McLaren claim pit stop record

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: McLaren say they set a new record for the fastest pit stop stationary time in the European Grand Prix

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

McLaren: pit stop ‘not the norm’ (The Telegraph)

“Mercedes were the previous record holders of the fastest stationary pit stop, achieving a time similar to McLaren’s 2.6s in Korea last year. But the Woking team believe they were just quicker.”

Three teams still on for Silverstone test (Autosport)

“Discussions have taken place over the past two Grands Prix to try and resolve the matter, and it now appears that at least three teams – believed to include Marussia, HRT and Williams – are now planning to run on the Thursday and Friday after the British GP.”

McLaren predicts fierce development (ESPN)

Sam Michael: “I think the development rate this year is going to be really fierce because in the past there were things that maybe for half a tenth you would have lumped into something else, but it’s not like that now. 50 milliseconds is one place this year, sometimes two places, so you’re going to be bringing gains that are tinier and tinier. It would be interesting to see what the gap between the top 10-15 is like from the start of the year, because it feels like it’s getting tighter and tighter.”

European GP Review (Williams)

Chief operations engineer Mark Gallagher: “Obviously the team were disappointed to see one of our cars sustain damage so close to the end of the race when we were showing good pace, but we respect the decision taken by the stewards. Both Pastor [Maldonado] and the team have moved on and the focus is now on achieving a good result at Silverstone.”

Martin Whitmarsh: “These days everything is a surprise…” (Adam Cooper)

“At the end [Lewis Hamilton] was clearly and obviously struggling on the tyres. Twenty nine laps on either tyre was going to be a challenge, and it proved very difficult to do. If you stopped early you were taking a big risk, so it was difficult to come through that one.”

GP Of America Making ‘Significant Progress,’ Spokesman Says (Speed)

Alex Howe: “Nothing has changed in the last two weeks, since we hosted Sebastian Vettel and David Coulthard as the first drivers from F1 to try out the new circuit. We continue to make significant progress toward the first race in June 2013, in all aspects.”

Circuit officials offer to send county staffers to London race (Statesman)

“Local Formula One organisers have offered to pay airfare and other expenses for two Travis County employees to observe the arrangements for a race in England next week, a move the county judge endorses.”

Vijay Mallya Q&A: Force India on target for podium (F1)

“We want to be on the podium. I think we’re close to it now.”

Will Mercedes offer Schumacher a new contract? (BBC)

“They are known to be interested in Hamilton, the only one of the big three who is potentially available to take his place. But Hamilton may well not be available – he seems more likely to either stick with McLaren or to try to persuade Red Bull they should take him on given the reasonable possibility they could lose Vettel to Ferrari at the end of next year.”

Alonso sails serenely (Sky)

Martin Brundle: “To suggest the safety car was a tactical deployment to spice up the racing is nonsense. We saw as they pushed Vettel’s and other cars away at various times just how difficult it is for the marshals to clear the track at that circuit between the walls and with limited internal service access.”

Sexism in F1 or just playing to the target audience? (The really bad F word)

“Perhaps if there was a female driver or two, she would have hunky men at her car with bulging muscles wearing a stretchy tight tank top? I still cannot see this happening any time soon though.”

Comment of the day

Does unreliability make F1 races more exciting? SirCoolbeans is hatching a plan:

It was fun to see reliability issues return, it’s not a nice way to exit a Grand Prix, but it really spiced up the show.

So, overtaking and reliability issues make for entertaining races, maybe we need another button on the steering wheel that the driver presses in a designated zone, it will ‘roll a dice’ and give them a 1 in 100 chance of having their car forced to break down, but only if they are leading by more than some arbitrary time.

It could be called the Reliability Determination System or RDS, it would sit well next to DRS.
SirCoolbeans

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151 comments on “McLaren claim pit stop record”

  1. McLaren, what exactly is the point in bragging about the fastest ever pitstop if the very next one you do is a complete shambles (like about half of them so far this season) and costs your driver about 12 seconds in the race?

    1. Lets compare their AVERAGE pit stop time with Ferrari, RBR etc. and see if they want to brag about that.

      1. I completely agree. I think Lewis Hamilton would rather have two 3.5-second pit stops during a race than a 2.6 and a 15.0!

        1. very true,
          but what they didnt say was the jack was hit too hard by Lewis Hamilton
          and bent a rod which releases the jack, hence the reason it kept failing,
          if you look at others jacks they have a guard in front to take the hits but i guess they thought it would make it lighter making it even quicker to remove.

    2. In canada HRT had the top speeds in the speed trap, and they didn’t make a fuss about it. So shut up and keep practising boys.

      1. Probably because they had no brakes!

    3. You don’t think that setting the fastest stop of all time is in any way notable?

      1. It’s notable, but when in context with the rest of the race and weekend, it’s pretty academic. As a poster has said above, the HRTs were fastest through the speed trap in Canada. Also, Luca Badoer was fastest through the speed trap in Belgium 2009 during practice and qualifying, but managed to qualify last whilst Raikkonen went on to win the race.

