In the round-up: A group of fans were arrested after stripping to their underwear at the Malaysian Grand Prix.
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Stripping at Malaysian Grand Prix: Nine Australians arrested (BBC)
"The men, who were sporting underpants bearing the Malaysian flag, are being investigated for 'intentional insult' and a possible breach of the peace."
Ferrari: Damage made podium impossible for Raikkonen (F1)
"Due to the impact with Nico, Kimi lost part of the floor and part of the front wing. From the calculations we have with the engineers, he lost more or less 10 points (of downforce) - so it was quite impossible for him to catch up in this situation."
Haas unsure why Grosjean brakes 'exploded' (Autosport)
"Carbon brake disc investigations are not easy, it's a science project. There's only dust left, and nothing more."
Lewis Hamilton down but not out in Nico Rosberg title battle (Sky)
"I'll continue to fight more for sure, but at the end of the year if the higher power doesn't want me to be champion with everything that I've given towards it then I'll have to accept that."
Wolff against skipping practice to safeguard engines (F1i)
"Most of the failures were not linked to each other – it was different failures. It was failures that were either in the supply chain, or material problems or assembly problems or just a mistake in the design or fatigue below the mileage it should have been, so there is no pattern in those failures that we can identify."
Horner: Team orders would have been wrong (Motorsport)
"There was no interference and the instruction was you are racing each other, just respect each other."
2016 Malaysian Grand Prix (MotorSport magazine)
Toto Wolff: "We didn’t give (Hamilton) a more aggressive engine strategy, but just got him to do a pace that would build the gap."
Record low audience tunes in to Malaysian Grand Prix (F1 Broadcasting)
"The combined audience of 2.43 million viewers is the lowest for the Malaysian Grand Prix on record, by a large margin."
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Comment of the day
An excellent Malaysian Grand Prix statistic spotted by John:
This was only the third race in last six years without a world champion on the podium. The other two being Melbourne and Spa 2014 (although the former saw Button inheriting a top-three finish following Ricciardo’s disqualification after the podium ceremony).
@Johnbeak
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On this day in F1
Emerson Fittipaldi won the IndyCar Road America 30 years ago today, after it had been postponed 13 days due to heavy rain.
Michal (@michal2009b)
4th October 2016, 0:24
I think the whole discussion about Hamilton’s problems is blown out of proportion. This is nothing new. Vettel suffered a similar fate in 2010 while Webber wasn’t having any problems with his car. By the way it is a big myth that Webber’s car was an unreliable one compared to his team-mate’s.
beneboy (@beneboy)
4th October 2016, 1:12
@michal2009b
It’s certainly nothing new to see one driver suffering from the majority of technical issues in a team, it’s a bit odd to see one having so many problems compared to all of the other drivers with the same engine, but I still think it’s far more likely to be a coincidence. And if Lewis doesn’t win the WDC because of technical problems, he’ll just be one of many, many other drivers who can say the same.
I think it’s getting so much attention is because his only competition for the title is his team mate, if another team builds a more reliable car it’s easier to accept and understand.
retak
4th October 2016, 7:41
“it’s a bit odd to see one having so many problems compared to all of the other drivers with the same engine”
There can be a perfectly logical explanation to that: Mercedes being more confortable with and knowledgeable of their own engine may have pushed in ways the other teams didn’t dare to – less cooling for better areo, not limiting themselves as much as others during practices and races, etc. All these little things may have added up to more than the Mercedes engine could safely afford, resulting in the rather ironic case of the engine manufacturer having more reliability problems with their own engine than their client teams do.
mystic one (@mysticus)
4th October 2016, 22:06
that would make sense, if the problems poped up in both cars randomly… however, we see only one person’s car developing the freak coincidence while other seat’s car is almost indestructible at bumper car racing style…
retak
4th October 2016, 22:32
But once it’s just between the two Mercedes drivers it has essentially become a coin toss on who of Hamilton or Rosberg will get the next engine problem. At this point four heads in a row isn’t a particularly remarkable result anymore.
