up: Red Bull team principal is not underestimating the threat from Mercedes who have moved up to second in the championship.

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Horner: Merc contenders now (Sky)

“They’re a good team, they’ve got a quick car, they’ve got good drivers. They’re for sure going to be a contender between now and the end of the year, as are Ferrari, as are Lotus.”

Q&A with Mercedes’ Toto Wolff (F1)

“Silverstone just was [a good race for Mercedes], despite not being a typical English Sunday afternoon, and I am looking forward to a typical Eifel weekend in Germany. Beyond that Spa is our next best bet.”

Mercedes improvement linked to illegal test, say rivals (ESPN)

Eric Boullier: “Two wins out of the three races after they tested, so the conclusion is easy. It is just facts. Two races won out of the three.”

Domenicali says Ferrari not fooled by Formula One podium finish (AutoWeek)

“We need to understand in these two or three days at home why, because there is something, I would say, bigger than little details that caused us not to be as we normally are here in Silverstone, better in terms of pace, and better at qualifying, everything.”

FIA to send observers to F1 test (Autosport)

“These observers will check the running programmes of every team to ensure any car development work is only done by the ‘young’ drivers who will still be present at the test.”

Teams pulling together, for now (The Telegraph)

“It is expected that the latest Concorde Agreement, the commercial pact which binds the sport together, will be signed off this week after years of haggling. Do not bet on it. The spirit of cooperation seen yesterday is unlikely to last for long.”

Esteban Gutierrez word of advice for future athletes (Esteban Gutierrez)

“You have to be open to face each and every challenge you find, from making contacts, closing agreements that will help fund your career, keep close to your surroundings, including family, get your gear, make good races, have a good relationship with your rivals, know how to lose and win gracefully, control your emotions, keep your head cool.”

From the archive, 2 July 1903: The Gordon Bennett motor race in Ireland (The Guardian)

“By the terms under which the Gordon-Bennett Cup race is held every part of the competing cars has to be made in the country which they represent. Now the tyres they have had made in Germany for the Mercedes cars have hardly proved satisfactory. This occasionally happens with the best of makes, as cyclists know well.”

Vettel the villain (MotorSport)

“The cheers and jeers of the British crowd upon his retirement at Silverstone were wholly inappropriate.”

Lap it up! (The Sun)

It’s encouraging to see many responses to this article criticise its stance that the potentially dangerous tyre failures seen in Sunday’s race were good for Formula One. Particularly in the light of the recent deaths of Allen Simonsen and Andrea Mame in other racing categories.

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Comment of the day

@CapeFear takes issue with Paul Hembery’s statement yesterday:

“What happened at Silverstone was completely unexpected and it was the first time that anything like this has ever occurred in more than a century of Pirelli in motorsport,” said motorsport director Paul Hembery.

Oh really, Paul?

Nine Pirelli failures in a Ferrari race, all left-rear failures too. I went to that race and it was a joke of a race, I got my money back! I guess these sharp kerbs seem to come around when convenient.
@CapeFear

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On this day in F1

Alain Prost won his home race 25 years ago today after springing a brilliant pass on McLaren team mate Ayrton Senna in the Beausset double right-hander at Paul Ricard in the French Grand Prix.

Behind the fifth McLaren one-two in seven races Michele Alboreto finished a distant third for Ferrari, almost a minute behind.

Images © Daimler/Hoch Zwei, Sauber

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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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101 comments on “Horner wary of threat from Mercedes”

  1. JPQuesado (@joao-pedro-cq)
    3rd July 2013, 0:07

    Did Massa want to say “great pineapple”?

    1. Yes. You need a slow hand to peel a great pineapple.

  2. Enjoyed the article on the Gordon Bennett Cup. I would love to see an F1 race in Ireland in the near future. It’d be one guaranteed wet race a year and would save me a great deal of money!

    1. Ha, only problem is it would make Silverstone tickets look like a bargain.

  3. Excellent comment in that Motorsport article @keithcollantine

    1. @celeste Yeah absolutely spot-on..

    2. @celeste @wsrgo Thank you :-)

    3. Why some people think Formula 1 fans should act like robots? Sport without passion is not sport and passion is more “olés”.

      1. @jcost Olés are different tan boos

        1. @celeste

          I wanted to say passion is more than “olés”.

          I do speak castellano and I know what “olé” is :)

    4. The response of the British fans had nothing to do with Malaysia 2013, the article is rubbish. It’s much more to do with Vettel’s continuing success in what is perceived as unfairly the best car.

  4. I wonder why the bloke who wrote that Vettel the Villain article was so upset about the cheering when Seb’s car stopped on Sunday….I know I cheered..in fact that was the highlight of the race for me! I cheered not because I dislike Vettel, I cheered because the Championship would still be alive. If Seb had strolled to victory, thats would have been it, championship over!

    Whatever the case, Seb has become an un-likable character of late. Over ther past couple years, he has slowly been changing. Initially it was great, it almost as if F1 had its own Valentino Rossi…but I guess F1 is a cold cut throat sport…you eventually have to evolve I suppose.

    1. Same here.

      Things could get better if we see a Mercedes 1-2 in Germany followed by Kimi and Alonso.

