Pirelli scraps plan to race new tyre at Silverstone

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In the round-up: Pirelli says the prototype tyres teams tested at the Canadian Grand Prix will not be used for the next race.

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Pirelli’s new tyres won’t race in Britain (Autosport)

Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery: “We are not going to race with the new tyre as we did not get much of a chance to test it [in Canada].”

Lewis plays down radio ‘rant’ (Sky)

“Being hunted down by Fernando [Alonso] is like being chased by a bull and so I just didn’t need anyone in my ear when I was already at the maximum I could go at. And when you’re at your maximum, that’s when you can easily crash so you don’t need any distractions.”

Breaking Records of No Interest to Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus)

“I don’t care about that. I care about scoring the points, but not about any records.”

Di Resta stoic over grid problems (BBC)

“The person who made the mistake apologised and I’m fully supportive of that. It’s just unfortunate it happened two weeks in a row, which is where the anger was.”

Button: “I’ve never been so pleased to get out of a car” after Canadian GP (James Allen on F1)

“It was just one of those difficult days that you have. The team told me a lap time to follow so that we could be sure of keeping the tyres alive long enough to stay on a one-stop schedule, but it turned out that they lasted a lot better than we thought and that I could have been going a lot quicker.”

Christian Horner: “We were certainly in the right window here” (Adam Cooper’s F1 Blog)

“What was good about the race as well was that everybody seemed to be pushing flat out from start to finish, unlike in Monaco a couple of weeks ago.”

Sauber rue "weekend to forget" after double retirement (NBC)

Head of track engineering Tom McCullough: “The circuit’s characteristics were going to make it a hard day for our car.”

Quebec Premier hopes to keep Formula 1 in Montreal (CBC)

“‘Until now, things are going well and I hope we will conclude an agreement,’ [Quebec Premier Pauline] Marois said after the five-minute huddle in the paddocks with Ecclestone, Quebec Finance Minister Nicolas Marceau and Canadian Grand Prix promoter Francois Dumontier. ‘And when I met Mr. Ecclestone I said to him: ‘We have to conclude a win-win agreement.’ I think he agrees with me.'”

Local Formula 1 organizer says he has new contract, NJ race on schedule for June 2014 (NJ)

“The local organizer of the proposed Formula 1 Grand Prix of America on the Hudson River waterfront says he has a new, 15-year contract with London-based F1, and that preparations are proceeding as planned for the inaugural race in June of 2014.”

Tweets

https://twitter.com/InfinitiGP/status/343953148362240001

Comment of the day

The_Sigman spotted a coincidence in the last two Canadian Grands Prix:

Last year, Hamilton passed Alonso on lap 64. The same happened this year, but Alonso passed Hamilton.
The_Sigman (@sigman1998)

From the forum

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Bazza!

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

And happy birthday to three-times world champion Jackie Stewart, who is 74 today.

It’s also Jean Alesi’s 49th birthday today. He scored his only F1 win in the Canadian Grand Prix on his birthday in 1995:

Image © McLaren/Hoch Zwei

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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...

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94 comments on “Pirelli scraps plan to race new tyre at Silverstone”

  1. Great spot for the CotD!

  2. In the round-up: Pirelli says the prototype tyres teams tested at the Canadian Grand Prix will not be used for the next race.

    Good, it would be a disgrace to Formula 1 if all of Red Bull’s moaning and politicking actually paid off. The tyres are the same for everyone, not one team has an advantage, and if there are teams out there that have a problem with the tyres, then quite simply – you haven’t build a car good enough for today’s Formula 1.

    1. @kingshark I don’t want the rules being changed as a sop to any team. But nor do I want to see tyres delaminating if it’s a safety risk and nor do I think four stop strategies should be standard practice in an F1 race, as we saw in Spain. I’d consider either of those reasons sufficient grounds to change the tyres, regardless of who’s doing the complaining.

      1. I don’t think the issue is whether or not the tyres should be changed, but rather how they are changed. I’m sure Pirelli could change their tyres in such a way that there are no more delaminations, but also in such a way that they aren’t bowing to Red Bull’s demands.