      2. Nah, not really. Speed has not been their issue efficiency, consistency and organization has. 2.6 then 15.0, case in point.
        It like potential, they can but they have not.

    4. Mclaren claim pit stop record and the comedy awards.

    5. @sam3110 @hohum The point is that the slow stop had absolutely nothing to do with the pit crew. The front jack failed. It just collapsed, there was no human error. I see no problem with them being happy that on the human side they’ve improved immensely.

      1. The point is that the slow stop had absolutely nothing to do with the pit crew. The front jack failed. It just collapsed, there was no human error

        I must disagree, McLaren developed that jack and despite knowing that it failed numerous times in practice decided to use it in the race. A human made that decision to use it and it is quite obvious they made an error in deciding to do so. The front jack failing was a result of a human error.
        But on the positive side, it does show they are trying to improve, so good on them for that.

        So yeah well done to them for making a fast one but with their record this season, it does seem a bit silly to tell the world about it. One could argue they are “bragging” about it although they probably mentioned it as a morale booster for their pit crew and the media are running away with it a bit, but like I said just before; it is a bit silly to do so in the public eye when looking at their track record this season.

        1. @julian No. It was a new and untested jack so everything you say about human error is false.

          1. @timi
            That is exactly what he says. The jack isn’t new and untested by it self. Someone decided that proper testing it wasn’t necessary. It was a human error, because it was a human decision that meant that the jack failed.
            Had they tested it properly they would have found out they had made a mistake and then redesigned it.

          2. @timi
            I was under the impression from ted kravits that the jack was tested in practice. If it wasn’t, that’s even worse! (as @mads explained above)

      2. Dont forget that when the backup jack-man was supposed to lift the car up, he only did it partially so they were not able to put on the wheels properly because the car was not fully off the ground. this cost them about 6 seconds. even with a front jack failure it shouldn’t take McLaren 15+ seconds. Thats why they have the backup jack at the ready. going forward, they must make sure that the backup jack man is trained to operate it.

    6. I think its good that McLaren thanks the guys for their efforts this way @sam3110
      These guys have been made fun of, scowled and laughed at for bungled and slow pitstops this year. And they did manage to get a great team effort in that fully deserves being talked about. Remember its a team sport and kudos to the guys volunteering for the job after all that.

      Sure the next stop went wrong, but there’s not much McLaren would want to say about that, is there. Its clear to everyone that it got Hamilton into a bad position, and he jack did not work. As @Julian writes, it was a new and untested one. And it showed. Isn’t it great to see the team pushing like this, instead of playing it safe and boring?

    7. Not only did they cost Hamilton 12 seconds in the pit stop, but they also cost him his third place, which quite probably would have led to him being in the lead. Yes, Raikkonnen did pass him at the end, but if he was in a better position to begin with, (and wasn’t trying to compensate for a bad pitstop) he might have survived till the end of the race. I would much rather have had two mediocre pit stops than this.

      1. It is certainly less likely he would have been anywhere near Maldonado at the end of the race! LOL

    8. Is like a football team bragging about scoring the fastest goal in the league after they completely lost the game lol.

    9. They can claim both the fastest and the slowest pit stops.
      LOL

  2. “Bragging about pit stops” is one of the least intelligent things McLaren could do, right up there with replacing Hamilton with Karthikeyan.

  3. Re COTD, we used to have a button like that, the drivers operated it with their right foot, depressing it all the way gave you more speed but there was that chance that something might break and slow you down or stop you completely and create a huge cloud of smoke to entertain the spectators.

    1. I would seriously consider this comment for COTD @hohum, reliability comes from having safety margins built in almost all components now (as there’s a limit to their allowed maximum power technically it can run much higher than is used, and improved quality control and diagnosis instruments help establish the margin).

      1. There is a Rev limit, not a power limit.

        1. @asanator, Correct, a rev limit, no extra revs = no extra speed = no extra risk of failure. If you can argue that the drivers should be able to manage the tyres then you can argue that they should be able to manage the engine. copy to @bascb

  4. mclaren has another pit stop record:
    2 front jack failures in 1 stop

    “Local Formula One organisers have offered to pay airfare and other expenses for two Travis County employees to observe the arrangements for a race in England next week, a move the county judge endorses.”

    seriously, this should have been done ages ago, and often. what kind of half-assery is going on in austin?

    1. Spot on.

      If they can’t find nobody in their organization to fix the pit mess, they should outsource.

  5. Force India on the podium? Mallya has been saying this since 2010….hope it comes true this time

    1. He was saying this since 2008….and he achieved a podium in 2009 with Fisi in Spa

      1. I think Sutil got a 3rd in Monza as well.

        1. Nope, he got fourth in 2009. To date, Force India’s only podium was Fisichella at Spa.

        2. No, he was fourth behind Barrichello, Button, and Raikkonen.

      2. @icemangrins no dude, Mallya said in 2008 said that he hopes to be on the podium at the maiden IndianGP.