      :)

  5. Getting a bit sick hearing about the fact that the British crowd cheered when Vettel retired.
    If I had’ve been there, I would’ve cheered as well.

    Why? Because its a sport: there are winners, losers, public enemies and public heroes.
    Vettel, to a lot of people, is a public hero. I saw how many fans he had at the Australian GP – in fact there were probably as many “Vettel” hats than there were “Webber” hats.
    But people love to see him fail or retire or make a mistake purely because it doesn’t happen that often.

    And some may think “oh, it’s unsportsmanlike”, but guys like Vettel and Alonso have done enough “unsportsmanlike” things to polarize a crowd.

    I’m sure that if Vettel had’ve crossed the line first, he would’ve been applauded for his effort. But his retirement wasn’t applauded out of hatred (well, maybe for a few) but because it threw a different scenario into the mix.
    A scenario that gave others a chance to win and really blew open the motor race.

    And it wasn’t just people at the race who were cheering, I have to say I literally leaped out of my seat..

    1. Even my girlfriend who knows next to nothing about F1 got more interested in the race once Vettel retired.

      1. @rybo I guess that is why your girlfriend knows nothing about F1..

        1. Ironically she is the type of person this is version of F1 was is catering to. The people that are watching by “accident” who aren’t fans. This was the first race I got her to watch from lights to flag. With little knowledge and no allegiances, she could see that once Hamilton had a blowout Rosberg wasn’t able to match Vettel. F1 isn’t just for Motorsport fans anymore it’s for everybody to enjoy.

          It’s easy to say that F1 is a technical sport and its hard to get into, but it’s very simple at the end of the day. Who can complete the Grand Prix distance in the shortest amount of time. There are a lot of subtleties at the end of it that makes Driver A better than Driver B, and Car A better than Car B, but people just want to see a spectacle. And the best part about spectacles is that they are equally impressive if you don’t understand them.

          1. Ironically she is the type of person this is version of F1 was is catering to

            Absolutely right. Unfortunately, Bernie’s business model depends on racing’s ability to grab the attention of the millions – billions of casual viewers around the planet in order to succeed. And to do this, it has been found necessary to “improve the show”.
            It *is* possible to have a good football match that ends in a 0 – 0 score, but too many scoreless games and the casual viewer will watch something else. So it is with F1. Too many races with no or limited overtaking, no retirements, no crashes or other moments of drama and the tv audience will dwindle. And then where will CVC be?
            Personally, I prefer low-razamataz racing with sponsorless cars made and maintained by garagistas. But people tell me Bernie’s way is progress.

          2. You mean modern F1 is Nintendo Wii?

    2. I agree with most of your post- I see little problem with cheering a driver retiring. You’re right, the crowd most likely didn’t do it out of hatred, more out of a desire for a different winner from someone who has been immense over the last 4 years. And though I’m sure they’d rather have seen a better outcome than an anti-climactic mechanical failure, it’s only natural to cheer if that happens to someone you don’t want to win. The only concern I have with your post, and the crowd is:

      I’m sure that if Vettel had’ve crossed the line first, he would’ve been applauded for his effort.

      This clearly did not happen in Canada. I would hope that the British crowd would have been better than them.

      1. @david-a you indeed put the finger on the wound; cheering the loss of one driver might as well be for the gain of another, but booing… booing a victory is when a fan turns into a bitter small minded bully. We are not sure what the British fans would have done if Vettel had won; would they have behaved like the Canadians? Let’s hope not. One thing is for sure, the media in the UK isn’t helping: it’s not only taking sides (which is fine) but effectively tarnishing the image of Seb; hypocritically and on purpose.

        1. I dont think there is anything wrong with cheering when a driver retires. I cheered loudly when Hamilton had to limp back to the pits. Off topic: Happy Birthday to Seb today

        2. @makana

          I mostly agree with the first part of your comment. But I think you are being a little harsh when you say that:

          “the media in the UK isn’t helping: it’s not only taking sides (which is fine) but effectively tarnishing the image of Seb; hypocritically and on purpose.”

          First, as a non-Brit I would agree that they do tend to spruce up the reputation of their drivers a bit too much. Other countries’ media do that too , but not to this extent. Two of them (guess which ones??) are decidedly mediocre in my book. Example read James Allen’s blog today. The pro-British bias is there. Allen loudly proclaims HAM lost out because of the tyre failure. (Which is true, but VET was quite comfortably keeping him honest. And I’m certain VET would have given him a very handy challenge, had no misfortune occurred to both of them. We were robbed of that battle unfortunately. Either way it clearly wouldn’t have been a cakewalk for HAM). The anti-Ferrarism is also there to be noticed. As a Ferrari fan, this is slightly disheartening.

          But the conclusion that they hate VET or Schumi or any other non-Brit who doesn’t drive for a British team in general, is wrong. Alonso is revered and VET is certainly respected by most, even though they think HAM is better than both. ( I disagree with that as VET/ALO are clearly a cut above). Many people (non-brits) agree with me. (I was talking to some Italian guys in Milan last year. All of them want VET to drive for the Scuderia whenever the Spaniard is done). There is an almost unanimous majority that VET is Alonso’s successor for the title of the best driver on the grid. Only time will tell.