      2. @keithcollantine
        Hahaha, one race with 4 stops and it’s already “standard practice”. And maybe you don’t read the links you post, but it’s been said over and over that delaminations aren’t safety hazard.

        1. I didn’t say it was “standard practice”, I said it shouldn’t be – i.e. it might be if the current tyres aren’t changed given we’ve already had one race in which most drivers made four pit stops. Pirelli’s brief was to have a maximum of three per race.

          As for whether the tyre delaminations are a safety concern, of course Pirelli are arguing they’re not. But not everyone agrees with them. While Pirelli state that the body of the tyre was not ruptured during any of the failures we’ve seen, it seems to me there’s still potential for danger if the surface rubber starts to break up on a car’s tyres at over 300 kph.

          1. Also one of these delaminations broke the drive line and irreparably damaged the gearbox on Hamilton’s car at Bahrain. It’s a safety concern.

          2. Why don’t they just dustoff some old Bridgestones and everyone will be happy

      3. And I never had the impression that changes were being considered because RBR were being vocal let alone the most vocal. Aside from the delam and the 4-stopper concerns, there is also the running to delta times, which I assume will return at the next hot, high-speed corners venue, and that I find just as damaging to F1. Seems to fly in the face of having the unfortunate gadget of DRS to then have tires that require drivers to hold station and not defend for fear of killing the tires, nor push for fear of killing the overall strategy.

        And I still find it incredible to hear even Pirelli say that delaminating tires are safe because they haven’t been deflating. Sometimes putting an F1 car on a white painted line is dangerous, but delaminations are not? I think this is spin to save their reputation. To me it goes without saying that a delamination carries a significant enough risk of causing a crash which in turn carries a significant enough risk of harm that they SHOULD be considered dangerous.

        @kingshark I take your point about not building the car good enough for today’s F1, but it’s the mandated tires of today’s F1 that everyone almost universally agrees went a step too far over last year that are the issue. Teams signed off on the data they were given last September, then they tested them pre-season, and then once they were raced in anger the problems arose…the delaminations, the 4 stoppers, the delta running…and I don’t think any of the teams would have agreed to those things, nor wanted to even try to build a car around those eventualities had they known back in September what they were in for.

        1. And I never had the impression that changes were being considered because RBR were being vocal let alone the most vocal.

          @robbie – really? so when Vettel and even Webber, unfortunately, are quoted (and filmed/recorded) spouting the RBR party-line week-in and week-out about how terrible the Pirellii tires are, and how there needs to be something done, what is that if not politicking for a change in tires? gratuitous moaning/complaining?

          1. @joepa So you actually think SV and MW being as vocal as they are is the reason why Pirelli is tweaking the tires then? I don’t. They can politic all they want. Doesn’t mean they are going to get their way. How often do driver’s complaints/politics affect, in this case, a change in the tires, or generally speaking a change in anything? Other than perhaps minor localized safety issues at tracks where the GPDA had a meeting and agreed on some aspect of the track that should be tweaked for the weekend.

      4. @keithcollantine, me too, if we must have tyre management and pit stops in F1 then the Canadian GP is the standard we should be aiming for.

      5. @robbie

        there is also the running to delta times,

        How do you propose forcing the teams to do 2-3 stops per race, without having them want to conserve tyres?

        1. How do you propose forcing the teams to do 2-3 stops per race, without having them want to conserve tyres?

          In 2011 we still had 2-3 pit stop races yet tyre management wasn’t anywhere near as important as it has been in 2013, Same in 2012.

          The big complaint isn’t that there having to manage tyres, Its the level there having to do it & the way there having to do it.

          When tyre management was a factor in the past, It was done purely based on driver feel. The Pirelli’s don’t give the drivers a good feel as far as wear goes because they don’t actually wear, Its all thermal degredation, They can be working well 1 lap & off the cliff the next because there out the temperature range.
          So to keep them in the right window teams monitor temperatures & give drivers delta times & tell them how much traction to use accelerating out of corners in order to keep the tyres in an acceptable temperature range to prevent them hitting the cliff.