    2. @malleshmagdum – I doubt it will. Force India have really failed to capitalise on their momentum from last year. Of all the midfield teams, they’ve made the least progress. Lotus, Sauber and Williams all been getting a lot of attention with their on-track performances, which Force India haven’t been able to muster up. Mallya has since been talking up the team’s prospects, probably to compensate for their lack of breathtaking performances.

      1. You could argue that they’ve been a bit more consistent than Sauber and Williams, if also much more anonymous.

        Unfortunately for them, the points system is finally rewarding the podiums in this mixed up season…

    3. @malleshmagdum Me, too. The drivers deserve it and the team deserves it even more. At Valencia, Hulkenberg was actually very close to making the podium. It would be great if Force India finished on the podium at the Indian GP, I imagine it would give another boost to F1’s popularity in the country.

      1. i don’t know if u live in India @girts The F1 reporting here is terrible! F1 news is prepared by journalists who dont follow the sport. A podium will surely improve it.

        1. I live in India, and yes, it is terrible to say the least. Some can’t even pronounce Formula 1 – “Formuula One”

          and I am tired of Steve Slater’s blunders and Paula Malai Ali’s casualness. To add to it, Steve Slater has met it’s match in Gary Paffett. Oh! I miss Karun Chandok and Chris Goodwin.

          1. @neelv27 @girts I really hv no problem with Star Sports. But look at the news. In 2008, whn a Force India retired due to tech issue, news would be ‘Sutil crashes out’. And after the Canadian GP, NDTV being a top news sports channel in its headlines said ‘Hamilton wins ahead of Alonso’….doesnt get worse than this! They dont even Romain Grosjean and Sergio Perez! All they knw is ‘Ferrari, mclaren, redbull, force india, and names a few top drivers!’

          2. I hate the fact when the media brings in the nationality quotient in Formula 1.

          3. @neelv27 haven’t u seen the Japanese, they always prefer their drivers. Nothing wrong in bringing nationality in F1. And yes, F1 awareness is low. U knw, whn i told a classmate abt the Force India car in the stadium in IPL, he said ‘oh yeah, the one for man of the match!’..,other guy asked ‘Is F1 the sport with the red cars?’..,anthr guy didnt knw who Schumacher is! And we Indians think that Sachin Tendulkar is recognized everywhere! @girts

          4. @malleshmagdum I agree that media usually focuses on the local drivers. The German TV always talk a lot about Vettel, show short movies about him and try to interview all the German drivers before and after the race. You’ll never see them interviewing di Resta or Kovalainen, only the Germans and, less often, the top drivers. I admit that it sometimes gets excessive and annoying but that’s just the way it is so I’d be very surprised if the Indian TV didn’t focus on Karthikeyan and Force India. Furthermore, all the sports that are popular in my country, have long tradition here and / or are represented by strong local sportsmen. For example, F1 will never be in the news before ice hockey. And it’d take really a lot to make cricket popular in the Eastern Europe so I can imagine how it is with F1 in India.

        2. @malleshmagdum I don’t live in India and, unfortunately, I have never visited your country, too. But I really like Force India and I enjoyed watching last year’s Indian Grand Prix a lot, it has already become one of my favourite races.

          As for the media coverage, I think it will improve but it will take some time. It’s a bit complicated if F1 has no history in the country. I live in Latvia and the media coverage of F1 here is pretty average, too. The journalists mainly publish translations of articles from the British F1 websites. But I don’t blame them for doing that because they don’t have enough resources to create something more original and better and I believe there wouldn’t be enough demand for a high quality content in Latvian, too. I watch F1 on German TV and sometimes read German websites and magazines but even they cannot meet the high UK media standards. So I really hope for more success by Indians in F1 but it’s likely that one will need to speak English to get the best content anyway.

          1. @girts every F1 fan in India speaks English. F1 news in non-english media is non existent

          2. @malleshmagdum That’s interesting! But why is it so? As far as I know, Hindi is spoken by hundreds of millions of people, why is there no F1 coverage in Hindi?

          3. @girts u probably don’t know Hindi isnt a native language to most Indians. This should help http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers_in_India Ignore the 41% native speakers of Hindi. The language has many dialects which totally differ from Hindi, but they aren’t recognized as languages. Most Indians speak 3 to 4 languages. Native speakers of Hindi belong to North India. South Indian languages completely differ from Hindi. Consider my case- native lang is Kannada, i speak English, Hindi. Here in South, Hindi is spoken as a 3rd language(and most South Indian ppl cannot speak Hindi at all), and since almost all F1 viewers are in South India, where we prefer English over Hindi, we dont have Hindi broadcast. Infact when Karthikeyan made his debut in 2005, we had Tamil(his native language) broadcast available.