          The broader point is that the media in the UK is very passionate (perhaps a good thing?). But over all I don’t think there is deliberate negative intent. It’s just good old jealously when the “other guys win”. There are rivalries in football. (Germany vs England, Italy vs England, Germany vs Italy etc.) This is exactly the same, just the setting is different.

          1. @sankalp88
            Rookie HAM trashed Alonso.
            HAM has even gotten better, so your logic doesn’t hold up.

          2. Vettel and Alonso being a cut above Hamilton is your opinion.

            IMHO, it’s a hard call, if BBC’s Top Gear is something to go by…

          3. Of course, going by BBC’s Top Gear is your opinion… ;-)

          4. @jason12.Alonso beat Hamilton for the last 3 years in an inferior car.So your logic doesn’t hold up

        3. Oh, I remember last year in Monza. Vettel grinding to a halt in front of our grandstands… The tiffosi had a field day! Me too… I cannot stand that little man. And the crowd also booed Lewis Hamilton on the podium. That is why he left right after his interview… But that was all right was it? Nothing ever got said about that…

          Vettel has not made many sportsmanlike moves as of late, so he should not expect sportsmanlike behavior from F1 fans. As the, admittedly juvenile, happy dance I made following his retirement from Silverstone can attest…

      2. The previous 2 years when I was there, we cheered when he was on the podium and when he came on stage at the after-race party. So I would think he would get applause again for being on the podium.

      3. I would hope that the British crowd would have been better than them.

        Although I’m a Brit myself, I love people who assume that the British fans are the most polite and well mannered sporting fans in the world and then take cheap jabs at Italian and Spainish fans when they boo. All this ‘oh I expect better from the British’ is a load of nonsense, Vettel would’ve endured a chours of boos had he won Silverstone because most of the crowed don’t like him. Simple as that. I understand not every British fan was cheering Vettel’s DNF just like not every Canadian fan was booing Vettel on the podium but let’s not pretend that all British fans are upstanding people and all Canadians/Spanish/Italians are all nasty pieces of work. Even last year at Silverstone a number of people were cheering when Alonso binned it into the wall during qualifying. Fortunatly he shut them all up when he took pole :-)

    3. Right-on, this is show-biz isn’t it?

    4. I’ve not heard mention of the booing when he is on the Podium.

      Like Melbourne and Canada for example.

      I was really surprised to hear it and although I’m not a Vettel fan I don’t feels its in the spirit of things. But that may just be me.

    5. I also wouldn’t take the cheering upon Vettel’s retirement too seriously. The spectators were probably cheering because it favored Hamilton, not because they don’t like Vettel.

      I have absolutely nothing against Seb but I was still celebrating when his gearbox failed, since I support Räikkönen and Vettel is the biggest barrier between Kimi and the championship and also because the retirement helped Räikkönen in that particular race (well, in the end it didn’t but that’s a different story). I was really cheering at Räikkönen’s fortune, not at Vettel’s bad luck.

      I’m not usually wishing for other drivers to retire and I’d rather see Kimi beating everyone on the track than gaining from the misfortunes of others, but it’s very hard to cover my joy either when the retirement ends up helping a driver that I support.

      The booing in Canada was a lot more inappropriate in my opinion. It was only malevolent and Vettel did nothing to deserve that.

    6. well said

    7. As far as I’m concerned the fans have the right to do anything (within the law & the terms of the ticket) they want once they’ve paid the extortionate price of a GP ticket. You can’t racially abuse, threaten or physically attack someone but you have every right to cheer, boo, sing, chant or anything else you want.

      1. @beneboy You *can* also be idiot or dumb if you like, since it’s not against the laws, but that doesn’t mean it’s something you should be or should aim for.

    8. Is cheering for a driver’s retirement disrespectful? Probably. But is it unjustified? Personally, I don’t think so.

      Vettel might be a three-time World Champion, and that in itself is laudable, but just look to everything going on behind the scenes at Red Bull. They’ve got Helmut Marko repeatedly vilifying Vettel’s team-mate in a very public manner, and no-one – not Christian Horner, not Adrian Newey, not even Sebastian Vettel himself – has done a thing to stop it, or even lend support to Mark Webber. And that’s just one example. We all saw the way Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari were cruelly and ruthlessly dumped from the sister team. We all remember the way Marko abused Alguersuari for momentarily blocking Vettel in free practice. We all saw the way Mark Webber was accused by the team of causing the collision with Vettel in Turkey back in 2010.

      Red Bull have a long-running and well-documented history of making decisions that support Vettel, treading on the toes of plenty of others along the way. It’s hard to respect a driver who finds success that way.

    9. I cheered when Hammys tyre went and Vettels gearbox. Obviously i wanted neither to win

    10. people love to see him fail or retire or make a mistake purely because it doesn’t happen that often.

      Vettel has far more DNF’s from mechanical causes than any other driver on a top team. Far more than Hamilton, or Alonso. Far more than Webber in the other RB.