        2. @mike Conserving tires is always part of the game, but let’s be honest, the remarks of frustration from the teams and drivers this year are about way more than tire conservation as we traditionally have always known to be a factor in car racing. The comments we’ve been hearing are about such extreme tire conservation that the drivers are just passengers monitoring lap times that the team designates they can run at certain points throughout the race to the point that they even won’t defend a position for fear of killing their tires and their race strategy. Fearing the act of defending positions is not how I envision what is supposed to be the pinnacle of racing, and for me and many others means the tires are too limiting to what people want from F1.

      6. Thinking this is only about RDB is wrong. These tyres suck big time, is’s a safety thing not a team thing. Well and if you can see these tyres suit to RDB, who’s first in the WCC? And in the WDC? Oh yes a RDB car and a RDB driver…

        1. Who is RDB?

      7. But Barcelona has always been a hard circuit on tyres. You can’t cherry-pick that race and pretend it’s the norm. Four stops has been the winning strategy in Spain in previous years too.

        I think lots of people object to drivers “driving to a delta” in order to conserve the tyres, but saving fuel and tyres has always been part of F1 outside of the mandatory refuelling era. It’s just that now, with pit-to-car radio transmissions being publicly broadcast every race, we are more aware of what goes on to conserve a car and bring it home.

        1. David not Coulthard (@)
          11th June 2013, 9:11

          But Barcelona has always been a hard circuit on tyres. You can’t cherry-pick that race and pretend it’s the norm.

          It’s useful if you want to say that RBR were complaining because of the events that happened there, not for the sake of dominance. It was probably a close-to-worst-case-scenario thing as you’ve said, but it was worrying and at the time between Barcelona and Montreal, the benefit of hinsight (which I think we got by seeing how the tyres performed in Canada) simply wasn’t there.

        2. @red-andy

          Four stops has been the winning strategy in Spain in previous years too.

          And in the past when we’ve had four-stop races Pirelli have responded by bringing more durable tyres to stop it happening again. Only this time that’s not happening because the whole thing’s been turned into a political row.

      8. Cannot agree more. I expect Singapore, maybe the US GP, Brazil and Abu Dhabi to be a challenge to the tyres. I wouldn’t like to see another Spain in these. I actually liked what we saw in Canada.

      9. Red Bull still can win races with dominant tone on current tyres. Seb just did that a few days ago! OK, roll on your “low temperatures talk” and “track specifics”.

        The fact is, unlike some people are trying to tell, Red Bull is not moaning because they’re loosing, actually facts tell a different story.

    2. @kingshark – Agreed. If Red Bull weren’t complaining, this would be a non-story. The only other complainer is Merc, and they’ve been eating tyres since they came back in the sport. It would be difficult to take them seriously if they were alone in their protest for tyre changes.

      @keithcollantine – As noted by others the odd 4-stopper is not reason to change tyre construction. There were 4 stops at Spain in 2011 and MSC famously used a 4-stop strategy in his French GP win in 2004 when his rivals were using 3-stops. Further, if DIR can last 56 laps on one set and do a 1-stopper then someone doing a 4-stopper shouldn’t be seen as detrimental. Both are 1 away from the 2-3 stop window that everyone seems to tout as optimal; they are just different strategies.

      As for delaminations, I would agree that they need to be addressed if they continue at any visible rate. However, I would contend that these sorts of issues could be discovered if there was some amount of testing allowed. For example, if there were post race tests this year at hot weather circuits, Pirelli could test 2014 constructions and avoid testgate sagas and surprise issues for next year.

      @keithcollantine @robbie Dizzy – The issue of “running to delta times” isn’t the tyres. It is about lack of refuelling. Back in the tyre war days with super soft rubber, no restrictions on what tyres you had to use or bring, teams would do low-fuel blasts. This year in Spain, the vaunted 4-stop disaster, who won? A driver/team who decided to do 5 tyre eating stints rather than go softer. ALO beat RAI despite RAI doing 1 less stop.

