Grosjean: Budget a priority for Lotus

F1 Fanatic round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Romain Grosjean says Lotus have the resources to compete but budget is “key” for them.

Links

Your daily digest of F1 news, views, features and more.

Budget key to Lotus’s title challenge (Autosport)

Romain Grosjean: “It depends on the money that we have. That is the key in F1.”

Whitmarsh ‘relaxed’ about criticism (ESPN)

“People were trying to get me to name names of who might be responsible and people who might not even be here to defend themselves, but that’s not my style.”

Vettel announced as Infiniti’s Director of Performance (Autocar)

“Infiniti has announced that Sebastian Vettel is its new Director of Performance.”

Top Ten: Ridiculous Motorsport Sponsors (WTF1)

“Despite scoring a point in that years British Grand Prix, eventually the Money Money Money ran out and the era of Swedish pop group sponsorship was over.”

Sport is still about the will to win – even F1 (The Independent)

James Lawton: “It is still comforting to see men like Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen resist the idea that the legality of team orders strips them of the first and the last of a natural-born racer’s instinct.”

The Asianisation of the F1 calendar (McLaren)

“Formula 1’s only Asian failure (so far) is the Turkish Grand Prix, by the way, which was run seven times, in front of embarrassingly empty grandstands, from 2005 to 2011. It was won twice by McLaren, in 2005 (Kimi Raikkonen) and in 2010 (Lewis Hamilton), since you didn’t ask.”

Tweets

Comment of the day

@Bleeps_and_Tweaks on Christian Horner’s claim Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton would disobey team orders as readily as Sebastian Vettel did:

If anything I’ve got more respect for Vettel after Malaysia, not less.

The team put the drivers in the position to win races by working incredibly hard to deliver the hardware needed to do that. They then give all of that responsibility to a group of people in their 20s-30s that have spent years honing their skills to try and get into the position of winning races in the highest echelon of motorsport.

Then you expect someone to hold position, just because they were behind at the last pit stop? That’s not what I watch F1 for.

I’m not naive enough to think that this hasn’t happened for years, obviously it has, but for me last weekend was a positive for honest, hard racing. I sincerely hope that Hamilton and Alonso would have done the same.
@Bleeps_and_Tweaks

From the forum

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Lee!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

Graham Hill won the Lombank Trophy at Snetterton 50 years ago today.

He passed Jim Clark to win – the Lotus driver finished second ahead of Innes Ireland.

Image © Lotus/LAT

Author information

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...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

122 comments on “Grosjean: Budget a priority for Lotus”

  1. Comment of the day pretty much summarises my point of view: I really don’t see why people would be complaining at racing drivers racing!

    If we now drop this subject though, some of those sponsors are hilarious! I’ve never watched an F1 race and thought: “yes, I really could use rash cream right now”!

    1. Also, I read the heaidng at first glance of the McLaren article as “the assassination of the F1 calendar”, which is perhaps appropriate because Tilke’s tracks have killed the great tracks largely!

      1. Who has killed great tracks is Bernie Ecclestone and the money they are asking for.

        1. @idr – this is true, but Tilke is commissioned to design them, so it is he that is responsible for the awful engineered tracks in the first place – Bernie just allows them to be on the calendar.

    2. @vettel1

      I really don’t see why people would be complaining at racing drivers racing!

      The issue here is not “racing drivers racing”. The issue here is racing drivers breaking their word.

      Vettel knew what the situation was: they race to the last pit stop, at which point, whoever is in front goes on to win the race. He had every opportunity to catch and pass Webber before the final stops. He didn’t, and because of that, he was expected to stay in second place.

      The team has used these orders plenty of times before, and there is the expectation that they will be honoured. If Vettel was in front at the final stops, then he would have expected Webber to hold his position and not try to pass – so why is it suddenly okay for Vettel to ignore those same orders simply because they mean he will finish second instead of first?

      Vettel knew what the order meant. He effectively gave his word that he would honour it when he accepted the order. But he then broke his word when he ignored the order and passed Webber. Furthermore, since Webber was honouring the order and expecting Vettel to do the same, Vettel effectively took advantage of Webber’s trust in him in order to secure the win for himself.

      The fact that it might have produced some exciting racing is no excuse. Vettel broke his word and violated the trust put in him by others to secure the win for himself. When Alonso arranged to have Massa move aside at Hockenheim in 2010, one of the major arguments in favour of it was that Formula 1 is a team sport, and that the team should be entitled to get the best result for them. In this case, they obviously felt that the best result was for the driver in front at the final round of stops would go on to win the race. What Vettel did in ignoring the order to hold his position was not simply a drty tactic, but it was selfish.