      Now, arguably this has the effect of making the season more entertaining. The one year his car did not break down a lot, in 2011, he won going away. But the fact remains that SV suffering bad luck actually does happen “that often”.

      People seem to have a very skewed perception of “luck” where Vettel is concerned. If Alonso is hit on lap one of the Hungarian GP and left dead last in a damaged car to try to fight his way up through the field, I’m fairly confident that not many people are going to remark on his uncanny good fortune. If a meteorite fell from the sky and struck Vettel, breaking his arm, loads of fans would still be cursing his good luck, because “that could easily have broken his leg as well!”

      1. I wasn’t cheering, I was in disbelief really when Seb retired. But sports, especially professional sports, are driven on passion, and if that’s how people feel, then that’s how it goes. It’s disrespectful, for sure, but it doesn’t bother me any. If anything, the worst thing is if people neither cheer nor boo, in which case they really don’t care about you. And adding to @jonsan and his comment, I agree Vettel’s far from the luckiest. If anyone’s gotta be the luckiest, I’d have to say it’s Alonso. Look how many times he profited last year from misfortune from Seb and Lewis especially.

        1. Ian (@valkyrassassin)
          3rd July 2013, 22:22

          “I wasn’t cheering, I was in disbelief really when Seb retired.”

          I was there, same for me too. I couldn’t believe it! I was at Copse and can’t say I really noticed any cheering, partially because the F1 cars whizzing past were so loud(!) and also due to being shocked that another major upset had happened.

  6. I agree there was nothing unusual with the cheers following Vettels retirement. When someone spins and crashes, every one cheers. Its one of the reasons people go to watch motorsport. People want to see man and machine on the limit and occasionally go over the limit. If Crashes and failures did not happen then clearly the limit is not being pushed.

    Though specifically regarding Vettel, (admit not a fan) its winner fatigue. Audiences don’t like runway wins, we want to see races and championships that go down to the wire. I remember the dominance of Schumacher and Ferrari (which Vettel does not have except 2011) and watching every race for years with the hope something would go wrong for him and i would unashamedly cheer when it did. Then finally Alonso came along and we had that relief of change and challenge up the front end.

    The last few years have seen close racing with four or five very competitive drivers, just the cards keep falling Vettel’s way, and frankly its frustrating to watch at times even if its not Vettel’s fault. I just hope the second half of the year brings the fight to much closer quarters.

    1. the cards keep falling Vettel’s way

      They really don’t. I suggest you read

      https://www.racefans.net/groups/f1/forum/topic/lost-leads-and-inherited-wins-of-the-last-10-years/

      Vettel is one of the unluckier drivers on the grid.

      1. The problem is that looks only at loosing the lead. Lucky cards are not just about black and white loosing the lead in a race, its how the whole years events combine to conspire against or for a driver.
        That doesn’t look at examples like when Alonso was taken out by Grojean at Spa, then Vettel survives a fist lap collision in Brazil but still get just enough points to take the championship ( Though Torro Rosso and Schumacher sure made it easier). Neither where leading but both some of the incidents that were critical to the outcome of the championship. While Both Vettel (Singapore) And Alonso (Valencia) inherited wins during the same year.

  7. So using Boullier’s logic, after the other teams do their test everything will be back to normal? (only Red Bull vs Ferrari), I don’t think so.
    Sure Mercedes’ test helped them with their issues but it only accelerated the inevitable, which fine by me because now we have three teams fighting for the championship.

    1. It’s very simplistic to claim Merc are only winning because of the “secret test”. Any reasonable fan would know that the car was very quick right from the start, its only problem was overheating the tyres, a problem that has been diminished but not entirely cured, with the wealth of experience and resources available to MB it would be farcical to suggest that this far into the season they would not be able to improve this single issue with their car. M.Boullier should also be reminded that this is not MBs 1st.win this year.

      1. @hohum

        Any reasonable fan would know that the car was very quick right from the start, its only problem was overheating the tyres,

        Overheating the tyres isn’t a small problem. Any reasonable fan would notice that those teams that are fast in qualifying (Mercedes, Red Bull) have had problems with tyre duration, while the ones who are managing their tyres well (Ferrari, Lotus) have struggled in qualifying. While Mercedes and Red Bull get enough heat on their tyres in qualifying, it results in overheating during the race. So maintaining superior qualifying pace while getting rid of overheating is a major step forward, not a small one as you seem to imply.

        M.Boullier should also be reminded that this is not MBs 1st.win this year.

        Keith has highlighted three sentences from the interview and in those three sentences Boullier mentions twice that this was Mercedes’ second win, so it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t need to be reminded about that.

  8. That article in The Sun is probably the most disgusting piece of rubbish I’ve read about this topic.

    1. I’m pretty sure there was a large dose of sarcasm in that article and it was directed straight at the ringmaster and owner of the circus.
      If it was not sarcastic, I suggest reading it that way.

      1. It must be sarcastic, but it’s not very clear to be honest.

        1. … exploding tyres are definitely the way forward for F1. They could even explore the possibility of a hidden stinger slung across the track every now and then just to keep everyone on their toes. […] make the race winner race skid across the finishing line before jumping out of a moving car, leaping over the barriers and legging it towards the nearest woods before being taken down by a snarling Alsatian and tasered to the ground by the Old Bill?