          4. @girts Before the Buddh Circuit was built, Motorsports in India were held only in Coimbatore and Chennai(Madras), which is India’s motorsport capital. Both cities are in the Southern state of Tamil Nadu. Most top Indian racers are from Bangalore, Chennai(Chandhok) and Coimbatore(Karthikeyan)…………It surprised me when BIC was built in the north Indian city of Noida, where F1 viewership is low.

          5. @malleshmagdum Thank you very much, I never knew all these facts about India. In fact, they made me even more interested in your country. Just one more question – do you have any promising young drivers that could possibly get promoted to F1 in the future?

          6. Mate, you see India has an average literacy rate of 74.04% and majority of the population resides in rural areas.

            Formula 1 is a complicated and technical sport for a layman to understand. I have been asked questions like:

            Why do cars keep going on the same road?
            How can the guy get a fair chance to win if he starts last?
            NK finished 22nd? He is a bad driver
            MSC finished 8th? Hmm… he doesn’t seem interested in driving

            I mean you get people, confidently passing judgements on a sport they hardly understand. It reached the summit of idiocy when our very own Sports Minister said that, “F1 is not a sport”

            Cricket is far simpler to understand and with the level on intellect, very few will understand F1.

            I recommend you watch BBC Indian GP race build up, and people were not even aware that a GP is going to happen in a few days time.

    4. @malleshmagdum Had Hulkenberg’s KERS not failed in Valencia he could have been on the podium on Sunday.

      He was only passed by Schumacher and Webber with two laps to go. Had his KERS not failed earlier in the race they would have got to him later and found it harder to pass him.

  6. McLaren are glossing over Lewis’ bad pit stop saying “ultimately it made no difference” whereas ultimately if Lewis had been 10 seconds further up the track Maldonado would not have had the opportunity to crash into him. McLaren are to be given credit for admitting a problem and making good progress in solving it and the equipment failure was difficult to forsee but pretending it did not significantly affect Hamiltons WDC chances is foolish at best.

    1. OmarR-Pepper (@)
      27th June 2012, 1:31

      Hey @hohum , I hadn’t thought about that, about Lewis scaping from MAD-donado if the pitstop would have been right.

      1. The link doesn’t. Is there something else I should know?

        1. @hohum Oh no haha, I’m saying “This.” because you are spot on with your assessment

          1. Oh, thanks, took me ages to learn that LOL was not ” Little Old Lady”as it used to be in classified car ads.

    2. He wouldn’t have been another 10 seconds up the road as his second pit stop was behind the saftey car.
      The major impact of the slow stop was to drop HAM behind ALO – not sure this had any impact on the endgame…

      1. @plushpile actually he would have been further up the road, the pitstop cost him more than 10 seconds, after the restart as he had to pass cars, without the pitstop he would of had a chance of running in clear air (maybe even leading the race and not damaging his tyres so much). I have no doubt that that pitstop effectively put him and Maldonado next to each other come the end of the race.

    3. Like Eddie Jordan said on Sunday, Lewis bad pit stop exposed him to Maldonado later on the race, if they managed to provide him a top class pit service he was a potential winner looking at Seb’s and Romain’s alternator failures that happened laps later.

      1. Because Eddie Jordan is a genuine insightful person and not just as master of retrospect.

        He’s about as consistent as Malonaldo at his point.

        1. @optimaximal I think he was being comical.

  7. Hard to believe that McLaren would make a big deal out of that one quick pit stop, given the absolute mess they made of the next one. There seems to be some gremlins haunting Hamilton’s box this year.
    Different subject … has Ferrari given any explanation for Alonso stopping on track after the race? I’ve not been able to find anything written about that.

    1. Rational exuberance !?

    2. Why would they give any explanation for that?

      1. blah blah blahing
        27th June 2012, 4:27

        because alonso said in the press conference that he had stopped because of a problem?

    3. So the course workers could give Alonso stuffed animals, flags, and tungsten ingots to drop into the chassis for the weigh-in? Kidding aside, isn’t there a rule about not coming into contact with others before coming back to parc? I seem to remember Hamilton getting a finger-wag for this when he went outside the steel gating in the winner’s circle after a win a couple years ago.

  8. Early summer and already it’s going to be 106 F. degrees in Austin, when is the race scheduled? I wonder what the track temp. will be if it is not at the end of the season, and who will be the tyre winners and losers if it is this hot on race day.

    1. @hohum The race is in November.

      1. Thanks, @CarolinaBlue704, November…..Hmmm could be a cold Noreaster in November.

        1. @hohum The average high temperature in Austin during November is over 70 °F. It should be fine.

  9. OmarR-Pepper (@)
    27th June 2012, 1:30

    Longest time on pits right? or the biggest number of races spoiled to just one driver, or tell me some truth because their shortest time on pits is nothing compared to every race’s Hamilton dramas. Hamilton fixed their terrible performance and he was about to fix it again this time… well plain bad luck as well as Romain and Seb. Alonso grabbed all that luck for him this weekend :(((

    1. @omarr-pepper Oh well it’s motor racing, it happens, but the annoying thing is it’s happening too often for Lewis lol.