      As it currently stands the only calculations you can work with are how are your current tyres and lap time versus how long does it take to put on a new set. There’s nothing else to talk about. Yes, I know about fuel saving and engine maps and the litany, but that’s a team problem. If they are concerned with the engine or brakes or fuel, they tell the driver. All the driver can really do is control his inputs on the tyres and his lap time.

      With the option of refueling comes many benefits. More strategy options are available, the war for the sub 2sec tyre change is called off so a sticky wheel nut won’t cost someone a race, people with broken wing elements can change the nose/wing because time will be available in the pits, and you can push the tyres harder per stint (low fuel) and how they last is up to you as you control the speed and length of your stints.

      1. @hobo While I agree somewhat with what you are saying regarding refuelling, I think this year is undeniably unique in the characterstics of the tires and whatever other components to F1 racing you want to throw into the mix, the tires are simply too limiting, too much the story, and I think when you have teams doing 4 and 5 stops, the fans don’t know what to make of the race until the final handful of laps when they can then see how it has all come out in the wash, and that’s not everyone’s F1 cup of tea.

        1. @robbie – Fair enough. My point is that the reason that tyres/tires are THE story this year is because everything else has been pulled off the table. No refueling strategy, everyone has DRS, everyone (I think) has KERS, double diffusers are gone, EBD is gone, etc. Teams are coalescing into one or two solutions in seemingly every area. All that’s left to discuss is tyres. And again, 4 stops was one race and that has happened before.

          I know this is repetitive, but it is an important point. In the early 2000s the strategy was low fuel and burn through tyres so you can get in the next stint and do it again. Tyres were relatively short stint items. Now, everyone wants drivers to do flying stints but they can’t because they can’t change the fuel to go faster, and there is no way to hide tyre changes.

          Previously you could throw on new tyres and less fuel than a rival and undercut them. Now, the only variable pre and post stop is a newer tyre that, while faster, is not fast enough (generally) to eat the time lost in the pit lane. Think about that. Stops were 6-7sec before, easy, and they were able to make up that time. Now, 2.5-3sec stops are too damaging.

          And we know that the tyres can be pushed on low fuel because people throw in fast laps at the end of the race on used tyres. And when someone does a late pit, they can often make up places quite easily. I know refueling isn’t as headline grabbing as tossing Pirelli overboard but I really think it would solve a lot of the issues and better the show/sport/competition.

          1. @hobo No that’s fair comment for sure, but everything was pulled off the table last year too, to virtually the same degree as you have spelled out for this year, and yet tires are much more the story this year than last.

            That’s not to say you don’t present a good case for refuelling, and I also think the biggest issue remains too much dependancy on aero downforce.

            I like how you typed “tyres/tires”…I’ve chuckled a few times at how I seem to be almost alone with my spelling of tires on this site, but then I’m Canadian and I simply did not grow up spelling tires with a ‘y’ although I have known for years that many people in many countries do.

          2. @robbie – I think we are in agreement that the crux is aero. Allowing for innovation and refueling we may differ or not, but I agree that aero problems for the following drivers have led to a lot of patchwork “solutions” that are problematic in their own ways.

            I think the tyre situation is Pirelli trying to provide something for the constructors to work against. The end of the last two seasons has been too boring as far as pit strategy is concerned. I understand why some feel that they have gone too far this season, I just disagree. Personal opinion.

            As for “tyres,” I’m from the States so it has always been “tires” for me. I’m just trying to fit in with the mostly Euro or Euro-spelling crowd.

  3. Pretty pathetic that a short, terse radio message needs to be reported on, then the driver be made explain himself. I heard the message, and while I thought it was pretty funny (and in no small part enjoyable, as a Ferrari fan) and showed how much pressure Hamilton was under, I didn’t think it was curious or bad form by Hamilton. Every F1 fan could understand how hard Hamilton was fighting in that moment, and why he wouldn’t be as interested in ‘metrics’ as his engineer.
    The less of these useless articles published by the media the better. I’m all for and enjoy a good controversy or laughing and poking fun when a driver puts his foot in his mouth, but this is just ridiculous.

