Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

[Ian]

I don't think I can recall a situation where the winner admitted to having done the wrong thing by seizing victory. Don't get me wrong, Vettel stole a hard-earned victory from Webber, but I can't help admiring Vettle a little for reflecting on what happened and then recognising that what he did was wrong. The test will be if he can resist the urge to do it again...

My heart goes out to Jenson once again - despite the car clearly not being rihgt yet, things were looking up this weekend and without the final pitstop disaster there was an outside chance of a podium on real pace - in the dry. Who would have thought that at Australia last weekend?

And Hamilton going through the McLaren pit box - doing Jenson! Hilarious, as was TV shots of Ross Brawn and Adrian Newey respectively hiding under their hands hoping their drivers would commit intra-team mayhem!

Roll on China - shame it's three weeks away!

Ian

[peter]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

I had a few choice words to say after the first lap Lewis in the wrong box was funny if only he had stopped it would have been funnier Oh and the Vettel win was not good and if I was Mark I would never trust a word he says again. I can only think what would be said if Schumacher had done it. Must be a German thing to win at all costs I feel sorry for Paul as he was doing so well in the force India

Oh and 3 weeks till the next one Noooooo I need my next fix before then

[mike_j]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

I thought it was meant to be a race and drivers were supposed to try to win?

[devilgas]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

i'm amazed mark didn't just deck him! in the pit interviews afterwards, virtually every word he said was, based on his body language, liberal with the truth. it's just a shame they didn't come together on the track, then the team losing 47 pts would be solely at vettel's door. as you can probably tell, i'm not a fan of SV. spoilt & brat are the 2 words that first spring to mind.

[devilgas]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

mike - with the regs as they are, it's now about driving at 80% to conserve rubber, engines and, to some extents, fuel. the tyres are designed this way to bring a more strategic element into it and to generate racing. whatever rule changes the FIA / FOM make will always be unpopular. create a tyre that lasts for the entire race and it becomes a procession. create a tyre that wears quickly and it becomes a war of attrition. whatever they do, it'll be unpopular ;-)
ross brawn managed his drivers (although britney took some convincing), red bull didn't.

[Ian]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

Playing devil's advocate here - if Vettel hadn't been hiccuped by the anti-stall at his pit stop he might have won the lead fair and square. But ignoring your team and risking both cars like that was bad.

Of course Senna did it and people lauded him for it...

The more I see of DRS the more I am disliking it. I don't think they needed two DRS zones at Sepang. The tyre degradation factor already gives people a passing advantage that can be earned through better strategy, plus there is KERS, which will be even more useful next year with the new turbo formula, so maybe DRS has had its day?

Ian

[Ian]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

I had a few choice words to say after the first lap Lewis in the wrong box was funny if only he had stopped it would have been funnier Oh and the Vettel win was not good and if I was Mark I would never trust a word he says again. I can only think what would be said if Schumacher had done it. Must be a German thing to win at all costs I feel sorry for Paul as he was doing so well in the force India

Oh and 3 weeks till the next one Noooooo I need my next fix before then

I couldn't believe Alonso was allowed to go another lap with the wing looking like that - definitely a bad decision. Shame Massa seems unable to turn excellent qualifying into equally good race results.

The one thing that I still can't get out of my head is that Vettel was very humble after the race. I doubt Schumacher would ever have followed that example. Not being a fan of either Red Bull driver I have to say that it was great drama on the track and fantastic to watch, but I'm sure Webber fans are very sore and Vettel fans are a bit confused!

Ian

[rsh1960]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

In the drivers room after the race if the TV cameras had not been webbber would have flattend vettel, lewis was upset he wasn't allowed to let rosberg pass.
Alonso wanted to go one more lap because he would have had to put on inters if he had come in on that lap, the pit crew where waiting for him.
Button only has one type of luck at the moment and that's bad.

Oh well next fix of motorsport good friday at Oulton park watching practice for F3 Cup and British GT.

[Ian]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

I've re-watched the final stages of the race and clearly once Webber had stabilised his lead after the final stop (it was close with Vettel when Webber came out of the pits after his final stop but he then opened up a bit of a gap) Webber then switched the engine mode down to do what the team told him to do and cruise to the end in a 1-2 formation. He was not prepared for Vettel to attack him, so although it looked like an exciting fight between two drivers in the same car in fact it wasn't at all, so Vettel's win was really rather hollow. Nevertheless Vettel seemed to be enjoying the 'win' when he crossed the line by the body language of his car and when he got out of the car. It was only when he got to the podium green room and after during the podium interview with Martin Brundle plus the press grilling in the indoors press conference that it dawned on Vettel what a bad situation it was. Unfortunately, this year's championship is now indelibly tarnished for Vettel - especially if he wins it. I read that some have urged Red Bull to suspend Vettel for the next race - I can't see that happening, but I do feel that Red Bull's management were weak yesterday. I wonder what Red Bull boss Dieter Mateschitz thought about all this?