  10. I don’t get it – because Hamilton’s second stop was a disaster, the fact that his first stop was the fastest ever is somehow invalidated? If anything, McLaren’s ability to produce that stop proves that they are improving. The disaster that was their second stop only proves that they are not improving as quickly as they (and everyone else) would like to.

    1. They should be concentrating on avoiding things like a sticking wheel nut, failing jack, running over wheels. these are things that cost Lewis track positions this year. Thats where their effort should go. Once they have a fool proof process and ultra reliable equipment, then they can focus on shaving off some tenths of a second off their stationary time.

      Its like bragging that your factory production line can make a car in less than 20 mins ( a record). But actually 5 out of 10 cars are flawed and unusable. The priorities have to shift from outright speed to consistency.

      1. Exactly, I agree with this. They are running before they can walk. A 2.6-second pit stop doesn’t matter if the next one is 14 seconds. The average is still 8.3 seconds. If they focused on ironing out the errors and put in consistent 3-second pit stops it would be much better.

    2. I don’t get it ether. A lot of people are saying Mclaren shouldn’t be bragging about it, but we should also remember that they were probably asked about it.

    3. @prisoner-monkeys, Just bad luck eh ?

  11. I just heard an insane rumour that Max Chilton will replace Timo Glock at Silverstone. Chilton’s father bought Carlin, which runs in GP2 with Marussia’s support. He also apparently bought Lloyds’ stake in Virgin before they became Marussia. Somehow, this translates into Marussia getting rid of their best driver for the sake of a pay driver witha rich father.

    1. @prisoner-monkeys Considering how long I’ve been following F1, I find these rumours always amusing. It would at least be a good indicator of how good Timo is to see a ‘pay driver’ take his place for one race.
      The other thing is, what are the qualifying requirements for a driver to enter F1? How do you get this elusive “Super License” and has Max Chilton qualified to get one?

      1. @chalky – There are several ways to get one. Most of these require winning (or in some cases, placing in) certain FIA-designated championships, but you can also get one by completing 300km of testing. Chilton drove for Force India at last year’s Young Driver Tests, so he may have done enough to qualify for one. It’s his only way forward, since he hasn’t won any of the designated championships; the closest he came was fourth in the 2008 British Formula 3 championship, and you pretty much need to win or come second to get get a superlicence there.

      2. he drove for Force India in the young drivers test last year so he must have a super license. and as long as he is in the 107% rule he can race.

        1. I didn’t think you needed a super license for testing, but only for entering an actual Grand Prix. Correct me if I’m wrong.

          1. You don’t need a superlicence for testing – but you can earn one from testing. I think what vjanik is trying to say is that since Chilton tested for Force India, he probably has a superlicence from it.

      3. It’s also interesting that this is coming up right after Glock pulled out of a race because he was feeling sick. Coincidence or Glock finding out about Chilton and throwing the toys out of the pram?

        Ok maybe that’s a bit of a stretch…

        1. That’s probably reading far too much into it. For one, it’s hard to fake an intestinal infection and convince a qualified doctor of it. And secondly, if Marussia thought Glock was throwing a hissy fit, they’d probably fire him for it.

  12. In the round-up: McLaren say they set a new record for the fastest pit stop stationary time in the European Grand Prix.

    Yet the next one, just like half the pit-stops you’ve done this season, was a comical mess. Smart one Mclaren.

    1. Is Australia the only race where they didn’t botch a pit stop? I know Hamilton lost out to Vettel but that was due to the unfortunate (or fortunate depending on which driver you support) timing of the safety car.

      Well I just decided to answer my own question in the same post. Did a quick check using Keith’s awesome tyre strategy/pit stop articles; from what I could see they didn’t muck up in Australia, Monaco and Canada. And almost in Barcelona, that’s where Hamilton ran over the old tyre, lost around 2 seconds.

      Now I’m wondering how much time they’ve lost overall but I really don’t have the time to work it out, I should be studying for my exams.

      1. In Canada a lot of time was lost from Hamilton letting the clutch slip though (2x – maybe he had not been expecting that quick a stop either!), not the pit crew messing up @julian, apart from that, they have been messing up stops in each race since Aus (didn’t they mess up Hamiltons stop there too?)

        1. Oh I forgot about that in Canada. But then again I was only considering the pit crew errors so I wont count hamiltons sticky clutch situation. Same with Australia I guess.
          I don’t think they messed up anything in Australia. Safety car screwed them over, unless I’m forgetting another one. Wouldn’t put it past me :P

          1. I’m counting Monaco. They didn’t keep Hamilton informed about Vettel staying out. Its clear how close it is – had Hamilton been told to push for a few laps he would have probably made it out in front of Vettel.
            In Australia and Monaco (and maybe others) Hamilton complained of a clutch problem hindering his ability to make a fast start. So McLaren have in fact botched something up in every race, if you count the clutch.

