Indian GP : Heroes & Zeroes

[F1fanaticBD]

Well it was an interesting grand prix in my opinion, where drivers opted for two clearly different, but very close strategies, and almost pulled out a stunner of a race before some bad luck sealed the race fate.

Heroes :

1. By every standard, Romain Grosjean was the driver of the day. Starting from 17th and finish the race in the podium, is simply put an astonishing effort from the Frenchman. Lately he has been simply phenomenal for Lotus, and has beaten his team-mate Kimi fair & square.

2. Adrian Sutil, for going in the medium for 34 laps, that was simply put astonishing tyre preservation, and his pace was not far-off at all. His good driving did give Force India something to celebrate in their home grand prix.

3. Sebastian Vettel, not for his winning, neither for his 4 WDC, but for defying the stewards to produce a doughnut in front of the grand-stand & acknowledging the car bowing in front of it. It was a gesture that really showed how much of respect he has for the people who have created the car.

4. Felipe Massa, not only for the awesome start, but also for being able to maintain the pace through out the race. If he had produced this sort of performance through-out the season, Kimi would not have been required to fill up his seat. His performance has arrived a little too late.

Zeroes :

1. Kimi, what was he trying to do? Take out his team-mate? Because of his awkward defending Lotus may have lost the podium to Massa. They should have calculated his tyre degradation a bit better, so that it could have prevented him to change his tyre at the last moment of his lap.

2. Mark Webber's Mechanic : What is wrong with you people? Did you took a vow to make Webber's life as miserable as possible before he leaves Formula 1? He was racing Sebastian, it would have been interesting to see where he would have ended, but due that faulty alternator we were robbed of the chance of Vettel/Webber battle.

3. Race-stewards : Their complete failure to recognize as well as iron out driving off-track. People were doing it so often, and every one got away with it. If that would have been the case, then why paint a mark in the first place, which bore absolutely no significance?

[Ian]

All of yours BD, plus
ZERO
FIA handing Red Bull a €25,000 fine and Vettel a reprimand for his doughnut.

[Scott]

I give Kimi an extra nod for knowing it was all lost, so ducking into the pits for new tires an then pipping Vettel to FL on the last lap.      Way to go Kimi!

[cosworth151]

Maybe Kimi was thinking about 2005 when he blew a tire while leading on the last lap and shunted heavily.

All of the above, plus-

Heroes: Vettel, for his interview with Lee McKenzie. He finally said that he was wrong to do what he did at Sepang. He said he was sorry for it and that he had apologized to every one involved.

Zeroes: Vettel, for standing on the podium and saying that he didn't know why fans had been booing him. I guess he forgot what the PR people told him to say in the McKenzie interview.

[Ian]

Heroine, Lee McKenzie, she really should be fronting the BBC F1 coverage , so much more professional than Perry who always seems to be trying to make love to the camera.

[Scott]

Heroine, Lee McKenzie, she really should be fronting the BBC F1 coverage , so much more professional than Perry who always seems to be trying to make love to the camera.

 

Agreed about Perry - and if anyone ever sees me carrying an iPad like that, attached to my hand, please shoot me. 

As for McKenzie, I found the chair positioning a bit eerie when she was interviewing Vettel - he had his legs spread wide and slouching like a teenager sits in a chair and meanwhile her chair was so close her crossed leg was shaking her foot well inside what would be considered MY personal space.   

But the interview was telling.  Clearly Vettel needed to say that he was sorry, and regretted putting himself above the team in that situation with Mark, but what he really doesn't seem to get is that he should not have only apologized to the team - he should have, most importantly, and rated it to himself most importantly, apologize to Mark.  Do that Seb, especially after Mark's ruined race, especially now that you've won the WDC, and especially with Mark only having 3 races left in his F1 career, and the public will think you are human. 

I doubt he ever will...again, I really hope one day we find out what happened between MW and SV when SV came to RBR.  From day 1 it was frigid.   

