F1 Fanatic

The season opener in Melbourne has delivered somewhat some of Pirelli’s expectations; different tyre strategies opted by teams at last although the degradation of the compounds personally i think is less than they expected. As us most F1 Fanatics are all aware, the differential in tyre compounds has decreased to 0.6secs per lap as opposed to the 0.8-1.0secs per lap seen in previous seasons, a notable comparison of the lap times of the Medium & Soft compounds were Lewis Hamilton’s Primes & Sebastian Vettel’s Options during the 2nd stint. Vettel & Hamilton were running in very close company at the time. Discuss!

To be honest, the tyres worked really well in my opinion. The race was full of cars having their rear tyres fall off the cliff, and the varying strategies was interesting, however I think maybe that was down to a few drivers being in the wrong part of the grid, but I hope I’m wrong!

How can you say that they worked better??? How is it possible that Button´s SOFT were able to go 2 seconds a lap quicker than Hamilton´s SOFT??? They are both the “same” tyres, they have the same car… I just don´t get it…
How do you explain Mercedes losing its speed in race???
I tell you…. we need to bring back the tyre war… Pireli being sole tyre supplier isn´t good… it´s a good way to manipulate racing… If Pirelli had competition… they would try to make better tyres….
Anybody that started in front of SV or JB had bad starts….. Grosjean´s Lotus which proved to be quick… got passed by both mercedes…. Hamilton lost the lead… Vettel passed Webber… too many coincidences for me….
They had bad starts?? Too much wheelspin?? Well that tends to happen when a tyre is of a harder compound and the guys have their clutch set for a specific type of launch…. they expected the “soft” tyres they had on to grip and were just in for a surprise…
That might explain… bad starts, loss of pace, GAIN of pace (Ferrari, at least Alonso´s and keep in mind I´m a Ferari fan, AND SV´s RB8)…. It just sucks…

@raymondu999
I´m in no way trying to be cynical dude… but seriously…. think about it… Qualifying showed everybody´s potential… up to that moment…
It was clear as day to me… Ferrari sucks…. and we´re in for another season like 2011 and please keep in mind that I´m a ferrari fan. I don´t doubt Alonso´s skills but even he can´t make a car go THAT much quicker than what was shown up until Q2…
Mercedes… was hella quick and all of a sudden they´re snails??
RBR only manage to be 5th and 6th… and all of a sudden… SV is quicker than Mark Again???
JB NEVER had the upper hand over Hamilton during Q1, Q2 or Q3… and yet… in race, he clocks 2 seconds a lap quicker than Hamilton??

And I´ll just throw this out there… what was up with JB´s message after Q3?? I´ve never heard comments like those after Qualifying… and lets not go with the messages AFTER the race! “Welcome back 2009?” What the hell??? Is that what we´re in for again??? And I´m also gonna throw this out there… Why is it hard to fathom the fact that the safety car was planned?? It has happened before! And I just find it curious that BOTH McLarens and SV´s RB8 changed tyres before the SC came out! And I also find it curious that it was Petrov… with Steering problems?? If by that they mean loss of power steering… he could´ve perfectly have driven down to the end of the pitlane and park it right there… not in the middle of the straight! And finally… it´s funny it´s Petrov… somebody that got signed at the last minute and that he´s there because there is future Russian Gp coming up! Weird…
You may call me cynical if you like… I just try to think “outside the box”… I was really optimistic it was going to be a great season when I saw the qualifying sessions but all that was shattered come race day…
I´m glad a McLaren won…. I´m not happy it was JB because this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4BC3KXwbAM certainly does make me question things a bit… What are those two guys doing riding around with Bernie??

@jack22 a big part of the quick Merc quali pace was because they had their special system on the DRS which gave them a HELL of a boost. In qualifying you can use that everywhere – in the race you can’t use that; so the advantage was gone. The Ferrari never showed their true pace. They would’ve been somewhere 7th or 8th on the grid; really. Alonso made a mistake in Q2 which meant he could no longer put in laps. If he had I have no doubt he would have made at least 7th or 8th place on the grid.

JB and SV have been better masters of the Pirelli rubber than LH and MW have. A LARGE part of the pace advantage would be due to that. SV actually pitted AFTER the safety car came out by the way. And with the rules as they are since 2010 – pitting before a safety car is very bad for the drivers who pit.

I don’t know Petrov’s problem exactly. Fairuz Fauzy was able to clock in 28 laps a few years back on a car without power steering so that might not be it. It could be that he has lost the steering – ie he turns the wheel and nothing happens on the tyres.

It’s good to think outside the box. I make my living off of myself and others thinking outside the box. But thinking outside the box doesn’t always make something the right thought.

The way @prisoner-monkeys describes the ways Lewis and JB heat tyres isn’t true – but I agree with the rest of his post.