          2. WRONG!!!! The pit-crew made an error in Canada too. In the second pit-stop they had a problem with his right rear. It just didn’t cost them as much as other times they had problems with something.

  13. I love the fact maclaren push the limits even if it doesn’t create consistency, that’s what their team is about.

    1. Thats why they haven’t won a championship since 1998.

      1. Ignoring Hamilton’s 2008 WDC title, ofc.

        1. You could say though that McLaren didn’t win that title though, Lewis did.

  14. lol McLaren may want to get some credit for that instead of all the bad words cast. At least trying to show off some glean of hopeful potential in the future maybe? Still though what matters is average time spent unless only the shortest pitstop counts into the all lap times.
    They do need to improve their performance over the pit side and strategy side as well as car upgrade. I remember that in every GPs this year, there was not a case without this or that episode in HAM’s pitstop.

  15. the fastest pit stop? It doesn’t matter…

  16. In his review of the European GP, Martin Brundle discusses Vergne’s move on Kovalainen, and says

    “…. an all too common racing tactic of being virtually past someone and then driving towards them to intimidate them and hoping to force them to lift off or even brake. I had some clown do this to me at night in Le Mans at 190mph 10 days ago and so I returned the compliment to give him a taste of his own medicine.”

    Brundle rightly condemns Vergne, but his own retaliation at Le Mans makes him just as big a clown as the other other guy. With that sort of attitude, Brundle does nothing to educate rookie drivers in good race craft and respect for others.

    1. I agree it sets an extremely bad example not only to have retaliated the move but then be boasting about it to thousands of young drivers who might read his review.

      Another thing was the comment trying to say Schumacher cheated his way unto the podium when every other half decent journalist reported Webber was actually way faster in the yellow flag sector and Schumacher had lifted significantly.

      1. The fact remains that Schumacher used DRS in a yellow zone but the stewards think the lifted off enough. As for Webber, as long as the sector delta time is higher than the last lap it will be deemed that he had also lifted off. Problem is the selective application of rules to aid a driver but claiming neutral. How is this different from Massa or Vettel is Valencia only the stewards know?

        1. @ridiculous

          Problem is the selective application of rules

          I don’t agree that is the case here.

          The rules say you have to slow down when the yellow flags are out and Schumacher did. There is no rule saying you can’t use DRS when the yellow flags are out (despite what some people have put about).

          1. So are you saying that Hamilton and Perez in 2011 India and Vettel and Massa in 2012 Barcelona were awarded penalties for not slowing down enough? I don’t think that was the case.

          2. @ridiculous That’s exactly what they were given penalties for. For example:

            Hamilton and Perez given grid penalties

      2. @snowman

        Another thing was the comment trying to say Schumacher cheated his way unto the podium

        Nowhere in Brundle’s article does he accuse Schumacher of “cheating”.

        1. @KeithCollantine

          “Many team personnel I spoke to were unhappy that Michael Schumacher got away with opening his DRS rear wing generating higher speeds in a yellow flag zone. As far as many are concerned that’s an open and shut case resulting in a penalty – as Red Bull found out earlier in the season.”

          To me that is clearly trying to make people believe Schumacher cheated his way unto the podium. Brundle says that without mentioning any of the details surrounding the incident like the fact Webber was 0.3sec faster than Schum in that sector which surely he must have known.

          1. @snowman Brundle is reporting other teams’ reactions to Schumacher’s penalty. He is not required to forensically examine every available fact surrounding what happened in order to prevent people like you twisting his words to make it sound like he’s accusing Schumacher of “cheating”.

          2. @KeithCollantine

            If someone who knows nothing about what happened read that article they would believe Schumacher cheated only to be kept having the podium because of his age and time spent of it.

            Would you not believe he cheated by reading that article alone not knowing anything else? Wasn’t hard just to say why he wasn’t actually penalized instead of leaving a strong impression he should have been.

          3. Would you not believe he cheated by reading that article alone not knowing anything else?

            No.

          4. @snowman

            If someone who knows nothing about what happened read that article they would believe Schumacher cheated only to be kept having the podium because of his age and time spent of it.

            If they read it properly they would conclude that some other teams felt Schumacher had broken a rule.

            And if they had an modicum of sense they’d know the stewards enforce the rules, not the teams. And they’d also realise that rival teams might have a very good reason for wanting to create the impression Schumacher had done something wrong.

          5. As soon as I heard about it I knew Schumacher would not get penalised. It was a 100% given after making it onto the podium, anyone that can’t see that has rose tinted specks.
            No one can prove it either way, so with the bad press a penalty would have got compared to the podium standing it…… was a no brainer.

    2. I don’t doubt that drivers need to look after themselves out there, and I guess Brundle’s controlled retaliation is not as bad as Maldonado’s brainfarts.