    1. Yeah it’s stupid. Kimi says ‘Yes yes yes, I know what I’m doing, leave me alone’ and is treated as a hero but Hamilton says pretty much the exactly the same thing and now it’s a ‘rant’? Bizarre.

      1. It’s a standard thing. We’ve heard Kimi (Abu Dhabi ’12), Fernando (Korea ’11), Lewis (Germany ’11 and Canada ’13) in the last couple of years tell the pit lane to stop contacting them while racing. I bet there are a lot more of these interchanges which go without being broadcast on the live-feed.

        1. Yeah, no biggie really. I like hearing the radio chatter, but I’m always mindful that they are cherry picking what we get to hear, so I take that as it is too. I have no issue with any driver basically saying don’t distract me, I think that is understandable in the heat of the moment, and at the same time it was not bad information given the state of today’s tires. The real shame is that a driver has to be told these days when he can push and when he can’t, all based on the state of the tires, and for all LH’s engineer (assuming he’s the one relaying the info) knew, LH would have said thanks I needed to hear that because I need to give it everything to stay ahead of FA.

        2. Kimi during Ferrari days: “Don’t talk to me when I’m in the middle of the corner!!!”

        3. OmarR-Pepper (@)
          11th June 2013, 2:52

          They should be able to just turn the radio off when they want to drive @callum

          1. @omarr-pepper – But then the team would have no way of contacting them in an emergency. Sure, they could use the pit boards, but what would they do at Spa? If the driver developed a problem going through Radillion, he wouldn’t know about it until he got back to the pits. And then he would have to do another lap before he could do something about it if it was urgent. Sure, he could tun on his radio as soon as he heard about it, but there would still be the better part of two minutes between developing the problem and receiving the message.

    2. We fans are to blame, because we make radio messages more important than they are. The guys sit in the car with a pulse of 180 – full of adrenaline – juggled around by 4g and completely focused. Any person in this situation would sound rude or whiny from time to time on the radio. And most of us fans wouldn’t even be able to form a coherent sentence under this physical stress.

      1. @tmf42 You put it very nicely, I signed in just to appreciate this. COTD for me.

      2. David not Coulthard (@)
        11th June 2013, 9:02

        Definitely the COTD. May I add, though, that fans simply ignore that the drivers have a freedom of speech.

        Instead of being thankful that they get to take a peek into one’s free space, they complain.

        And, somewhat similar to what you’ve said, people think that one’s true self is exposed under the frankly abnormal condition of having to drive an F1 car that gives so much sentrifugal force.

      3. I agree the subject has been blown up, but we as fans are not to blame, we are to enjoy the privileged on this information to help us understand the situation. It’s the media and their need for justification that blow these things out of proportion

      4. @tmf42 I agree mostly, but radio has been an important feature. It brings us closer to the drivers as @davidnotcoulthard said by inviting us into their space. But how the media reacts to this is not our problem. This Sky article is a classic case of the media trying to generate controversy where there simply isn’t any. I trust that the majority of F1 fans can understand the extreme environment of an F1 cockpit, and adjust their opinions of what is said over the radio accordingly.

        Radio messages are important, for example even in this instance where we gleaned two bits of information during a tense battle between two champions – we heard how hard Hamilton was fighting, and we also heard a coded message about his tyres. This type of message adds further drama and spices up an already exciting, great to watch battle.

        1. @funkyf1 @colossal-squid the media does what the fans demand. if we weren’t so receptive for gossip / drama and sensationalism they’d see no need to blow things out of proportion – so in a sense I blame ourselves. But it’s still a matter of perspective.

      5. We fans are to blame, because we make radio messages more important than they are…

        @tmf42 – Dude, I strongly object to your statement. It’s not the fans who make the radio msgs more important than they should be, but rather, the the shameless media-types and scandal-mongering bloggers who try to capture audience and influence what the public thinks by presenting content (cherry-picked by the official in-house TV production people) in the most biased and incendiary way possible.