      1. I feel the same way. If Vettel responded to his radio messages with “screw you, I’m going for it,” then I would be 100% on his side. Instead he waited for Webber to dial back his engine and pounced using DRS when Webber could do nothing to stop him. It’s dirty and unsportsmanlike, and frankly, he should be ashamed of himself. The will to win and ignore team orders is one thing. Taking advantage of a teammate is another.

        1. If Vettel had responded in to the radio “screw you…” now we will be argueing about what a rude boy Vettel is… This argument is never gonna end

          1. I wasn’t being literal. It was the sentiment I was trying to display. If Vettel said no, and Webber wasn’t told twice that Vettel wasn’t going to try to overtake, it would have been fine. The fact that he jumped his teammate who was told that the race was over and slowed down is what’s wrong with it.

          2. My point is, at this moment Vettel is damned is he does, damned is he doesn´t. If Vettel have followed order, people will be argueing that he is not a true racer. And now that he didn´t do it people are calling him dirty.

            Vettel doesn´t send a notice to other drivers that he is gonna pass, not does hope Hamilton send him a notice his gonna made a pass, so I don´t see why Webber needs to be told he is gonna race him.

            People has seriously double standard.

          3. I disagree. No one can argue that Vettel isn’t a true racer. It isn’t possible to have the success he’s had in the short time he’s had it without having the will to win and the passion for the sport. That’s what a true racer is. But what he did was wrong.

            I am a relative newcomer to F1, having been a longtime NASCAR fan who loves all motorsports, but the rules in F1 are very clear. The 8 engine rule certainly makes the throttling back of the engine by the leader a common sense approach. This is supposed to be a TEAM sport. The TEAM was in a position where having their two cars (which were leading the race) continue to fight it out for position was pointless…FOR THE TEAM. By throttling back his engine Webber was doing as he was told…FOR THE TEAM. By passing Webber for the win I think Vettel was sending a large **** you to Webber and THE TEAM. Working as a team has put Red Bull and Vettel where they are. If Vettel can’t abide by that system perhaps he should find another form of racing to go into.

            Try going into work and performing an action that benefits you at the expense of a coworker and which puts important corporate assets in jeopardy, in direct contradiction of direct orders from your superiors and see what that gets you. This is no different.

          4. @celeste

            If Vettel have followed order, people will be argueing that he is not a true racer. And now that he didn´t do it people are calling him dirty.

            There was always a third option: refusing to follow the order outright from the moment it was given. This would have given the team plenty of time to alert Webber, who would therefore be able to better prepare himself for Vettel’s attempts at passing him.

            Like I said, the issue here is not team orders. Nor is it a driver ignoring his orders. The issue is the way Vettel ignored those orders. He accepted the order at first. Then he tried to convince the team to let him past. And when that didn’t work, he took matters into his own hands and decided to pass Webber, defying the team and taking advantage of Webber’s trust in him.

            It was, more than anything else, selfishness. Vettel didn’t need to win the race – he would be leading the championship with or without the seven extra points he would have taken for the win.

          5. @prisoner-monkeys That´s ilogic.

            Let me see, if I´m racing and they tell me to remoeve my foot from the pedal, and I don´t do that, is pretty clear I´m not gonna do so.

            Did Webber say something when he disregarded team orders before? No. So why does Vettel need to send him a warning? Pretty sure that him getting closer in his mirrows was warning enough…

            And at what moment did hi accepted? Everything that we now is that he never answered his team. Or do you know something we don´t know?

            Or next time a boxer send a punch, he better let the other boxer the punch is comming or it is ilegal?

          6. @celeste – Webber was racing under the assumption that Vettel would honour the orders that he had agreed to follow (and would probably expect Webber to follow if he had been leading at the final stop). If Webber had known that Vettel was no longer willing to honour the orders, then perhaps he would have had a chance at defending his postiion.

          7. @prisoner-monkeys

            He accepted the order at first. Then he tried to convince the team to let him past. And when that didn’t work, he took matters into his own hands and decided to pass Webber

            You say that, then go to say he didn’t make it clear to the team he was trying to pass? Ridiculous. Webber had more than a lap to react when Vettel came storming at him after having pitted also and he duly did by setting his fastest lap, so I don’t at all accept that argument. You are treating Webber as a fool here.

          8. @vettel1

            You say that, then go to say he didn’t make it clear to the team he was trying to pass?

            He told them that he was faster than Webber and implored them to let him past. They said no, and expected him to stay there.

            You’re behaving as if Vettel did nothing wrong. I think that’s an indefensible position, given the way he broke his word. Especially considering the way he would have expected – and has in the past – Webber to obey team orders.

          9. @prisoner-monkeys – I’m defending him purely because I think it’s ridiculous to utilise team orders at such an early stage of the championship season: I’d support Webber if the positions were reversed, so I’m not defending Vettel as such.

            I acknowledge Vettel did wrong by ignoring team orders from Red Bull’s perspective, but he was entirely right to do what he did from an entertainment and racing perspective, which to me far outweighs team protocol.