[Scott]

Seems Lotus is peeved about how Kimi behaved vs Grossjean.  Wasn't very nice of him to not help Romain past, but huffing and puffing about it by Lotus bosses when Kimi has three races left with the team is a bit of a joke.

http://www.planetf1.com/driver/3213/8994516/Lotus-unhappy-with-Raikkonen-s-move

I read somewhere that Kimi's problem wasn't actually his tires, but his brakes (which makes more sense).  I remember the team telling him to cool down the car whenever he could, so I suppose it was already a problem quite a few laps earlier...but Kimi races to pass, so holding back and cooling the brakes just wasn't an option I guess. 

[lkjohnson1950]

Here I go again! Was there really a problem with Mark's car? It seemed to be going quite strongly when they told him to park. For his part he sounded quite incredulous when he got the message. A good way to prevent Mark from strongly defending against Seb if it came down to it, and they didn't need his points for the WCC. I just don't trust R/B. 

[Jericoke]

Here I go again! Was there really a problem with Mark's car? It seemed to be going quite strongly when they told him to park. For his part he sounded quite incredulous when he got the message. A good way to prevent Mark from strongly defending against Seb if it came down to it, and they didn't need his points for the WCC. I just don't trust R/B. 

My guess is that Mark had already noticed problems with the car and been in radio contact about what was going wrong with the electrical system (a notorious weak point for RBR... they instructed Vettel to shut off his DRINK to save power)

[Scott]

Yesterday's race illustrates exactly what I'm talking about with regards to statistics stating that Vettel has had even more 'mechanical issues' than Webber. 

I guess Webber's issue was just a tad more serious than Vettel's...or that after seeing both had the same issues, they decided to stop one car and not the other.  Just sayin... 

Congratulations to Vettel (and Vintly, who likely won some cash yesterday).  He did good.  On to next year.  Maybe life will be different at RBR for Ricciardo than it was for Webber.

[Ian]

The only difference will be that Ricciardo won't be allowed to win ANY races.

[cosworth151]

I was only half joking in the Chat Room when I said that they've got all of those gadgets on the steering wheel, but no ALT light? There's nothing in all of those indicators to tell the driver that a major system is failing?

As for Vettel, after the race, Horner said that they had also told Vettel to stop using his KERS and several other electrical items. Since KERS harvests its power from the wheels and not the alt, how would that effect the problem?

[Jericoke]

As for Vettel, after the race, Horner said that they had also told Vettel to stop using his KERS and several other electrical items. Since KERS harvests its power from the wheels and not the alt, how would that effect the problem?

Activating KERS would take power from the 'standard battery' (the one powered from the alt whatever that's called in a multi-battery system), even if the KERS energy itself is stored in a separate system.

I had an alternator go once, and it's weird how systems fail in sequence instead of all at once.  (And my road car didn't have an indicator that the alternator was malfunctioning)

[lkjohnson1950]

Had the alternator fail on my Fiat 128 between Blythe and Indio, Ca. At night, empty desert for 100 miles. Drove the car all the way to LA and around LA on Saturday trying to fix it. Of course I had a big, heavy Diehard type battery in it. Still.... Finally found a Fiat dealer open (this was the '80s) and the parts guy said, just change the brushes, happens all the time. So 4 of us lifted the front up on to a high curb at the strip mall where we were racing slot cars, I swapped out the brush module and we lifted it back down good to go. Never had another problem with it.

[vintly]

Congratulations to Vettel (and Vintly, who likely won some cash yesterday).  He did good.  On to next year.  Maybe life will be different at RBR for Ricciardo than it was for Webber.

£80 to win at 6/4 pays £200 which is just as well seeing as my other bets on Webber each way, plus a couple of Moto GP bets have failed already. £45 up over the year, thanks to Vettel.

Life will be different for Riciardo because he's not cursed, like Webber. If I was Porsche I'd be worried!