    3. Hamilton was actually much more polite than Raikkonen in what he said to his engineer. It is just the gutter stress trying to stir up controversy, and playing off the fact a lot of people like to criticise Lewis Hamilton, whatever he does even when, as here he has done nothing wrong.

      1. *gutter press

  4. Is there really a fundamental problem with the tyre’s? If we get a ‘perfect scenario’ in Canada and a disaster in Monaco, then is it more a problem of Pirelli picking the wrong compounds?

    1. Tires weren’t marginal in Monaco at all. It’s just that Mercedes picked the best strategy, like when football team tries to slow the game and pacify their opponent into a tempo at which they can deal with them, if the opponent is too fast and alive for their own game style.

    2. I think there is a fundamental problem with F1 when the teams have to work around delaminations, 4 stoppers, and delta time running, and the true potential of the car and driver are squandered as a result. Canada and Monaco were always going to be easier on tires. It’s the hotter and the high corner speed tracks that are the concern, and surely F1 has not come to the point where it needs these tires for ‘success’ and they’re here to stay. Surely there are other ways, the main one imho to knock down the heavy dependancy on downforce and reduce the dirty air effect. I won’t hold my breath for that though, and presumably next years shakeup of brand new chassis’/engines will help and the tires won’t have to be so gadgety as a component to create the show.

      1. I’ll just keep saying it like a broken record. Ground effect is the answer. Not drs. Not odd tyres manufactured to be fragile. Much much smaller front and rear wings, no winglets, no beam wing, and a tightly regulated ground effect floor. Then wing to wing and wheel to wheel racing will be the norm imo

    3. Delamination is a fundamental problem. That’s a safety hazard and has to be fixed as soon as possible. The weak durability that leads to 4 stops and delta times is a problem in that it usually doesn’t make for good racing, but to change it mid-season is shifting the goalposts, so Pirelli should probably leave the durability alone until next year.

  5. This is why I agreed with Button way back in Bahrain, when he said that radio messages are for his team, not for the public.

    The thing is, radio is the only way driver can communicate with his engineer and he doesn’t have time to think how to word the sentence in order to sound more polite. And that would be no problem if no one heard it, except the team. Driver obviously doesn’t mean to insult his engineer.

    But here’s where the problem lies. When such things are said in public, it’s obviously not as appropriate.
    Imagine telling your best mate, with their best interest in mind and with just two of you in a room, to stop doing something embarrassing. Obviously, it’s between you two and no one should feel too bad about it.
    Then, imagine telling him the same thing in front of a room full of strangers. It has a totally different weight and your mate will certainly feel embarrassed and possible insulted.

    Now, I personally found that remark by Lewis very entertaining and very funny, while also very informative of just how tense the battle was, but I can’t stop thinking that media is trying to make a scandal of every thing drivers say. It’s like they are searching for everything that might sound a tad harsh and then trying to make it out to be as big and as rude as possible.

    I’d personally like to hear every single thing, every engineer tells to every driver, but you can’t blame drivers for feeling a bit exposed when media is just looking to make a scandal out of everything.

    1. We as the fans, are only privileged to a small percentage of the broadcasts the happen between drivers and engineers. The amount of communication between these two parties in modern day racing is massive. From gears suggested, brake bias, lines to be taken, which diff setting to use and corners in which they need to push. The FIA screen these comments and chose which ones will provoke the viewer the most and broadcast them. That’s entertainment and that’s what we pay for

  6. I still can’t believe that Alesi only managed 1 victory in his F1 career, arguably one of the most gifted drivers to have ever graced the championship, the man could steer a jack-knifing oil tanker through a chicane at 100mph and make it look effortless…

    1. I believe that jack-knifing oil tanker was called the Prost AP03.

      1. @prisoner-monkeys Such a beautiful looking tanker it was though!