        2. @prisoner-monkeys Because Webber has always honor pre race team orders?

          Oh please, for Webber to expect Vettel to follow team orders, he should have follow them himself, or team orders only apply when Webber is ahead?, that´s ridiculous. Webber has say that he doesn´t like team orders and that he doesn´t follow them, so why he should expect Sebastian to follow them.

          If any this hold debacle has serve to purpurse, to shown the double standard that F1 use to judge drivers. And to shown Webber as an hypocrite and a two faces.

          He is getting a taste of his own medicine and he doesn´t like it.

      2. @prisoner-monkeys – we will simply never agree on this subject, as with Webber and Vettel I care not at all for team orders and especially at this point in the season I think they shouldn’t be used. Vettel had saved tyres and fuel though for a final attack, which is why Webber had to go into fuel saving mode whilst Vettel could remain on full attack.

        1. They can only use 8 engines per season. He was dialing back his engine because it meant less stress on it and that it would reduce the chances of needing to exceed that which would end in a grid penalty. It doesn’t seem that fuel was the concern.

          1. @repete86 – no, Horner did say this in a recently posted article:

            Mark and Seb were on opposing strategies they were running different tyres at different points in time. After that final stop of course fuel consumption between the two cars had been slightly different, Mark’s had been slightly higher than Sebastian’s so he was in a slightly more fuel saving mode than Sebastian.

            That doesn’t explicitly say that he hadn’t dialled his engine down for other reason (so you could still be correct) but I think fuel saving was the primary reason, which Vettel had done earlier.

        2. @vettel1 – Nevertheless, the order was given by the team for the drivers to hold their positions. Regardless of what Webber’s situation was, Vettel was expected to stay in second place. Perhaps the only acceptable ways for Vettel to pass Webber would be if Webber had a problem and moved aside, was forced to pit again, or made a mistake and ran off the circuit.

        3. @Vettel1

          I have to say I agree with you here… If anything I feel Mark Webber is either naive(that he thought Vettel was just gonna hold back and finish second) or he is just trying to get people’s sentiments in his favor cause the truth is he could not beat his team mate on track…

          The only things in this whole episode I dont like is Vettel’s apology and Horner’s comments…

      3. As I’ve said previously had Vettel always been a strident opposer of team orders then I would have no problem with Vettel now being lauded for his actions. Fact is that at no point has Horner, Vettel-lover Marko or Vettel himself come out and said that when the idea of the now infamous ‘Multi 21’ came up in the pre-race breifing Vettel obviously did not jump up and down and say “No this is not right, I won’t stand for it, it’s not racing.” He thought that he would be in front, Mark might have a chance of getting through to second at some stage, but that it would advantage him.

        He has then disobeyed his team and won the race. If this now changes people’s attitudes to team orders then that’s great. However his actions at the time were unsportsmanlike at best and immature, arrogant and petulant at worst. I tend to think of the latter. Was he truly like Alonso or Hamilton he would not have looked so sullen and apologised so much. He would have stood up for what his actions show he believes in. Instead he knew instantly upon seeing Newey’s face and the fact that Webber was initially not going to attend the podium ceremony that he was considered to be seriously in the wrong for what he had just done. Then he changed his tune.

        But has Vettel said anything of the sort? No.

        It has been left to his fans and fans who hate team orders to defend him. I hate team orders as much as the next guy, however I can also see the logic in holding position and saving the car once the team is in a 1-2 following the last pit stops. This is not exactly telling Webber to slow down so Vettel can take the win, like Ferrari in Austria ’02 or Germany 2010. But the issue is Vettel has done something wrong and everyone is defending him like he is some white knight out to save F1 from the ravages of a team instruction at the end of a race.

        I have a funny feeling that this issue is now going to de-rail RBR for the season. Mercedes, Lotus and Ferrari are loving it I imagine as they know there will be virtually no data sharing in RBR now, no following logical team orders, meaning Webber and Vettel will fight tooth and nail for positions between themselves and probably have each other off once or twice throughout the year, all of which will benefit these other teams as they race for the title. The cooperation, despite disagreeing with the order, of Rosberg last weekend shows an entirely more harmonious and happier garage over at Mercedes than at RBR.

        RBR may now be a team of champions, but for 2013, will they be a champion team? I now doubt it.

        Thanks to Vettel.

      4. David not Coulthard (@)
        30th March 2013, 4:17

        I think, for most people, the issue here is fairness – according to what they get from the media. According to the media, Webber was assured by the team that Vettel was not going to overtake, yet Vettel did.

        It’s like having the world’s most reliable fortune teller tell you a few decades ago that the FA1L was not going to live up to it’s name at all, and become a front runner. You then bet your house that Osella was going to be a frontrunner, and then Osella did…..badly. You would then be very angry, just like Webber was at Malaysia – that’s just unfair.

