Formula 1 - 2012 Season

My thoughts though I missed parts of the race for being distracted due still drunk from st. patricks day:

The safety car ruined Kimi's race, so to say, the last lap fuss was a lucky one for him, giving back some if not all that he lost due safety car.

Maldonado did great, but kinda serves him right to crash, considering he crashed Grosjean out.

Massa, get the f out from there, people are racing! Who are the Ferrari's test drivers this year? Or will they go hiring from some other team mid-season? (Perez from Sauber, they're Ferrari's customer?)

Frank Williams, ditch Senna and give Bottas a chance!

Webber still doesn't know how to start.

Hamilton seemed to be.. was he there really? I mean, he finished 3rd but feels like he was never there, last few laps he was close to Vettel but never got even a mediocre try to pass him

 

Maybe he decided not to throw away points in the very first race and showed he's grown up abit (or maybe his tires were shot)

Anyway, missed the race and could be arsed to watch the highlights, guess this will be how it goes for me this season now the BBC has lost half the coverage. Once you know the result there's no point watching.

Pretty sure Button managed the race and was never in any trouble from Vettel, Red Bull got lucky, but they will not challenge McLaren until they get some serious updates and considering McLaren seem to be in a rich vain of form with their updates I doubt Red Bull will really catch up.

 

It was? I found it suprisingly boring. Except last lap of course. What exactly happened before last lap? Safety car was boring. Tyre difference wasn't big, so most drives went with mediums after doing the first stint on Softs. Any good overtakes? Even double DRS didn't help much. I can only remember Koba on Kimi after restart. And Maldonado taking out Grosjean.

 

Maybe I am biased because my hero started in 12th and then shot up to 4th at one point, I found it was very exciting.

Also Vettel on Rosberg on the first lap was good.

 

He missed the start, and lost 2nd place to Vettel when he lucked out with the safety car. His tires had four more laps in them than Vettel which seemed to make the difference. Vettel was never close to Button. Button could have gone a lot faster if he had to, which he proved by setting the fastest lap by far in the end.

Too bad Grosjean and Schumacher went out, it would have been a lot more fun with those those in top six.

Great to have Kimi back. He lucked out with the safety car, and fucked up twice this weekend: In qualifying and when the race was restarted after the safety car and still managed a great race. The Lotus' clearly have the pace needed. I'm sure he'll be a lot more focused next race and we'll see him racing for the podium

Cheers

 

Usual suspects up front. Great run from Vettel, who managed to recover from his qualifying performance and quickly make up the time he lost after going off trying to pass Schumacher. Really sucks about Schumacher going off at the same turn a little later though. With his pace it seemed he had a real shot at being 5th or better. I personally would've liked to see him on the podium again.

Both Kobayashi and Kimi surprised me. No doubt Sauber and Lotus have much more competitive cars than last year. It's a little early to determine whether Kobayashi has really improved but things have started off better for him at least.

 

f1 bob dylan style
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/17413438

 

Best. Intro. Ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89xBu_u7SVU

 

Indeed. Hamilton was also severly compromised with the first pit stop. When his tyres went off, he started to lose a lot of time (more than Button) and had to stay out one more lap which shortened the gap to Vettel by a huge margin. I was actually surprised given how much Hamiltons time went off the cliff that they still brought in Button sooner (considering he had a huge lead to 3rd place and a big enough lead to Hamilton (3+ seconds) to not really compromise his position.

Then he was unlucky again with the 2nd pit stop when Hamilton and Button were brought in the same time, while Vettel stayed out and gained another advantage by the safety car at the right time.

All in all, I was extremely impressed by Button who did a fantastic job, Alonso outdrove the car, Kimi showed a very good performance from back of the grid and also very impressed by the two Saubers. A bit disappointed for Michael. I would have loved to see him on the podium, but it wasn't ment to be. I think Mercedes will be a very strong contender at some of the races. Still a bit unsure on the Lotuses - I'm hoping KL will have a 'normal' qualifying session for them and see how well Grosjean stacks up to Kimi.

BTW: Kimi = best TG guest in a long time. That was some of the best entertainment, ever! Got to like the guy for what he is. Great stuff.

 

Guessing this forum is anti-mclaren.

Another dominate day, hopefully it won't last the entire season as it will be as boring as last year.

 

You kidding me? If anything this is pro-McLaren forum

Anyway, the practices especially at this point of season don't tell much as the teams have so much new things to test around, run different setups, fuel loads, tyre selections etc.

For example the yellow press here in finland once again caused some heavy facepalming situations, making big headlines on how Kimi lost to his teammate, completely forgetting to mention that Grosjean used softer tires with unknown fuel load, while Kimi, 0.4 sec behind, used harder tires and heavy (race) fuel load

 

wat

 

I think practice means an awful lot now red bull are scrabbling for answers. mclaren are in exactly the same position red bull were last season if you ask me. comfortable in the knowledge they are clearly the fastest car with everyone else taking practice seriously trying to catch up.

Just look at q1 to q3 in the last race. mclaren only set everything to 11 in q3 and they whooped everyone. god only knows how fast hamilton could've gone on his last lap if he did make the mistake and abort when it was clear no one was really getting close.

 

Räikkönen fastest Q2, now go for the pole!
Though he still gets the 5 place penalty for gearbox change

edit:
Oh well, 10th position at the start it is then, 5th fastest 2 tenths behind pole

 

Had he qualified first, he'd probably skip the press conference and get a 5 place penalty anwyay

The important thing is he is on pace. This season is going to be awesome.

Cheers

 

Button got right in there at the end of Q3. Webber and Räikkönen on the same time, while Schumi does his best qualifying of his second career.

Great work by Hamilton, he made a mistake in the last corner on his pole lap so he had more speed in hand. Really impressive.

 

The merc is a gun off the line, and schuie is a gun off the line, the running order into the first corner will be interesting!

 

How is gearbox change "goofup" by a driver

 

he wasn't talking about the gearbox change. He was talking about the qualifying in Australia. The post is quite old...

edit: quite an entertaining race today. Perez had a pretty good pace!

 

Now that is what I call an entertaining race! We'll be wondering how Alonso did win that for a while. Great stuff from Perez and Senna too!