          So this being sarcastic is not very clear?

      2. @hohum I don’t see any reason to assume it’s not intended to be taken at face value.

    2. Well, it’s a tabloid so I guess one shouldn’t be too surprised about exaggerations, provocations and simple nonsense, such as the claims that “the vast majority of people only watch Formula One for the crashes” or “most races are turgid processions led from start to finish by Sebastian Vetel”. But I agree that the author has gone too far this time.

      It is true that crashes and technical failures belong to motorsport, they are inevitable and yes, they add excitement to the “show”. I believe that it’s OK to accept it as a part of the game. If everything always went according to plan, life would be terribly boring. But saying that ‘exploding tyres are definitely the way forward for F1’ and suggesting that the level of danger that drivers face should be artifically increased is just ridiculous and I’m sure that also the ex-drivers, who participated in F1 when it was much more dangerous than it is today would either laugh about the idea or tell the author to go take care of himself.

    3. @andae23 I can’t take that article for sarcasm because it isn’t, in my opinion. 15 yearolds , ford fiesta….crashes exciting? …I think they should put that guy in the two seater Mclaren and drive his B@^^( off ,,what a dose of rubbish . Even the daily mail is hugely better than this . A bit happy you put this in here Keith , I din’t even know such things existed .

    4. I certainly voiced my opinions at the bottom.

      Very upset that someone is getting paid to spout such rubbish when i’d give a lot to be in his position.

  9. Seeing that Prost vs Senna reminded me of what i loved about F1. Great racing, two excellent battling it out in a game of 200mph chess until someone made a mistake. This time it was Senna, my favourite of all time, but excellent racing. Loved it.

    1. Prost must have managed his tyres better.

    2. @sergio-perez Must be my imagination, but does Prost lean less into the corners than Senna?

      1. Diferent driving styles, Prost looks smoother than Senna. But Senna was managing, it was during the backmarkers situation that “the professor”‘s patience and cunningness came to play. Senna lost concentration, “flow” and momentum due to Piquet’s car first, then while trying to overtake the next car was completely surprised by Prost. after that, Prost dispatched with a bit of luck the next backmarker which Senna couldn’t, gaining a bit of a gap that he managed well into the end of the race. While I’m a Senna fan, this Prost victory more proves the greatness of Senna’s victories. Two of the best of all time there. And a race without DRS and other mumbo jumbos.

    3. Always a pleasure to see the Professor on top of Senna. Yep, I’m a longtime F1 fan and was part of the ABS crowd (Anybody But Senna). Younger people wouldn’t believe the way that guy was loathed back then.

      And btw Prost was consistently better on the dry, however he was never good enough in the rain. Had he been, there would have been no contest.

  10. I am half way I across the world, but I did jump and run around like a headless chicken because I support team LW. Its about my team period why should I celebrate if my opposition win?

    1. I personally think that there is nothing wrong about feeling joy when a driver, who is an opponent of your favourite driver, retires, particularly if that means a more exciting battle for the championship. I am pretty sure that many Vettel fans felt the same way when Alonso retired on the first lap of the Japanese GP last year. Talking about the drivers themselves, this is what Graham Hill said about his opponent Jim Clark in 1962 (an excerpt from the interview that Autosport published last week):

      I am human; I have nasty thoughts just like anybody else. At Watkins Glen I was hoping that Jimmy’s car was going to break. I would rather beat him fair and square, but as I couldn’t I was hoping his car would break; that’s being very honest with you.

      However, I believe that one shouldn’t display those feelings the way that some fans at Silverstone did. Vettel clearly heard those boos and that must have been an unpleasant feeling. I think we are basically talking about lack of good manners and basic respect here.

      I don’t agree with many of the statements in the MotorSport article. Successful drivers have always polarised fans and I don’t believe that Webber fans or Hamilton fans would love Vettel more if he had obeyed team orders at Sepang. I also don’t agree that Vettel will now hate British F1 fans because he is definitely too mature to not understand that the booers didn’t represent the whole British F1 fans’ community.

  11. Two wins out of the three races after they tested, so the conclusion is easy. It is just facts. Two races won out of the three.

    So when Red Bull won everything in sight the past few years, they must have been cheating as well, huh? Or is Mr Boulier just whining because his team only has one win? Guess we should expect to see a huge jump out of Lotus after the “Young Drivers” Test, huh?

    1. @wonderduck His point obviously being that they hadn’t won a race this year before the test. Not that if someone is winning they are therefore cheating.

      1. Poor form from Boullier though, not that i expect anything different from team principles these days, bad arguments, low blows, and outright ******** is the theme in F1 when it comes to trying manipulate public opinion. But giiven everyone and their dog expected Merc to be strong at Monaco long before the test, and in Silverstone Rosberg won because Vettel retired, and the SC periods definatly helped tyre management. Ok, Hamiton was leading, but for what, 7 laps? with a 2 second lead? Hardly definitive proof they’ve fixed anything yet.