    2. If Ferrari in 1994/95 had the reliability of today’s Ferrari he’d have won quite a few more races.

      1. @kazinho Yep, both Monza races, Spa 1995 at least. Maybe others like Suzuka 1995 as well.

    3. @dragoll, I cannot agree with you more. He could have been multiple WDC in a Williams but the passion and prestige of Ferrari was too great to resist. But his tremendous talent can still be recognised by our nostalgic ramblings!

    4. Funny that a lot of people here tend to remember Alesi as a gifted, quick driver.
      Here in France , he is being mocked.
      He has a strong reputation of “crasher” too…

      French people love to hate their athletes…

      1. @gwenouille Sorry to hear that. Hoped that by now, they’d understand that even if Alesi crashed relatively a lot this was because he was always pushing and trying to overcome the limitations of his cars, never prepared to trundle around at slow pace

      2. @gwenouille I think that over time, that it is widely accepted that a lot of drivers fell victim to “over driving” and “pushing too hard”, beyond the capabilities of the cars that they drove. In some cases, this gave these sort of drivers better results, that are otherwise aren’t achieved by their teammates in the same car. I always felt that Alesi was one of these drivers, that if someone pulled him aside and told him to slow down and become consistent would have done better.

    5. @dragoll Great comment but with one exception: With Alesi the car-control was as natural as breathing but it never LOOKED effortless :)

      1. @montreal95 You are probably right, my choice of words was perhaps not as carefully thought out, I agree, Alesi’s talent was natural, but not effortless.

  7. Oh look, Kimi doesn’t care… that’s rather a surprise, isn’t it? Now seriously, Kimi being himself, why should he? He’s there to get points and win races and championships… records come when you do this consistently.

    1. Proberly not a ideal time to mention it either as Kimi had just driven a race with a car riddled with problems in which he lost ground on the champship

  8. This track was logically easy for these tyres and because it was easy, Red Bull congratulated Pirelli for that. In Britain though we’re going to listen to Red Bull complain after they realise they can’t keep the fronts in-line with the rears costing them the victory like in Spain.

  9. Interview with Sebastian Vettel and Horner for CAR AND DRIVER Magazine

    1. Thanks for the link, @celeste – was quite interesting.

  10. The situation at McLaren is sad and puzzling, 7 races in and no sign of an improvement, even if they made small steps, they are developing the car at the rate of Caterham… It seems that Martin and Jenson failed to rally the troops and motivate the team after Lewis’ departure, because they have the manpower and the knowledge and the budget to improve.
    Lowe leaving was a hit but Mclaren don’t put all their eggs in one basket, maybe this year they actually did.

  11. #samurai #nonsense

    1. Why is it nonsense though? To you maybe but it’s a mindset he tries to live by (and he is completely entitled to). I don’t believe in god (and I’m not trying to start a religious debate) so I could consider that nonsense but I’m mindful that people are entitled to their beliefs…

      1. I don’t believe in god

        Nor does Alonso.

        1. Nor does Alonso.

          Did he tell you so @keithcollantine?

          1. @klaas I like to think I could find more interesting things to talk to him about! He said so in an interview a few years ago.

        2. Me either, but we may offend by saying so.

      2. Well said

      3. The team has been on a steady decline since Ron Dennis left, I don’t believe Whitmarsh and Michael can give the team the results they need. Bring back Ron.

      4. How did we get on to beliefs and god?

        My point is that Alonso’s tweet makes no sense. Look at it.

    2. He is superstitious though which doesn’t surprise me with his recent comments on Vettel – he’s “due some bad luck” which really isn’t how it works!

      1. Maybe it’s mathematics rather than superstition.

      2. Vettel and Horner were constantly saying the same about Alonso last year. He then got taken out by Grosjean in Spa.

  12. If these tyres now delaminate through Maggots/Becketts/Chapel/Copse then they’ll look like idiots. If the tyre delaminations are still a threat, however minor, they should change the constrictions.