        In Silverstone 2011, according to the media, Webber didn’t get to have the team slow Vettel down, he caught him up “on merit”, and it would be unfair to force Webber to stay behind Vettel – Vettel was slower, and that was not because he was told “Webber won’t overtake” or something like that – but “on merit”. If, at Imola 1982, the “SLOW” messege was not there, then GV’s anger wouldn’t have had any point at all.

        That’s what the media gives people, and that’s why some commenters look like hypocrites, I believe (and it hasn’t got anything to do with how Vettel should be punished, if he does what Barichello did to MSC at Austria 2002 this season, the as a fan I would be happy to see it, if only to stop some people from hating him).

        Perhaps a bit unrelated, but as somebody’s comment read:

        Yes to free fights, yes to gentleman agreemants!

    3. Yes, the wtf1 site is definitely worth bookmarking. Poor Lake Speed having to pose in that Spam sponsorship – now that really is obeying team orders!

    4. @vettel1 Racing drivers use their cars to win races, that alone summarises what was wrong with the Malaysian battle. RB unfortunately lied to Webber twice and we don’t have information about the engine modes used by both drivers besides Webber’s claim that he was on savings mode, anyhow none one can deny that Vettel got an extremely good tow in his 2nd attempt to overtake Webber.

    5. If Vettel didn’t want to follow team orders I’m sure he could have made a deal with Webber before the race not to accept any. It’s not really “hard fair racing” if he expects to benefit from team orders but not to abide them himself.

      1. I would liketo add my agreement to the above posts supporting @prisoner-monkeys excellent riposte to the COTD and especially @clay for his sensible analysis, it seems,unfortunately that Vettel fans can find a way to justify anything he does.

        1. @hohum – I see it in the exact opposite way, so lets just agree to disagree and find something better to argue over shall we? ;)

          1. @vettel1, agreed I wont mention it again unless provoked, but RBR drivers aside we mostly seem to agree .

        2. Meanwhile on another planet Toto Wolff explains why team orders were imposed by Mercedes and why they were obeyed, ” We are all adults…….”

  2. Romain Grosjean says Lotus have the resources to compete but budget is “key” for them.

    Pro tip Romain: The team can save millions if they don’t have to rebuild bits of your car on a regular basis.

    1. ^^
      That

    2. Beat me to the punch by 10 minutes!

    3. Not really, its the R&D that costs, and they are always bringing new parts anyway.

      1. They’re not free either. Smashing up a gearbox will cost over 50 grand. A front wing is over 10 grand. Brawn only built 3 chassis for their entire year because the costs were too high, and they were gifted 100 million from Honda to run the team.

        More importantly, it takes time and personnel to build parts. You can get more money, but you can’t claw back time and man hours….

    4. Has he crashed this year yet…? So keep those jokes in 2012 maybe…

      1. Plenty of time yet. He started off slow last year, but managed to almost kill some people in the end.

    5. Roman ‘first lap nutcase’ Grosjean is undoubtedly the No.2driver at Lotus…

      1. If he would be “undoubtedly No.2 driver at Lotus”, they wouldn’t have come to chequered flag in that order, they’d said some witty for Romain to slow down and let Kimi Raikkonen pass. So no, your comment is not true.

  3. I actually brought up that new LEGO model on the Forum.

    https://www.racefans.net/groups/f1/forum/topic/lego-technic-grand-prix-racer-models/

    Includes a video review of the model as well as how it compares to older F1 car models (particularly the Williams and Ferrari models).

  4. Hard racing: Yes.
    Honest racing: No.
    I think the people on one side of the fence (the side I am on) understand that team orders shouldn’t, in an ideal world, be in F1… hell we enjoyed the battle just as much as everyone else, it was fantastic! However, to say the racing was honest as per the COTD is simply not true. Vettel is ruthless, and yes that can be seen as a quality but I’m with Button on this one, the dishonesty (to Webber, not to the team) will cost him in the long run this season. Let’s wait and see I guess.

    1. @john-h – I think that’s a very reasonable comment, so well done! I think in all honesty though what he’s done is set up a great battle for the rest of the season, so as a fan I’m delighted!

      1. +1 I think this situation has been good for F1 and for the fans because it allowed us to see a more human side of the drivers (and teams), there’s also a lot of people that find that sort of thing more interesting than racing itself or the technical side of F1 and now will probably follow the races just to see what happens with RBR/Mercedes.

    2. So I can´t see how he was dishonest, what would you expect from Vettel to send a text to Webber that he was racing?

      And why would Vettel do, when he knows that Webber is so against team orders:

      I chose to race as hard and as fair as I thought was possible, trying my best to beat Seb. I got pretty close a couple of times but couldn’t quite pull it off.

      It was obviously a difficult situation, but I still feel comfortable about what I did.