      But there’s a more classy way to do it, as Mika Hakkinen once showed Schumacher at Spa: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/18281041

  17. I agree with basically everything in that article about grid girls. But it’s not like anyone’s forcing them to be there. If all women ignored the advertisements for volunteers, there’d be no grid girls. But I assume these are models that want some exposure (and money) so they can make it to the top of their respective fields. I don’t feel I have any right to think any less of someone based on their career choice. If it makes them happy (it must do, otherwise they’d probably not do it), how is it really a bad thing?

    I don’t pay the slightest bit of attention to the grid girls because I think they add nothing to F1, but they’re happy, some people like staring at them… everyone’s happy, right?

    1. The entire idea about having grid girls holding signs is just distasteful. It just adds to the image of motor racing being exclusive to men – women are just supposed to shut up, wear tiny outfits and smile. The part where they applaud the podium finishers really leaves a bad taste in my mouth, why can’t they be replaced by young fans who actually look up to these guys, instead of girls who probably don’t know and don’t care who they’re applauding?

      The sooner F1 gets rid of this stale, sexist tradition the better. It’s hurting the sport’s image.

      1. @gridboy I’ve not really got much to add to your comment except to say I agree with it. @damonsmedley The problem is not so much that they do or do not enjoy it, it’s about the image it presents, it’s basically telling women that F1 is not for them and that it’s something that only men should enjoy. That’s not really the image we should want for out sport.

      2. On the one hand, ‘pit babes’ probably come from the time when it was generally believed that only ‘real men’ are interested in auto racing. Today we know that the F1 fan community is as colourful as the world, you’ll find old ladies, young women, gay men and everyone else among F1 fans so it’s clearly not like we all want to see ‘hot chicks’ on the grid. On the other hand, a lot of fans like the grid girls, the drivers and the sponsors don’t seem to object, too (by the way, David Coulthard met one of his girlfriends this way).

        I personally don’t think that the image of F1 will change a lot if we send the grid girls home. To draw an analogy, I don’t think we’ll succeed in fighting alcoholism if drivers stop spraying champagne on the podium. I think that ‘pit babes’ could occasionally be replaced by ‘pit hunks’ and, more importantly, that F1 should focus on trying to attract more female engineers and female racers, for example, by giving more spotlight to the likes of Monisha Kaltenborn and Maria de Villota.

      3. Himmat Singh.
        27th June 2012, 12:35

        Well the lining up part after the race to the podium is fairly new right? I agree it’s nonsense….sends the wrong message out. Some drivers may not even like it. Thank God it’s not like Tour de France where girls give the winners kisses on their left and right cheeks on the podium!

        1. What’s not to like there? I guess that the girls leave some or probably even most drivers cold but I’d be surprised if somebody found them annoying.

  18. Yes, I would like to see a female driver surrounded by hunky men. And no I would not stop watching if they replaced grid girls with hunky men. And yes this is coming from a straight male. And no I do not consider the grid girls sexist.

    But then maybe I’ve been around the internet and American culture for too long where MUCH more disturbing and rage-worthy misogyny goes on.

    1. I guess part of bringing this up is the fact that there were some grid hunks on in Valenica in the past. Now that is changed.

      1. I recall seeing a bloke in a kilt next to Susie Wolff’s (then Stoddart) DTM car at Brands Hatch in 2006.

        1. That is exactly the kind of thing that would make sense to me.
          Either something that fits the driver (a kind of standard bearer for the “champion” going into the race) or to represent the organizing country

          1. The only thing with using ‘grid boys’ for female drivers, is that it makes an implicit sexual connection between the driver and the person holding their grid number. While I do agree it’s fairly archaic to have grid girls, isn’t the problem more that there are people being employed solely for the sexual gratification of people around them, rather than some kind of gender inequality? If you replace women with men for female drivers, what you’re doing, in effect, is confirming that they are there specifically because the driver is supposed to be physically attracted with them. Of course, we know that the purpose really is to add a little bit of eye candy for the (historically predominantly male) viewers. That people are being employed as eye candy at all is something which should be addressed, and gender equality in this case only reinforces the negative connotations of why these people are there in the first place.

    2. When I think about it, I really would say it would be a lot nicer if the countries/cities hosting the event could do more with this. Put them in local costume, or in a special outfit for the Brazilian carnival, or something like that, so it makes it more of a show of the destination.

      1. @bascb i was surprised when grid girls in India werent in sarees.

        1. Would have been a nice touch IMO if they had been.

  19. Start regularly doing 2.6 second pitstops McLaren…then we’ll talk!

  20. “It probably puts more onus on mechanical items because the aero stuff comes no matter what, everyone’s aero programmes are massive and they’re developing the car aerodynamically and normally the things that are compromised short-term are mechanical items. Usually you’re saying that’s only worth a tenth when you can get two-and-a-half or three tenths from aero. It won’t be like that now, it puts the onus on mechanical items. Aero is still key and first order, but it just means you’ve got to find time to do the rest of the stuff that perhaps you wouldn’t have done earlier.”

    from that second McLaren piece about the development race this year. If true, we might well see more mechanical issues coming up when teams push the limits on those. Bringing us closer to what @hohum mentions about just pushing the car would give a good result but also a high chance of failure and we don’t need a button to do as “proposed” in the COTD

  21. As for the COTD, it’s obviously ironic but, frankly speaking, I also miss those times when reliability was another factor that could make unexpected changes to the race results. Unfortunately, as James Allen said, teams cannot unlearn how to do quality control.