montreal95 (@montreal95)
4th October 2016, 1:34
@michal2009b I agree with you about Hamilton but please stop re-writing history. Webber did have problems with his car in 2010(though not as many as Vettel). And most seasons, Webber did have more problems with the car than Vettel(not that it would change much since Vettel was usually faster, but facts are facts). Just because it’s OT doesn’t mean you can say such things with impunity
Fudge Kobayashi (@)
4th October 2016, 10:47
Across their 5 seasons together, Webber had 10 race ending retirements to Vettel’s 9.
mateuss (@mateuss)
4th October 2016, 12:00
@montreal95 @offdutyrockstar At least 1 of those can be put to 100% Webber’s fault: 2013 Indian GP, he was constantly and heavily stressing the car on curbs going full speed, full throttle on them, bottoming out. I saw the pain and heard the terrible noise, and thought, that the car is not going to take that abuse for the full race distance, and sure enough, it did not. 0% surprise.
Point being, that driver styles have an effect on the cars, this one for me was just an obvious example. In F1, the differences between the drivers are small, but the systems in the cars are very marginal and highly stressed, so the tiny differences between drivers count heavily.
Just to state the obvious here, so that no one misunderstands what I am saying: manufacturing micro-defects, material defects, mechanics, environmental circumstances and other factors also play a role in each case to varying degrees.
Fudge Kobayashi (@)
4th October 2016, 12:43
My point was just that their reliability was pretty much equal, nothing more.
Looking at reliability across seasons is an exercise in futility though imho, drivers can be scrapping over 8th and 9th in the WDC and losing pocket change in points which has next to no importance to anything. Failures while leading races and in qualifying when competing for a WDC are a whole different ball game.
montreal95 (@montreal95)
4th October 2016, 16:12
@mateuss Maybe you’re right about that particular race. I don’t remember any Indian GP, as none of them were remarkable races. Also, how many of Vettel’s problems were of his own making? Doesn’t matter as it’s OT here. But, with regards to the issue at hand, while driver’s style can influence reliability even in this day and age, regarding suspension problems it’s impossible right now for a driver to influence reliability with regards to engine and gearbox(over-revving and gearbox breakage via rough changes are pretty much impossible with current technology). All of this means that the vast majority of reliability problems are outside the driver’s control, and has been so for over 20 years
mateuss (@mateuss)
4th October 2016, 16:41
@montreal95 Do you even own a car? Yeah, throttle application and the choice of racing line has an effect on the stresses on the transmission and PU. I am completely surprised that someone would deny that. When you go full throttle, the whole drive-train is under big stress, with small margins allowed to failure, that being the nature of F1 (and all other sports cars to a lesser degree). If you then introduce extra forces, for example, by hammering the bottom of the car on curbs and changing gear at the same time, bad stuff can happen. And the forces will be extra bad for parts with huge inertial moment, like anything in the engine and gearbox, in contrast to static parts. The floor of the cars is not suspended, and is directly connected to the engine, and so is the chassis to the engine. So the same bumps that make the drivers ache and complain, also hurt the drive-train.
montreal95 (@montreal95)
4th October 2016, 16:04
@offdutyrockstar This is a simplistic way to look at it. add in the race damaging problems, like qualifying disasters or tech problems that hampered pace in the race and you’ll see that Webber had more
Mike
4th October 2016, 0:36
Ugh.
While Riciardo and Webber make is look great, those clowns make us look like bloody muppets.
No sympathy.
stefano (@alfa145)
4th October 2016, 9:31
what are you on about?
Fudge Kobayashi (@)
4th October 2016, 10:48
The fans arrested for indecent exposure were Aussies.
sunny stivala
5th October 2016, 9:18
and the problem they ran into with the Malaysian authorities was of their own making.
beneboy (@beneboy)
4th October 2016, 12:43
It’s the sort of thing some of your rugby and cricket fans do all of the time when they’re on tour. As far as I can see, the only thing they’ve done wrong is trying to have some fun in the wrong country, if they’d done that in the UK, USA, or many other countries the police would just laugh and ask them to put their pants back on.