      2. Surely his point is to deflect attention away from his teams decision not to pit Kimi which ultimately cost him several places, a spot on the podium and a load of points ?

        1. @beneboy I don’t believe he is trying to deflect attention from that given he referred to what happened directly in a press release issued by his own team yesterday. I suspect he was asked a question about Mercedes and answered it.

  12. Makes you wonder what is going through Mateschitz’s mind when he sees the poster boy of Red Bull being soundly booed in front of a global audience?

  13. That’s a gross misrepresentation from Eric Boullier.

    For one, the Monaco circuit had none of the characteristics of circuits where Mercedes had struggled – namely long, load-bearing corners – and is filled with the kind of short, sharp sections where Mercedes had been strong all year.

    Secondly, Vettel was keeping pace with Hamilton until Hamilton’s tyre blow-out, and he was pulling away from Rosberg until his own gearbox failure. Mercedes were in no way assured if a race win, and with another lap or two, Webber would have caught Rosberg.

    1. Maybe he’s worried because Merc is clearly ahead of Lotus that seems to be loosing the development race.

    2. +1, ive just wasted 5 minutes replying to Keith above with the same thoughts!

    3. Not to mention everyone actually expected Merc to be very strong going to Monaco, even BEFORE this whole secret test thing came to light.

    4. The fact still remains however that since there illegal test Mercedes have never at any stage shown any signs of the tyre wear problems they had suffered from in every race before the test.

      1. Except for when Hamilton lost second place to Alonso as his tyres were wearing out.
        Hamilton had not finished lower than 5th before the Private test including two third places while beating Redbull also. So The Mercedes are not as terrible as some seem to be making out. One terrible race at Barcelona is really all they have had.
        Should also be noted that Ferrai and Lotus seem to have gone backwards.
        In balance Merc have gained a little bit but others have gone back a little.

  14. Great COTD, Pirelli what a liar!

  15. As a hardcore Vettel supporter I can’t see anything wrong with crowd cheering after he retired. I myself had a silent fist clutching “yessssss” moment when Lewis’ tyre blew (would have tore the room up out of joy if Alonso retired) Although that is not the way I want my favorite driver to win but I’d take those gifts any time.
    What’s actually very impressive that Seb had the guts to face the British crowd after the race, crack a joke or two, play the drums and even ask for more “boos” ’cause his drum playing skills were really rubbish. And the crowd reacted i a normal way. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPnF89Kb3jY
    Booing after the victory in Canada was hideous though but it didn’t get into Seb’s head obviously

  16. Is the Concorde Agreement about to be signed?
    And, ahem, any word on who will be supplying tyres next year? The last I remeber reading was that Pirelli were said to be considering legal action if Michelin were invited to tender, but that before Silverstone.

  17. Horner must be excited about the new Merc threat, they’ve without true competition for ages now.

  18. With regards to cheering Vettel’s retirement, I don’t think Malaysia Multi-21 was the reason for it. More likely it was cited as a reason to rationalize and justify it for the fans doing the cheering.

    I think Vettel’s retirement was cheered simply because he is the Opposition. Whether you are a Webber, Hamilton, Alonso, Rosberg, or Raikkonen fan, Vettel was always the one beating your favourite driver over and over again. Had I been in the grandstand, I wouldn’t have cheered, but I was glad to see him retire, and not win another Grand Prix. For any other driver, winning is a much rarer occurrence, and most people won’t mind seeing another driver win, even if that is not their favourite driver. Even Michael Schumacher, who used to fill the role of the guy you didn’t want to see win, was cheered on by most fans during his comeback, when he was no longer the guy winning all the time.

  19. Anele (@anele-mbethe)
    3rd July 2013, 10:40

    For me vettel comes across as a no frills person who just gets on with his job. He impressed at BMW and torro rosso to rightfully earn a top drive and has been integral to redbull making the step to become race winners and eventually winning the world championship. People just hate dominance its that simple all the other reasons are just B.S in my opinion

  20. good COTD but how annoying is the music on that video? had to mute it

    1. @alfa145
      Yeah, and it shows the same incidents over and over again!

  21. Prost didn’t need DRS or KERS, they just had manual gearboxes and really, really hard tyres.

  22. I’ve seen a lot of people on here suggest that cheering Vettel’s retirement (or any other form of expression of disdain for one of the greatest drivers in the sport’s history..) is justified becasue apparently Vettel has been very unsporting. Could anyone please give me examples of things that he’s done which are unsporting? The only thing I can think of as being vaguely questionable is his ignoring the ‘multi 21’ order, but demonstrably when most drivers ignore team orders and seize the glory, they are applauded for it, so I can’t imagine it’s this that’s got people’s backs up.

    All I see when I look at Vettel is a brilliant driver, who has loads of time for the media, gives extremely concise and insightful responses in interviews, is quick to praise his rivals and his team, and who lives a quiet, reclusive life away from the track. I can’t think of many drivers on the grid I’d rather spend time with; he comes across as one of the nicest guys out there. Driven for success, of course, and assured of his own ability. But he doesn’t have the arrogance of a Raikkonen or a Hamilton, in fact he’s often extremely humble. I simply can’t see anything about him that people would dislike. Being successful isn’t an excuse for disliking someone. Especially when that success if hard-fought and well deserved. I can’t imagine seeing anyone cheering if Usain Bolt tripped over halfway through the 200m sprint final. Since when did being good at something become such a negative quality?