      In that situation, you are hit by conflicting emotions. You want to improve your position irrespective of who it is in front of you – especially when it is someone at Sebastian’s level, whom you have to work pretty hard to get back on to.

      To manage it but then be told to hold position is something I wasn’t prepared to follow at the time. If I’d backed off and held the gap at three seconds, as I was asked to do, it would have been much more difficult for me to sleep after the race.

      At the same time, I knew I was going against the team’s wishes.

      Normally, if you are racing and trying to gain a position, you would imagine everyone would be happy with that.

      They weren’t, obviously – not because they didn’t want me to finish second; they just didn’t want us to have contact.

      From a team’s perspective, it is obviously their worst nightmare.

      It’s a sensational problem having two competitive drivers but after so many people have put in so much effort in the build-up, they don’t want to have one or both cars out of the race. That’s where they’re coming from.

      Having said that, if they were worried about the team losing points, one option would have been for us to swap positions, given that I was a fair bit faster at that stage of the race and was putting a lot of pressure on.

      But I’m not a massive fan of that and I know Red Bull Racing isn’t either. To my way of thinking, the ball’s as much in Seb’s court as it is in mine in such situations.

      We should be free to race but to keep the team’s best interests in the back of our minds, which I’m sure would have been the case anyway.

      So sure Webber should have espected for Vettel to attack, as Webber himself did in the past… The difference was that Vettel was abble to past and Webber couldn´t pass a car that have it´s engine turn off and problem with kers.

      1. There’s two differences to the Silverstone example. They didn’t have a pre-race agreement, and in Malaysia when Webber expected Vettel was on the attack, the pitwall told him Vettel would not attack. Twice.

        The blame lies squarely on the team with how they handled it.

        Vettel comes off looking worse because he is percieved to have given his word pre-race and then broken it. That’s why he has had to apologize and Webber didn’t.

    3. Hard racing: Yes.
      Honest racing: No.

      @john-h : Vry well said, sums it up nicely

  5. Haha “Director of Performance”.

    1. I look forward to his interpretive dances on the car’s safety features.

    2. If you’re driving an Infiniti, you can now ignore cops when they ask you to pull over!

  6. Cannot see how Vettel can be painted in a good light. if he had said on the radio i am racing the agreement we had is over i am racing, then fine. What does not sit well is it looked like an agreement pre race was made and being on pole vettel thought he would benefit but as soo. as things did not go to plan without warning he was not holding the agreement he attacked. its like a punch after the bell. if he told the team screw the agreement telm mark jn 1 lap i will attack then fair enough but he didn’t

    1. He never actually agreed to maintain the gap on the radio, which speaks for itself I think. Yes though it would’ve been better if he’d just said “I’m going for the win”.

      1. No Webber wanted Vettel to go on the radio and say: “Hey yo team, you know I´m don´t feel we should do team orders today, so send a twitter to @aussiegrit and tell him I´m gonna made my move in the next 2 laps, in x corner; so he can be ready for it”…
        How Sebastian didn´t choose to do this is beyond me…

      2. He never actually agreed to maintain the gap on the radio

        @vettel1 : Do u have the entire radio transcript with you?

        1. @jjjj – the evidence is in the fact Vettel not once said “I agree to your orders”. In fact, earlier in the race he tried to get orders against Webber, so by all means call him a hypocrite but he never “landed a punch after the bell” – anybody suggesting that is treating Webber as a fool.

  7. And yet another roundup with more comments about the Vettel issue. Makes me want to jump off a bridge already!

    1. They’ll be something else soon, don’t worry. This is F1 ;)

    2. @karter22 – a bit of a drastic reaction, but yes I think all points have been argued already so it’s got to the point of reiterations!

      1. No, I think a bridge might be warranted at this point.

    3. Chris (@tophercheese21)
      30th March 2013, 5:09

      Unless something big happens, I think the Vettel-Webber thing will be raging until the chequered flag in China. 13 days time.

      Will be entertaining if they meet again. *rubs hands van anticipation*

      1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
        30th March 2013, 5:10

        van
        *in*

    4. Yes time to get back to the tyres.

      1. @hohum – ah, those wretched things! I think Pirelli have overstepped the mark this year – 3 stops is the absolute maximum as far as I’m concerned, and 1 or 2 is preferable.

  8. driver, team principal and now director of performance? that vettel is 1 busy guy.

  9. “Formula 1′s only Asian failure (so far) is the Turkish Grand Prix, by the way, which was run seven times, in front of embarrassingly empty grandstands, from 2005 to 2011.”

    I always found it ironic that the Turkish Grand Prix was such an abysmal failure, considering that the Istanbul circuit was among the best.