As a neutral observer, Australians have come out of this looking like they’re fun, Malaysians have come out of it looking like puritanical fools who overreact to an obvious bit of fun that had no malicious intent.
knoxploration
4th October 2016, 20:35
Exactly. And it’s not just Aussies, either. I’ve seen exactly the same thing — and indeed, have photos of it — at the Indy 500.
mystic one (@mysticus)
4th October 2016, 22:11
So French Police arrasting/fining/banning woman for over dressing in public beach because the woman was in the wrong country i suppose?
beneboy (@beneboy)
4th October 2016, 1:22
Viewing figures looking bad again, fewer than 650,000 peak on SKY can’t be a good sign for when they get the exclusive rights. I appreciate Sky have a different financial plan, but the sport surely can’t benefit from losing 75% or more of its viewers.
@HoHum (@hohum)
4th October 2016, 3:18
@beneboy, If they want more people to tune in they need real racing a la Dan and Max from start to finish. The only way to get 300+Km of real racing is to have tyres that can really race for 300km without drastically losing performance, I hope Liberty are smart enough to see this and act on it. Then of course there will still be the paywall problem so an instant turnaround is very unlikely.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
4th October 2016, 10:24
@hohum The best racing in the world won’t make more people tune in. Free to air broadcast will. What is the proportion of humans on Earth able to pay Sky subscription, seriously?
drmouse (@drmouse)
4th October 2016, 17:05
While I agree that would probably generate the largest audience, I doubt it would be possible while keeping F1 in any way the same. To do so, you would need equal cars and many other factors, not just better tyres. You would basically need to move to a spec series, which would destroy the spirit of F1 (in my eyes at least).
F1 has never had wheel-to-wheel racing start to finish, and it is naive to expect it to. While I believe that certain things could be done to increase the amount of action on track without ruining the team/engineering/strategy elements which make F1 what it is, I wouldn’t expect “real racing a la Dan and Max from start to finish”.
@HoHum (@hohum)
4th October 2016, 21:46
@drmouse, F1 would not need to be 1design to ensure close competition if they stopped fiddling with the regulations for the purpose of maximising profits for “investors”. In the long ago past the development race ensured that most cars were competitive even if they had different strengths and weaknesses and race long close racing scraps were regular occurrences , they are now virtually impossible because the tyres are unable to perform consistently in those circumstances.
audifan
5th October 2016, 14:52
we had that before …..boring as hell with brick hard tyres from bridgestone , just a procession
hawkii (@hawkii)
4th October 2016, 7:53
For context, most football matches on Sky in the UK (a sport hugely carried by Sky TV money – which just keeps rising) barely draw in 1,000,000 viewers. Since the Champions League went from combined Sky/ITV to BT Sport the viewing figures are so bad even UEFA have admitted their concern. Not all of those games were on pay TV either, BT made some of them free-to-view and still noone watched.
“A key element of BT’s triumphant bid for the Champions League and Europa League 2½ years ago was its pledge to show some matches – at least 12 in the former competition – free-to-air to reach the widest possible audience. But its BT Showcase channel has proven a complete flop, attracting an average peak audience of less than 200,000 for its Champions League coverage, compared to the average peak of 4.4 million who watched the play‑off round and group stages on ITV last year.”