    1. It’s less the teams and more the engines – the engine freeze has succeeded in this regard. The 2014 spec will likely usher in a new era of unreliability (especially PURE engines, as they have no real track record to fall back on) but it won’t take long before they’re standardised and controlled too.

  22. Very good point from @sircoolbeans ;) Like it.

    How do we go about finding out what the fastest official stationary pit-stop is? Is that data even available or just under the umbrella of the pit-stop as a whole?

    1. Good question, I think FIA publishes only the “pit lane time” in its timing data. I guess only the stops on TV have a stationary time as well, and the teams will time them for their own training or (if you’re McLaren) spin purposes.

      I wish they’d make more of the stationary times, they’re one of the most staggering things about Formula One. At the moment they’re buried in a caption that I keep missing because I’m watching the track to see where the driver rejoins…

    2. @andrewtanner
      As @bullfrog says the FIA only measures the pit lane time. The stationary stops are measured by the teams, so that is why noone can be sure about the record.

    3. I’m not sure if it’s shown on TV at the moment as the racing is interesting enough to keep my interest, but previously they’ve calculated stationary time by taking the time to traverse the pitlane at the speed limit away from the total time to get a roughly accurate result.

      Obviously this doesn’t take into account delays, speeding or other issues such as unsafe releases/jostling between multiple cars/etc.

      1. Himmat Singh.
        27th June 2012, 12:48

        Wow man that’s a poor way to find the stationary time!

      2. @optimaximal @bag0 @bullfrog I’m sure it is, certain i’ve seen it. I wonder if FOM log it? Do you have any idea @keithcollantine ?

  23. Perhaps McLaren could be the first ever team to have both the fastest AND slowest pitstop of the year?

  24. Can’t believe such COTD gets selected!

    1. Often they are selected because they are controversial, or fun, or a good point in a debate. This one is clearly meant to be ironical (having a dig at push to xxx buttons in racing)

    2. @neelv27 It’s not meant to be taken seriously.

  25. What record? The Most Clumsy?

  26. thats why we say ‘Incredible !ndia’ u cant understand our nation, until u cme here and have a culture shock, much like we ppl do when we visit different parts of our country :p. As far as drivers are concerned. We have Aditya Patel(under Audi driver program) who has a realistic chance. Motorsport very expensive here. Probably only 1pc of the country’s youngster can afford a career in motorsports. Karun Chandhok had to mortgage his house thrice to enter F1! @girts

    1. You will be surprised how many “drivers” have to take mortgage loan to finance their driving in Europe. Starting all the way from karting, and most of them never go higher. It’s very common.

      A girl have way higher chance of getting decent sponsors due to fact she is a girl, with average driving over a certain winner. That’s common too.

  27. What I still fail to understand is why have both pit jacks as the development, surely playing it safe with the backup jack would have been better?

    And really its pretty naive to put this out on weekend where they failed badly in the pit stop straight after. Keep news like this for better days!

  28. SM “50 milliseconds is one place this year, sometimes two places”

    A question to any engineers etc who may know:
    Could the closeness of lap times be down to the new tires becoming the main limiting factor in ultimate performance ?

    Could it be that the tires can only go so fast depending on track type/conditions and that no matter how much better the car/driver performs they can only make almost negligible gains in performance ?

    I’m not having a moan about the Pirelli’s, just wondering if this could be the case and as we tend to get a few geeks (and I mean that as a compliment) here who know more about this than I do it’d be nice to know what you think.

  29. I’m surprised that Mercedes is interested in Hamilton. Perhpas Haug has fond memories of him from the 07-09 days? I would think they would go for one of the several non-Vettel Germans on the grid who are plenty quick enough. Rosberg may not be a quick as Vettel/Alonso/Hamilton, but right now it’s not raw pace that’s holding them back. Rosberg is plenty fast to win a title in a strong, reliable car. Rosberg and Glock would work fine and they would save a big stack of Deutsch Marks on that choice.

    1. I don’t see anything wrong with Schumacher, why would they replace him? He gives a lot of attention to the team, he is ethical and he keeping his team mate more than fair, unlike some top team.

      Unless of course, both Rosberg and Schummi drive like crap at the moment. (Not to car’s full potential)

  30. How stupid are these people from Mclaren really?. claim the fastest pitstop record by milliseconds only to lose your lead driver 7-8 seconds every race by one act or the other. Thats like saying oh I built concorde that can fly very fast from London to New York but 7 times out of 10 its speed is that of an ocean liner, but hey I still built the fastest plane. What use is it when you can put it to your advantage?

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