Ian

[Mrs T]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

Interesting debate!

Perhaps it's in the make up of the current champion that a ruthless streak is essential. It wasn't that long ago that Alonso and Vettel were being held up as excellent examples of "nice" drivers to replace the "nasty" Schumacher. Now with time it seems there is no difference - win at all costs. But as has been said at least Vettel was humble. Senna eventually apologised to Prost - would Schumacher ever apologise? Also, did Coulthard ever get his Australian GP "win" repaid by Hakkinen? No but he did get "given" a 3rd place instead.

I don't understand why Hamilton didn't let Rosberg through if he felt he deserved 3rd place. But it sounds good to say it afterwards though! I'll be interested to see how he behaves when the situation is reversed. Shame McLaren didn't just take his wheels off and leave him!

I would think that the Red Bull team will be a horrible place to be, and I hope it doesn't end up with serious consequences. I have read other stories suggesting Vettel was paying Webber back for past events when he felt Webber had obstructed him.

Can't wait for China!

Amanda

[JSR]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

Given how little we saw post-race, I'm not sure whether anyone is upset with anyone else or not. Had we been able to see the full thing, as in the days before BBC gave up their rights to do so, I would at least understand what everyone's going on about.

Sadly, all we ever seem to get from the BBC now is the likes of Coulthard and Perry saying things like "we saw their attitude in..." when we never saw anything of the sort. I'm getting a bit fed up with the commentators saying we've seen things (pre-race, post-race, in practices, in testing, the podium interview, etc) that we haven't been allowed to see at all.

I'm on the verge of giving up on F1 now because I come away from each qualifying and race regretting having watched it, because I feel like I've only seen a small fraction of what the commentators believe I've seen.

[Ian]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

I didn't feel that way - the highlights show was two hours and it was the BBC interviewers who got the juiciest comments, I feel.

China in three weeks will be fully covered live, including free practice. I expect Eddie Jordan will be there too.

Ian

[JSR]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

Maybe I'm just getting fed up with Coulthard saying "we saw in practice..." no, we didn't! Or "we saw this morning..." no, we didn't! Or, "we saw on the podium..." no, we didn't! Or Perry saying "join us for ALL the action" - it's not ALL the action, it's highlights!

For gawd's sake, if they're not going to show it to us, don't keep saying that they are! It's almost like the BBC think we're too stupid to know what we're not being allowed to watch.

[Ian]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

Well, the Sky sub for just F1 costs more than the entire BBC Licence fee. And from the few times I have seen the Sky coverage, I enjoyed the BBC version more. Just my personal opinion of course.

Ian

[JSR]

Re: Malaysian GP and the Vettel controversy

I enjoyed the BBC version, too (past tense!). The BBC version was just fine until they sold out to Sky and now we're left with less than half the races in full, with the others being this unsatisfying con-job.

We don't get the first race(s) in full so we miss out on the first practice sessions, which is crucial in trying to understand what's been going on during testing in the off-season and who the new drivers are. We won't get the two penultimate races either, so we'll likely miss out on the after-race celebrations of this year's WDC.

The weekends would be a whole lot better if they acknowledged what we're missing, rather than just gloss over it. There was one point this last weekend in which we're listening to Garry Anderson and the lap count decreased by about 3-4 laps. Either Anderson talked really slowly, or the BBC were hiding the fact that we'd missed laps.

It's almost impossible to keep track of where the drivers are with the missing laps - something that would be a whole lot easier if the commentators acknowledged that we'd just jumped forward by five laps, and a whole lot easier again if the graphics were there more frequently so that we could see where the drivers are, how much they'd moved up to the car in front, or dropped back, and generally, you know, just be able to follow the race!

The ideal situation would be for the BBC to manage their own graphics and have their own "driver tracker", so that we could follow the race despite the missing bits. As it is, they seem to be going out of their way to pretend the missing bits are not missing at all, thus leaving viewers like me with a very unsatisfying experience.

If all you want to do is to follow the four drivers at the front, it's probably less noticeable. But it's incredibly annoying when you're trying to keep track of the majority of the drivers, including the midfield.

If the BBC didn't want F1, they shouldn't have taken it from ITV in the first place. Annoying adverts there may have been, but I'd rather that than this.