“This runs counter to the natural order in which ratings for free-to-air sport dwarf those of equivalent programming on pay-TV. That was perfectly demonstrated last season when the average peak for all play-off round and group-stage matches involving English clubs on Sky Sports was 792,000, compared to 4.96 million on ITV.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/02/12/uefa-concerned-by-bt-sports-dismal-champions-league-viewing-figu/
Yes, the viewing numbers for F1 aren’t exactly astronomical, but they’re not all that far behind football, which in the UK is seen as every channels biggest sporting draw. Sky are happy to keep pumping more and more money into football so viewing figures don’t seem to be an issue for them.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
4th October 2016, 10:08
Football also has a lot more loyal high-paying sponsors, a lot more matches offered for the same price, and a lot of pubs who buy expensive Sky pub licensing purely for the football rights. Few British pubs buy Sky purely for the F1, or indeed purely for any content other than the football. Football’s surfeit of matches is perfect for the current generation, who can happily flit between three or more matches (whether that’s in a large pub with their friends, on their various electronic devices alone/with family, or both). In fact, there’s a lot of underutilised capacity in football – even now, pay TV does not show all 90+ football league matches that occur each week in-season live – as successive generations get better at splitting attention between matches, Sky can simply show more of them and pocket more money from doing so. That “flitting” tendency is also showing up on the F1 – it looks like a significant number of people were not watching F1 until Twitter said “Hey, look at this!” (my guess is that it wasn’t necessarily Hamilton’s engine blowout alone that was responsible, but also the simultaneous Red Bull battle, that got people through the door).
F1 as a series in itself can’t maximise “flitting”. F1’s priced such that, as far as I could see, it needed to be around 1 million subscribers to break even (assuming the advertising covered the price of production/advertising/non-Bernie-contract losses). Granted, that does not mean 1 million viewers are needed at any given race – it would be enough for the 1 million to pay for the relevant packages and then do as they please, which could allow much smaller typical figures to still be viable. It’s still not good for Sky.
If motorsport was all on one package, it might work, because it would be possible to cross-promote the different series via social media (while keeping the TV commentary spoiler-free and series-specific for those wanting to watch their “delayed as-live” races in a more traditional manner). So you could have, say, WTCC, WRC, F1 and WEC on the same platform (with a separate channel, perhaps accessible by “red button” as an additional shortcut) and put a “ping ad” when each of them has a particularly exciting moment (series, channel and quick summary of why turning over right now is a good idea) on the social media’s general channel when needed. That way, excitement-chasing internet-active viewers know where to go if they think what’s on their TV right now is a bit dull, and are still primed to come back when matters improve. Note: for this to work, spoiler-free options also need to exist, probably as series-specific social media channels. Traditionalistic “delayed as-live” people use social media too, even during races coinciding with events they don’t want spoilered, thanks to the wonders of hashtagging and restricted lists of various kinds.
I had no idea BT Showcase even existed. Is it even possible to get it if not on the BT platform? (That would naturally exclude anyone who hasn’t set up the platform, which is most non-BT-payers). This is where the power of platforms comes in. Yes, the money is in the platforms rather than the programs these days. However, in most of Europe, the most powerful platform is the default one that costs only the price of the relevant licences. Not the ones that require a secondary contract. Now, if BT Showcase was on a well-publicised Freeview channel (note: quite a lot of people either can’t get Freesat or are very limited on which Freesat channels they can get due to signal strength), it would have a much better chance of getting good viewing figures. F1 is in better territory here, since the free-to-air Sky Pick (which will have the British Grand Prix) is such a channel. But using it simply to show one full race is a pretty dismal use of resources. A “Grandstand”-style show each Sunday with the some coverage of each sport Sky has coverage for (with the possible exception of football) on other weekends would, I feel, work better – especially if there is space in the coverage to go between particularly juicy bits of action. Such would help maintain surprise factor and stop people from getting bored.
There are ways of making pay/free work, if we really must have “free” denied all the live races. But it’s going to take some imagination…
frood19 (@frood19)
4th October 2016, 11:01
@alianora-la-canta these are great ideas but i feel like you’re asking for the moon!
hawkii (@hawkii)
4th October 2016, 11:06
“There are ways of making pay/free work, if we really must have “free” denied all the live races. But it’s going to take some imagination…”
I think that’s the key idea, it’s way past the point where bemoaning the fact it’s not freeview anymore is helping in any way. More focus needs to be put on how to maximise what exists. Indeed, “Few British pubs buy Sky purely for the F1”, so the imagination to change that needs to be found somewhere. It almost definitely isn’t going to happen with the current brains trust so let’s hope Liberty have the ideas necessary.