    1. the fact those Grandstands are about half a mile away from the track because of enormous runoff does not do much to enhance the on track feel, I guess @prisoner-monkeys

    2. It may still be running, but I feel hard-pushed to call Bahrain a success after the past 2 years.

      1. @matt90 – they wouldn’t dare say that currently though while the Bahraini money is still pouring into McLaren and F1!

    3. the only thing that annoys me about the Turkish Grand Prix being cancelled is that Codemasters don’t add it to the game anymore

  10. How can Vettels actions be considered respectable as in the COTD? You forget that when Red Bull were letting the two drivers race each other he demanded that Red Bull tell Mark to move out of the “Get Mark out of the way, He’s too slow!”, so he has no problem with team orders being used. But when the team decided to use team orders after letting them race for %80 of the race and he ended up on the wrong side of the stick, he decided that he was more important than the team and well you know what happened.

    Well im sorry, but he has no problem using team orders on his team mate but has no intentions of co-operating on the other side. His actions were Selfish and Disrespectful, and all that has come from Red Bull is exactly what Webber meant by protecting Vettel, Scripted PR rubbish.

    1. @harvs – agree 100% w/ you. well said. it’s a simple question of honesty, integrity, fairness, being able to count on your teammate’s fair play when he’s ordered to be fair…which obviously Mark can’t count on, nor could any future Vettel teammate.

      1. Agree 100% – Honesty, integrity and fairness should be a given in any contest, eh Joe.

    2. @harvs : Racing is between equals… which happened in the first 43 laps… Vettel had all the oppurtunity in the world to race, overtake etc…

      Only when Webber slowed down as per team orders, did Vettel start ‘racing’

    3. @harvs
      The opinion of the COTD is just the opinion of a guy, and also the opinion of the one who decided that this deserved to be COLD…so there are just 2 guys …

      Anyway i think that they are completely wrong and the majority of this site think that they are wrong too as the polls speak itself…

      1. Which polls?

          1. @nomore I think you’re confusing a vote about whether team orders were justified and whether Vettel was justified in breaking them. Those polls that you link to have nothing to do with whether Vettel did what was right.

          2. @matt90 in theory you are not wrong…but we should analyze them to understand why fans voted in that way.

            People and Formula 1 fans (most of them) are in principe against Team orders…this is out of discussions.

            These polls shows exactly why people voted yes for Red Bull. Infact in RB case it wasn’t a team order, it was Vettel breaking the agreement and making an unfair overtake which is reason why fans voted in that way.

            The vote was against Vettel not pro Team orders.

            In Mercedes case we have a team order fair and square, that’s why fans voted in that way against them.
            It doesn’t need a great skill to read why fans voted in that way.

            The reason why only 49% of fans (it should have been more) voted pro Red Bull is because the question was formulated in a wrong way.
            The right question would have been :

            Vettel move was:

            A: Because Vettel is a true racer and made a great overtake when the 2 drivers and cars were in full potential .

            B: Vettel break the agreement with an unfair overtake, because the team and Webber trusted in him.

            It will be fun to see the results….By my personal opinion the results will match Mercedes with 73% voting B…but it will be fun to watch..

          3. Sorry, but that question at the end is something entirely separate. I’m sure a few people voted the way they did because they were influenced by Vettel’s subsequent actions, but you can’t assume that everybody did.

    4. @harvs – I agree, I think he was wrong to be demanding double standards, but I think Red Bull’s response reflected the fact they weren’t pleased with his actions. Horner only made those comments to silence the morality brigade.

  11. How nice if the team wasn’t called RedBull racing, but ButtPaste Racing instead.

    1. ‘Sebastian, you can be director of performance’

    2. I really like that list of ridiculous sponsors, but I think they definitely missed one. Back in the 70’s, there was a UK championship for modified (highly) sports and saloon cars. Great, hairy-chested, ultra modified things. All snarl and grunt. And the series was sponsored by . . . Wendy Wools. Yes, knitting wools. Here’s a link to a Wendy Wools programme for sale on Ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/sis.html;jsessionid=6DDA57C39AB6562AE2B3DBAFD4E7341B?_nkw=Wendy%20Wools%20raceday%20programme%20Mallory%20Park%20May%201982&_itemId=181020188857
      Wendy Wools also sponsored Divina Galica in F2 in 1980, I’ve been looking for a pic of the March 792 car in livery to prove it, but I can’t find one.

  12. Since the last “race” all I’ve been reading are comment’s about team orders and who is villain and who’s not. As a F1 fans we are obviously screewed. The whole purpose of racing is ……..well RACING!!! Yeah you can blaim Vettel for being racer, like Webber was helping him before?!!? The whole F1 game concept is getting older in trying to be modern. That’s the fundamental problem that needs to ne solved. I don’t want to be a rocket engineer in order to understand F1. Saving fuel, saving tires, saving your ****!!! There is whole lot of geniune racing in go carts, and F1 should be the top of the racing and when you get there you are feeling like you are working in a bloody office for a big and nasty corporation. F1 please bring back the real racing back!

