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Should Webber retire at the end of this year? (36 posts)

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raymondu999 said 1 year, 6 months ago:

Somehow I think Mark would rather be half a tenth slower with his knees rather than half a tenth quicker without :P

I would honestly not blame Mark for that incident actually; the RB was the Sector 3 killer in the race; and McLaren was the Sector 1 killer. Problem is; you can’t overtake in Sector 3; you can overtake in sector 1. Don’t forget the RBs this year have always chosen to set their car up for (in the race) best clear air pace. DRS would just have meant Mark was bouncing on the limiter; and would only have helped him in acceleration

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Njack said 1 year, 6 months ago:

With regards to the weight difference between the 2 espnf1 has Vettel listed as 58kg and Webber at 75kg.

http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/driver/1247.html

http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/driver/1214.html

Another article I read recently in the lead up to the singapore gp had Vettel listed as 66kg though.

DC said the weight difference between the two was worth a tenth in F1 Racing magazine earlier in the year.

Marks had some ridiculous ill fortune this year. IIRC he’s had:

Australia – Chassis issue.

Malaysia – KERS faliure on warm up lap.

China – Qualifying mix up.

Spain – Alonso’s magic start then Ferrari pitting on the same lap for both the first two stops.

Monaco – Pit stop stuff up.

Canada – Hamsta.

Belgium – radio mix up for pitting in safety car period.

Suzuka – DRS not working out of spoon on Q3 run.

IMO he’s lost enough points to possibly cost him second in the championship. His poor starts and being unable to max the car in qualifying consistently also cost him many points.

If he finished where he qualifyed he’d have 257 points instead of his current 221, and that’s including 18th for the china stuff up.

Hopefully he’ll get around his tyre issues next year and give Vettel a close run.

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AdrianMorse said 1 year, 6 months ago:

I don’t think Webber should retire. On a number of occasions – not many, but enough to inspire hope that he can still do it – he has challenged Vettel. If next year he can up his game just a little, and his teammate doesn’t have another ridiculously perfect season, then it can still be a worthwhile season for Mark and his fans.

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raymondu999 said 1 year, 6 months ago:

@Njack
Basically the lighter you are; you have more ballast to play around with, so you’re more flexible in terms of weight distribution. Even if you’re using the same weight distribution back to front; the lighter driver can place his ballast lower for a lower center of gravity. If a circuit was so extreme that you would need to have a lot of weight to the front; or a lot of weight to the rear; then the lighter driver would have the advantage because the heavier driver simply doesn’t have enough ballast. But the weight distribution part of it is eliminated this year. On circuit such as maybe… Silverstone or Suzuka; or Monaco; that might have meant UP TO a tenth. But this year weight distribution is fixed; and the only advantage is center of gravity.

Australia was a front wing rather than a chassis issue – just a slight factual correction.

I’m not sure you could blame China qualifying on a mixup. That Red Bull; on prime tyres; was fast enough to go into Q2 as Seb showed. Mark on that day in history just wasn’t as quick in qualifying.

I hadn’t heard anything about DRS out of Spoon in Suzuka though – do you maybe have a link of a quote or something?

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Njack said 1 year, 6 months ago:

http://www.redbull.com/cs/Satellite/en_INT/Article/Mark-Webber-interview-after-Qualifying-Japanese-Grand-Prix-021243098960854

Got it wrong, he says he pushed the drs button early out of the hairpin on the run down to spoon so it didn’t activate, which doesn’t make sense unless RB have added some sort of system to avoid something like Sutils spin in Melbourne?

He lost 6 tenths in comparison to Vettel in the second sector and was even 3 tenths slower than Alonso who was fifth.

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raymondu999 said 1 year, 6 months ago:

I don’t think 6 tenths would have been down to this alone; but it would have played a part in the 6 tenths. Sector 2 shows a lot of driver; and has several corners where a driver can really shine (a la Monaco)

I don’t think they have a system that doesn’t deploy DRS when there’s not enough grip; but I think maybe Mark wasn’t 100% full throttle yet and that meant the DRS didn’t engage.

Which I find very weird; Mark seems to do that a lot. He ballsed up qualifying in Hungary the same way.

Which kind of brings up the question; why did Ciaron not tell him about it during the lap?

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