Tiomkin
4th October 2016, 11:20
@alianora-la-canta BTShowcase is on freeview ch59. It normally just shows adverts for BT TV so nobody watches it. If they do actually show something useful on it nobody would even know about it. The only people in the know are pay-tv customers. That is the problem with paywalls. What happens behind them is unknown to the vast majority. That is why Pay-TV fails. It cannot effectively get the message out to non subscribers. F1 will tank even if the occasional GP is shown free, nobody would know to be interested.
F1 is in this sorry state because a few short sighted fans decided to pay SKY and not boycott its offerings. If people pay they will be squeezed for more money every year until they too give up. Then SKY will drop it like they did last time. If it fails to make money they don’t care.
sonia luff (@sonia54)
4th October 2016, 16:20
I get BT SPORT in with my BT broadband
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
5th October 2016, 0:30
@Tiomkin Thank you very much for that. Having never seen a Freeview TV channel above 52 on a TV list (maybe that says something about signal in my area), I didn’t realise it was possible for a TV channel to have a number as big as 59 on that platform (as opposed to Freesat)…
MtlRacer (@mtlracer)
4th October 2016, 1:56
If Hamilton does not win the championship, it’s because he got beaten by a better driver this year, end of story. No conspiracies, no sabotage, and certainly no “higher power”!
@HoHum (@hohum)
4th October 2016, 3:20
Or a luckier driver.@mtlracer
knoxploration
4th October 2016, 20:36
But then Hamilton himself has been pretty lucky over the years, too, so that’s just part and parcel of being beaten by a better driver.
audifan
5th October 2016, 14:56
rosberg has been trying to beat him for many years , never yet succeeded because hamilton is so much better than he is
Martijn (@)
4th October 2016, 9:49
You’re are right about the no conspiracy, no sabotage and certainly no higher power part. But wrong about the better driver part. He then (if it happens) got beaten beacause of having more bad luck than his team mate.
knoxploration
4th October 2016, 20:41
And for years, he’s been the beneficiary of better luck than his teammates. Did anybody say “Well no, he’s not the better driver, he’s just lucky?” Nope. And that cuts both ways.
Lancer033 (@lancer033)
5th October 2016, 0:08
In an even match no problems from either side, Hamilton wins more often than not. Sometimes Rosberg can hold him off long enough and sometimes Rosberg has a better day, but overall, Hamilton is a better driver.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
4th October 2016, 2:15
The Malaysians are righteous for arresting those fans. I hope they go easy on them, just bureaucracy stuff and a small fine and then go home. Kudos to RedBull for actually letting both drivers race, they really did realise that by saying anything they would do more harm than good, even losing both cars there would be in the long term better than calling team orders. I guess RedBull saw what happened in Bahrain 2014, when Mercedes tried not to sound like they were issuing team orders and both drivers totally disregarded Lowe’s words.
duncan idaho
4th October 2016, 2:23
bathers, bathers…undies…bathers, bathers
@HoHum (@hohum)
4th October 2016, 3:07
cossies,cossies, …trunks, whatever.
Aussie 1
4th October 2016, 10:28
There called budgie smugglers and they look totally undersized.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
4th October 2016, 10:36
Fine and deportation is the standard response, though given the profile of the race the authorities may decide to be stricter than that. This clearly wasn’t an accidental exposure and although they may have thought it was a bit of harmless fun, they really should have worked out that it was going to go down about as well as a punctured tyre with the police.
Kazihno (@kazinho)
4th October 2016, 3:04
The “Insult to Malaysia” story is now front page news in Australia because it has been revealed that one of the arrested is an advisor to an Australian Government Minister. It is now a full-blown diplomatic row.