  13. Why nobody speaks about the irregularity found in the T-tray area of RB, Mercedes and Lotus cars in Malaysia? It’s always the same story, they end up scott free and that’s thw way it is…

    1. I missed the T-tray issue, can someone please expand on this?

    2. Please tell us about this issue, I have so far not been aware of anything the like. Hard to speak about it if no-one knows really.

      1. Link: http://www.omnicorse.it/magazine/26065/f1-il-caso-red-bull-mercedes-e-lotus-nel-mirino-della-fia-

        This is the link on the news but it’s in Italian…basically during the post-race verify in Sepang they found that the T-tray flexibility of Red Bull, Mercedes and Lotus (cars that rely on high pitch rake setup) exceeds the permitted amount by a good margin and they need to get back on track in Shanghai to avoid a ban.
        In my opinion this is truly unjust. If you find someone cheating you have to strip him of the result he achieved irregularly. This seems not to apply in the last couple of years especially for RB…

      2. Apparently the biscuits were stale.

        1. Just dip them in the tea and voila, problem solved @hohum :-)

      3. @funkyf1 an @bascb here’s a link to a forum post at f1technical. Originally it comes from an article in omnicorse and my Italian is insufficiënt. We’ll see.

        1. Thanks for filling us in there @verstappen. For now I would say that the asessment of the last poster in that forum on the topic is correct. Be aware of something brewing, but be carefull to draw conclusions. Certainly not something for Keith to put in the daily roundup of F1F so far then.

        2. Thanks for filling us in Bio and @verstappen, I wonder if this was overlooked by the media due to all the other contraversary surrounding the race? I find it rather amazing that even after all the events on Sunday afternoon no major media outlet has run with this. Was it another loop hole in the rules that the FIA couldn’t exactly pin as illegal so just a warning was issued? I guess more will surface once we get to China. I’ll be at the track, so I’ll make sure the tea is warm and biscuits are fresh!

  14. Even I want to end this Vet/Web/Multi 21/BOGOF saga. Now, if all of you will just sign this document stating that Vettel’s actions were correct and proper, we can put this whole thing to bed. :-)

    1. @hellotraverse I’ll sign it, you can log off knowing that I wont have the last say, no really I wont, you are quite safe to log off, no need to look behind you, promise.

      1. @hohum
        Deal! I’ll log off once you’ve signed the contract (ignore the small print on the contract, it just says something about me owning your house, car and the balance of your bank account, It’s not important just sign it…trust me).

        1. Would that be clause 21 or12 ?

          1. Clause 21.5. Think of it as having a new landlord. I’ll even let you rent a room for a small fee.

  15. Almost a week now i read commends about Vettel being a true racer, a senna a blah blah blah. If you are a true racer you prove it not only in track driving, but after the race too!! Has Vettel said yes, thats what i felt to do, because all i want is to win? I would be the 1st to back him up even if im not a fan or even tho his action might cause a lot of trouble in RBR like @clay very nice stated in his post. But what he says after the race shows a different approach : ” Not really fantastic. If I were given the chance to do it again (differently) I would. I can only repeat myself: I’ve made a mistake and I have to apologise to Mark. What I did was not correct, but had I been aware of it in that very moment I wouldn’t have attacked the way I did and wouldn’t have taken so much risk. …The main lesson for me today was that I should have acted differently. We talk about such things, sure, but I wasn’t really aware of it in the race as otherwise I wouldn’t have taken on so much risk. When I took off my helmet and saw that Mark didn’t look too happy I talked to him and he came straight to the point. That was when it struck me like lightning. I cannot say that I am proud right now. ”
    From the moment he cannot backup his actions there’s no need from us to do in my opinion…

    1. @stagger – in fairness to Seb, I think he was expecting a rather less hostile reception than what he revived; that coupled with a PR script I think is what led him to make those comments. I feel they were slightly hollow, although had some meaning.

      Undoubtably though he knew exactly what he was doing when he overtook Webber, so to say he didn’t really realise what he’d done is rubbish – he saw the victory and he took it. I respect him for that, because seeing drivers sticking to the agreement and not racing is boring and goes against racing driver instinct!

      1. @vettel1 Did you proof read that before you hit post? Seriously now “In fairness to Seb”? I know you are a Vettel fan but have an opinion and stick to it, there’s only so many times you can contradict yourself on one topic. Time to change that broken record!

        1. @funkyf1 – I don’t see any contradictions, please highlight? I said he knew what he was doing, but was sorry for purely the reason his team didn’t take to it well at all. Also, I did mention the fact there’s PR involved, hence why they are partially hollow but not wholly so. His sentiment on-track doesn’t automatically reflect that of off track, when he’s seen the gloomy faces on the pit wall.