  13. Happy birthday to my all time favorite driver! I was 10 years old when he won the Canadian Grand Prix, and even 18 years on I still count it as one of the happiest days of my life. Those who haven’t seen Alesi drive may look now at his stats and say, he wasn’t that impressive, but he’d be wrong. He was so impressive, that he could make a bored 9-year old with no family interest in racing(or any sport), zapping through the channels and accidentally coming upon the 1994 Monaco Grand Prix to be forever hooked to F1, and later motorsport in general, not missing any race since. I couldn’t really understand what I was seeing at first, but I could feel the passion with which the red number 27 was driven just inches from the walls. Forza Jean!!! Here’s for many long and happy years ahead! Hope you get back all the happiness that you’d brought to me and so many others. For those who haven’t seen it yet, here’s one of the finest pieces of driving I’d ever seen-Alesi hunting down Schumacher on slicks at a damp Suzuka in 1995, in the process overtaking Herbert in 130R and Hill around the outside of the chicane http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t5QVLMrhpg

    1. @montreal95 If you love Alesi, you’ll love this, sideways in the V12 Ferrari in the Swimming Pool Complex at Monaco in 1992 (Qualy), watch for the replay after too, very nice display of his quick reflexes http://youtu.be/L8qvg-IXfvc?t=2m47s

      1. @dragoll Thanks! The lap time that he managed to do with the slide is impressive. Hardly lost anything, because he never lifted!

    2. My first memory of Alesi was him running out of fuel in Melbourne in 1997, so my view of him is somewhat more jaded ;)

      1. @mouse_nightshirt hh yeah I remember. I was furious with him. But much later, I understood. It’s just the other side of the coin. If you want to get the kind of performance as Suzuka 1995, sliding at every corner, with slicks on wet track, being 7 sec/lap faster than Schumacher you’ve got to accept that once in a while you gonna get Melbourne 1997. His radio wasn’t working, and he was so carried away in pursuit of Schumacher that he didn’t pay attention to the pit-boards. As one journo put:”Alesi sometimes allowed his passion to cloud his judgement”. I miss someone like him today. Would someone like Di Resta ever do such a mistake? Unlikely, but I prefer Alesi :) There are very few drivers now, with whom you feel any kind of passion, and none at the same level, or close to Alesi. The last who came close was Montoya

  14. Traverse (@)
    11th June 2013, 10:46

    Peter Bonnington (Ham’s Race engineer): Your flux capacitor temperature range seems ok, as does your um bongo-limited super booster…
    Hamilton: Just let me drive man!

    1. I (and probably 95% of people I know) have the same reaction when I try to focus on something important and someone bothers me in that moment. This media trend to suck headlines out of the finger is becoming annoying. There’s more written about the drivers’ faces and quotes before and after the race than about what they did in the actual race.

      1. Traverse (@)
        11th June 2013, 13:18

        +1

  15. I adored Alesi as a kid. Its a shame we have the numbering system we have in F1 now, I’d like to see Alonso wearing number 27.

    1. @taurus I’m kind of split up on this issue. While I’d like to see the number 27 live again, i think it’s fitting that the last ever number 27 was Alesi as he really was the last Gilles-like driver, if there’s such a thing. Alonso isn’t that and neither was Schumacher, great drivers as they are. The closest was Kimi but even that’s not close enough.

  16. For me Hamilton’s team radio to let him focus is very normal for me,in a such a battle with Fernando focus should be at its maximum levels, i remember Alonso being chased by both Mark Webber & Lewis Hamilton at the end of the 2010 Australian GP & Andrea Stella (his race engineer) told him “Hamilton 3.5 s” Alonso replied “OK i don’t want to know ”
    Andrea Boselli who is the Sky Italy reporter from the Box of Ferrari said that when Alonso has closed the gap with Hamilton & begin his attempt to overtake him there was a silence in the box of Ferrari too and no communication has been established between him & Andrea Stella until he got passed Hamilton

  17. OnBoard shot from Alonso’s car showing he & Hamilton both braking to not pass the DRS Detection line 1st:
    http://youtu.be/QXRbgnqIG_Q

    1. Great. Thanks!

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