BasCB (@bascb)
4th October 2016, 6:15
:-)
Evil Homer (@)
4th October 2016, 11:19
Yes he is, an advisor to Christopher Payne I think. They had the ‘budgie smugglers’ made here and took them over- that wont help their case. A bit of fun blown out of proportion I think but you also need to remember the rules & customs of what country you are visiting, if done here in Australia or a few other countries the cops would have been ‘ok boys, funs over put your clothes back on’.
Aussie Flag budgies would have helped as well! :)
BasCB (@bascb)
4th October 2016, 6:17
Funny reading how much damage Kimi had and that this was the reason why he couldn’t drive faster to try and get close enough to Rosberg for the podium. When we consider that the higher strat thing enabled Rosberg to gain almost 2 seconds a lap, and even without it, when back to saving mode, he was as fast as Kimi, the Ferrari just did not have the speed even without damage.
Strontium (@strontium)
4th October 2016, 10:42
@bascb exactly, if they had the speed they would have been challenging them all weekend. It would have been Ferrari going for the win fighting with Red Bull.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
4th October 2016, 16:22
Yeah, I dont believe a word they say .. What is 10 points of downforce? Like 100N at 200km/h or is that even less?
Kimi was slow as hell before contact(his car not driver alone). Taht is why Nico was able to catch up to him so fast and then pull away at an impressive rate.
BasCB (@bascb)
4th October 2016, 6:41
When looking at those audience numbers, seeing how many fans tuned out after Hamilton’s car went bang, shows the risk of going full out “hammy fan” like especially Sky have been doing. Off course C4 is far from the BBCs numbers too, but I guess that was probably expected all along.
Still, it shows the TV shows are not doing a great job of enticing interest in the fascinating season, just when Red Bull are getting close enough to make it tougher for Mercedes and the title battle is open enough and with swings of fortune for the 2 fighting it out at Mercdedes.
Evil Homer (@)
4th October 2016, 11:34
Keith- do you have any figures comparing TV viewing over the past few years & also F1 compared to Moto GP, especially if they race in the same country or at the same circuit. Moto seems to have a bit of a jump of late and would be interesting to compare to F1. I know BE sees TV ratings as the be all, end all but for a country wanting to host a new race track attendances would be more important to them for cash into the economy.
JimG (@jimg)
4th October 2016, 16:20
I really don’t understand this channel loyalty. I’ve watched F1 on BBC, ITV, BBC and now C4. The quality of the presentation has varied, but I’m watching F1 not the channel (if you see what I mean).
Neel Jani (@neelv27)
4th October 2016, 9:19
I can’t buy into the argument of Ferrari failing for a podium because of damage to the car. Kumk was anyway going to loose the third place to Nico anyway. Just gives them a nice excuse for the press.
Neel Jani (@neelv27)
4th October 2016, 10:03
*Kimi – sometimes autocorrect is a pain 😃
Robbie (@robbie)
4th October 2016, 12:27
Kimi certainly wasn’t complaining about Nico’s move after the race, and also seemed to agree contact or not he just didn’t have the pace.
Phil-F1-21
4th October 2016, 14:27
The only way to encourage new audiences is to keep an F1 presence on free-to-air tv or on a dedicated motorsport channel that does not cost the earth. If it goes behind a pay-wall in every country then the sport is in serious danger of dying out completely as far as new viewers are concerned. Liberty ought to be able to figure this out.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
4th October 2016, 16:26
Red Bull now claim no team orders… Yet.after the final pitstop it all seemed lile formation flying.
Gabriel (@rethla)
4th October 2016, 19:07
Formation flying with Verstappen overdriving the car and slipping like mad and Daniel being rock solid. If you think Verstappen took a teamorder you didnt watch much of the race or this season.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
4th October 2016, 21:00
@jureo The final pit stop neutralised the tyre life difference between them. Verstappen wasn’t going to catch Ricciardo any more than Hamilton was going to catch Rosberg at Monza.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
4th October 2016, 21:37
Maybe I was misslead by Martin Brundle commentary then.
Changes my perspective for the better.