    1. Anele (@anele-mbethe)
      3rd July 2013, 12:37

      +1

    2. Vettel is humble…? And in his interviews he is not concise. He brabbles on for about 5min without saying much. Yes, he has qualities that are admirable as you quite rightly pointed out. BUT, the way he first apologized for the Multi-21 saga and then at the next race turned around and said he would do it again because he didn’t feel that Webber deserved the win, are not exactly qualities that can be admired. And neither do his over exuberant celebrations when he wins, coupled with his bottom lip dragging on the ground when he doesn’t, inspire anything in me that would cause me to admire him as a good sportsman.

      As much as his personality should appeal to everyone, I think that is all just a fake persona created for exactly that purpose. But the spoilt brat syndrome seems to come through more and more.

      A quote that he should learn the meaning of is “Be humble in victory and gracious in defeat”.

      1. @chapor If you have some kind of prejudice and don’t listen to what’s he saying then it might sound like brabbeling. While actually he gives great insight to the race (he talks alot though, on this one I agree).
        About bottom lip draggin, should he be happy when something goes wrong or he loses? Keeping in mind that recently all his losses were not by his own doing and that’s even more frustrating but he copes with it very well.
        P.S. About the index finger celebration. In 2006 the same index finger that people “like” so much was almost severed in a high speed crash through eau rouge. Doctors stiched it back and Seb was back in a car next week. I think that contributed to this specific type of celebration.

        1. @gilles, yes, I am prejudiced. I do not like Vettel. I have a right not to like Vettel. I personally do not agree with the way he conducts himself as a whole. When he won his first WDC in 2010, I was pretty impressed. I even gave Webber the fault for the incident in Turkey… Shows you that I am also just human and make mistakes. But I guess that novelty wore off the more I had to listen to his antics, be it in celebration or otherwise. His interviews are to long winded before he actually gets to a point, that is what I meant.

          I am also not saying that he should smile when things go wrong, but for crying out loud, be mature about it… The way he sometimes throws a tantrum is embarrassing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnKktIuJgKQ
          That reminds me of something my 4 year old niece would do… I cannot respect a “man” that is that childish.

          Cool fact about the finger though. :-) Didn’t know that.

          1. Anele (@anele-mbethe)
            3rd July 2013, 19:41

            all that video clip shows is emotion, I’ve seen countless times drivers throwing out the steering wheel or bashing it in anger when things go wrong.

          2. @anele-mbethe @chapor

            Anele +1
            Martin Fuhs, how about this and this, one of which was even from the same race you cited?

          3. @anele-mbethe @david-a

            Yes, you are correct, yet for me there is a fine line between them and the childish “stomping feet” attitude. That is however an opinion that others might not share with me.

            Peace out.

          4. @chapor – Well, it’s clear that others shouldn’t share that opinion, because there is nothing that justifies there being a line between what you pointed out, and what I pointed out.

          5. @david-a Really? The one is a mature show of frustration, the other is a childish tantrum. I don’t care if you don’t think that is a justifiable difference, All you see is the action, I see a bit more than that.

            So once again, I have my opinion, you have yours, let’s leave it at that, have a nice day.

            Peace out.

          6. @chapor – So a “mature show of frustration” is to almost flap your arms at marshall after spinning off, or throw away the steering wheel after crashing, while a “childish tantrum” is to throw gloves after a mechanical failure? That’s just an irrational, petty attempt to have a go at a driver you dislike.

            So fine, keep to your nonsense.

      2. I don’t really understand what point you’re trying to make here. You accuse him of being false on the one hand, and yet in the same post you suggest that if he’s upset about being beaten, he should hide it behind a smile. I want to see drivers get upset about being beaten; I want to see real human emotion in the heat of competition. I don’t want to see drivers who have just had a shocker of a race get wheeled in front of the press with a plastic smile on their face, saying about how the team did a good job and blah blah blah.

        His celebrations are exuberant? To my recollection almost every race he’s won, the first thing he does is come on the radio and say “we did it!” – sharing the moment of celebration with the team. He’s also well known for spending more time at the factory than almost any other driver on the grid.

        I ask again – show me an example of him being unsporting. When has he ever rammed a driver off the road in moment of anger, or blocked someone’s pitbox so they couldn’t get a lap in? There are plenty of drivers on the grid who have been unsporting, but of them all I think he’s one of the cleanest. Races fairer than most as well – clean overtakes for the most part, and proper respect given to his fellow racers. He’s just devastatingly fast behind the wheel.