          1. “In fairness to Seb” is a cop out don’t defend his behaviour if you think what he did was right. Don’t wrap him up in cotton wooled PR rubbish, he went against his team, teammate and team bosses wishes. His choice! Nobody put him in that position, nobody created the feeling he has but himself. So “In fairness to Seb” he’s only got himself to blame.

  16. “If anything I’ve got more respect for Vettel after Malaysia, not less.”

    Discounting everything else that transpired on that fateful day bar Vettel plainly backing down from his agreement with Mark and the team, I would like to digress with your above statement Mr. COTD.

    I would have respected Vettel if he manned up like Webber in 2011 Silverstone and acknowledged the fact that he went against team orders/agreements with full knowledge of his doings, and then explain his actions reasonably so (eg: I was faster than Mark and every single points counts at this stage of the WDC).

    However, that wasn’t what happened, at all. From the time Vettel steeped out of the car, he feigned ignorance. He sidestepped the issue altogether claiming all was OK as long as they finished 1-2 during the podium interview (Webber of course answered honestly after this).

    Then Vettel claimed he didn’t know of such agreements, knew not of its repercussions and issued an apology that was as fake as one could get.

    How then does Vettel earn my respect? Had he manned up and ran-down Webber by saying he did just the same in the past, plus marks for Vettel…but instead he chose to hide behind a facade and wait for the PR guys and Mr Horner to come to his rescue. Very ungentlemanly and as such deserves no respect of mine.

    1. @himmatsj – I applaud his actions on track but I agree the way it was handled afterwards was poor. I’m guessing there was a certain measure of PR scripted-ness in the works, but it would have been preferable if he’d just said “I was faster than Mark and I saw 7 extra points, so I took it”: that would have been an honest reply and one Webber would simply have to accept because he himself is no stranger to defying team orders.

      Sadly, F1 has changed though and it isn’t as simple as it used to be: the drivers have to keep they sponsors happy so they are essentially just reading a script. That was the part I had distaste at; Vettel’s on-track actions were absolutely fine!

      1. But don’t forget, when they went onto the podium, the PR guys hadn’t got to them yet. And usually drivers speak their mind here. Last year Vettel used the f-word on the podium interview. Hence, if he really was strong enough to own up, he had the chance right before him.

  17. Formula 1′s only Asian failure (so far) is the Turkish Grand Prix

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the Pacific Grand Prix at Okayama an Asian round? That failed after 2 years?

  18. why do we have this 3 week gap? why is it not 2 weeks? kinda annoying

    1. @sato113 – agreed, but it’s done that way so the teams have time to bring upgrades: as appose to just doing 2 weeks until China then another 2 until Bahrain, it’s 3 and 1.

      1. @vettel1 im not sure about that. I doubt the FIA or Bernie take into consideration car upgrades when planning the calendar. I think its so they can do 2 sets of back to back races.

        1. @sato113 – they do take into consideration that the teams need breaks to work on the cars, otherwise we wouldn’t have the summer break!

          1. @vettel1 the summer break has nothing to do with giving teams time to work on car upgrades. In fact the teams have to shut down for 2 weeks during it.

          2. @sato113 – …and then have two weeks to work on the cars. They do have to consider the fact the teams need time to collate all the information and upgrade the cars accordingly, hence why the races aren’t at equal time intervals from each other!

          3. @vettel1

            …and then have two weeks to work on the cars.

            yes just like every other 2 week gap between GPs.
            IMO it’s simple:
            -Every GP is meant to be 2 weeks apart. that way the championship stretches nicely over March to November.
            -If 2 consecutive races are geographically close to each other it makes sense to have them back to back from a purely logistical point of view. (this is especially true if the chosen races are far from europe).
            -If there are, say 4 or 5, consecutive fly away races it makes sense to have 2 sets of back to back races rather than doing a 4 race back-to-back-to-back-to-back marathon.
            -There then is a summer break of 4 weeks because of the stresses and demands placed on the teams during the year. It is purely to give them a break and spend time with their families. (nb the actual break is only for 2 weeks of course).
            When planning the race year, whether or not teams have parts ready for their cars is irrelevant to the timing of the GPs. the part designers/manufactures just have to get on with it. some do it better than others.
            -other major events in the world can skew the calendar slightly. i cant name any examples, but i think the FIA try to avoid clashes with other sporting/non sporting events. (ie. a GP wouldn’t be held on the same date as a world cup final).
            So by this logic i’m confused by the 3 week gap. thats just my opinion. your answer would of course explain it, by i disagree with it. ;)

  19. Becca Blue (@)
    30th March 2013, 21:03

    Three weeks is a long time when you’re trying to find something other than team orders to talk about. Erm…that Lego car is pretty awesome…?

    1. @beshoreblue – we should just go for an old classic debate like Schumacher crashing into Hill in 1994 or something ;)

Comments are closed.