        1. I usually don’t get involved into these Vettel support/hate battles, but this time I feel like I am.
          The fact is quite simple, and goes beyond rational judgement: people get to “hate” Vettel for a very simple reason, people don’t like people that win EASILY. That’s easy to understand: the most loved drivers (and sportsman) of history are the ones that had to fight for a long period with one very strong opponent, almost as strong as them. Most loved driver is Ayrton, who won – in %- closely as much as Vettel (if not even more). But having “his” Alain Prost on the other side made the magic trick and he became legend even before Imola.
          Think about this: until the end of 2010 Vet was not disliked by many, in fact he had had his victories here and there and managed to get his WDC by surprise, when it was for everyone just a Web-Alo affair.
          So no big deal.
          But in 2011 things changed: there was such a dominance, of the man and the car, that even thinking of who could take that WDC from him is quite impossible. There was nobody other than him. That made it: people hated the fact that this guy could win so “easily” at their eyes, because there was no clear opposition at all.
          We all want fighting, epic battles and we don’t like the one that can make it easily. If you want, this can be also translated into life: who really likes people with all the fortunes, that can obtain whatever they want without apparent sacrifice? Few do, because life is tough, and we want to praise people that make it out of thoughness.
          Ok now let’s get back to Vettel: nobody says he got and gets his wins easily, at least I don’t, because having driven a little formula renault twice in my life, that made me just imagine how big of a deal winning a f1 gp is. No need to say a WDC. Or 3.
          But as much as MSC had his haters out of the Ferrari fandom, because of his dominance, wich started to get people annoyed after Hakkinen retired (you don’t say), so does happen for Vettel; only difference is the latter only had one year of complete superiority -2011-, but also 2012 brings some points to the “haters”. If we want to exclude Raikkonen from the 2012 WDC run and say that there was only an Alo-Vet battle, even here people will largely stay on the Alo side, because last year Alonso always had to fight back from poor qualy performance, while Vet was there at the front, from the beginning to the end of every race, even if not winning, but constantly there. And between the 2, as it is natural, we like to praise the driver that has to fight so hard to get to the same result.
          It’s human.

          Those are the reasons you and others are looking for
          (ps: I’m not at all a Vettel hater, just love the sport too much to hate something part of it).
          cheers

          1. *yeah I know what happened in Abu Dhabi and Brazil, of course. That was awesome to watch. But still, those are exceptions, and people don’t base their judgement on exceptions.
            ok now I stop, bye!

          2. Anele (@anele-mbethe)
            4th July 2013, 11:03

            @alfa145 that’s a brilliant point. But his first title was won with 3 world champions on the grid and the last 5 I think. So its the other teams and drivers who need to step up their game to beat him.

  23. I just wonder if somewhere along the lines, thanks to the depressing overabundance of lowest common denominator reality TV shows, where audiences are encouraged to judge everyone in front of them based on the most vacuous criteria, that we’ve forgotten that the people we’re seeing are actual human beings.

    Once upon a time, Vettel and Hamilton were just little kids, who dreamed about being racing drivers. They worked so hard, desperately fighting off all their rivals to earn their opportunities to achieve their goals in life. They would have watched F1 races on the TV, watched their heroes driving, idolised them. They would have seen the champagne flowing, heard the crowds roaring in appreciation for the greats, like Senna, Prost, and so on, then closed their eyes and pictured themselves standing there on that podium.

    And yet despite this, despite them being human beings with complex personalities and emotions, just like every single one of us, when they achieve that goal they’ve worked all their life to achieve, they end up being the object of scorn. Not because they did anything wrong; quite the opposite. Because they were really good. Because people have this weird sort of sense that F1 drivers suddenly pop into existence the first time they drive and F1 car, and don’t have ordinary lives as ordinary people when they’re not spending two hours every other week racing against each other. It’s the same thing with reality TV – it’s all about the performance, and the audience laughs, jeers, ridicules and bullies, because it forgets the fact that the pink fleshy object standing on the stage is an actual person just like them, who has probably spent weeks nervously building themselves up to this point. Only to be laughed at because they’re old, or they’re fat.

    If we stopped for a moment and considered exactly what that might feel like; to spend most of your life building up to one goal, and when you’re on the cusp of achieving that thing you’ve spend your whole life chasing, for thousands of people to gleefully express delight and satisfaction at your failure – or to ruin your moment of achievement when you finally succeed, by vocally booing you like a pantomime villain – I can’t see how anyone with any shred of human decency could be comfortable with that kind of behaviour.

    What kid right now, sat watching F1 on the TV and dreaming of being an F1 driver, factors into their dream the possibility that if that dream might one day come true, there’s a genuine chance that people will hate them. Hate them and feel entitled to try and make them feel awful about their success. How many would ever way to get into sport in the first place if they realised that fulfilling their dreams might, even in the absence of any definable fault on their part, incur the collective hatred of thousands of people?

    Maybe I’m alone in feeling like this, and maybe for many people it’s all just part of the show. I just can’t reconcile it myself. I can’t fool myself into thinking that the drivers are just pantomime characters, and that hearing that kind of reaction doesn’t hurt them. I can’t help but imagine myself in that situation and feel a little bit of basic human empathy. And it makes me feel very sad to hear it. It reflects extremely badly on all those that do it, and especially so when people then try to justify it later – of course it’s one thing to be caught up in the excitement of the moment, but quite another to then later try to justify it as if the driver has somehow brought this reaction upon themselves.

    Sorry, this has been a long and rambling post, probably full of grammar and spelling errors.

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