Vodafone McLaren Team 2012

[PlatinumZealot]

I got this in the Mclaren newsletter. I guess they jumped the gun!

[GrizzleBoy]

LMAO

[Chuckjr]

Wow. That team. Wow. I think Whitmarsh is over his head.

[Nando]

He never seems bummed out when this stuff happens either. (Martin)

"atleast we get pace in the cars" what? you just raped your own driver and that is what you have to say?

[myurr]

To all those saying that a penalty is 100% correct - we agree with you but disagree with the scale of the penalty.

I've yet to hear any logical justification for the penalty that was handed out, so rather than all the "I think" or "I believe" statements that just state opinion without any explanation, could we discuss the relative size of the penalty?

To get us started here are some penalties handed out over the last few years:

- Sauber had both cars excluded from Australia last year after their cars failed scrutineering. Their rear wing was of incorrect dimensions. At the time many fans argued the penalty was harsh on the drivers costing them 7th and 8th position finishes.

- Michael Schumacher was excluded from qualifying in Monaco after parking his car on the grid and bringing the sport into disrepute.

- Pastor Maldonado was excluded from qualifying in Spa last year after being judged to have deliberately crashed his car into a competitor in an act of revenge. A light penalty for what he was accused of.

- Sebastian Vettel was given a reprimand for deliberately leaving the track during qualifying in Korea in 2010 (I believe - can't remember the year). In qualifying he left his first run quite late and in order to get back to the pits he deliberately used an escape road, something explicitly prohibited by the rules. The stewards ruled that because he eventually left the pits with 20 seconds to spare he hadn't needed to take the short cut and therefore gained no advantage, despite SV obviously believing at the time that he needed that extra margin and deliberately taking the escape road.

That last one for me is a prime example of the inconsistencies in the rulings. No one can honestly argue that Lewis gained any material advantage what-so-ever from being short fuelled, nor could the team have believed it needed the advantage. It would have cost Lewis around 0.05 seconds from his 0.578 second advantage on his final runs. The team would also have been able to show from the telemetry that other runs carried the correct amount of fuel, so it was only the last run that was in question.

Basically the FIA have ruled that a deliberate act that ultimately didn't bring an advantage is fine whilst an accidental act that ultimately didn't bring an advantage is severe enough to warrant complete exclusion from qualifying, the same punishment as two of the most controversial incidents (in my opinion) of the last decade.

It just seems that the scale of the penalty was completely out of whack even if you believe a penalty was required despite the precedent set by the Vettel incident.

[Timbit]

My own view is that McLaren have already been reprimanded and fined for this very issue in the past. The rules were specified quite clearly then, in that cars must return to the pits under their own power whilst retaining enough fuel for FIA sampling. That in itself would have had an implication to the penalty handed down.

[banibhusan]

It just seems that the scale of the penalty was completely out of whack even if you believe a penalty was required despite the precedent set by the Vettel incident.

Vettel incidence was something that happened for the first time. May be that's the reason the stewards decided to just hand him a reprimand or warning. What McLaren did yesterday had happened in 2010 and by them only. No one has ever repeated something like this in qualifying. May be just to prove their point they had to such a bold and ruthless step.

However, how severe the issue at hand might be, stripping him off the pole position was just too much. I believe the ideal punishment would have been, cancel the 2nd run time posted by Hamilton and make only the first one count and strip mclaren off the constructor points. Or else, as most people suggested a 5/10 place penalty would also have sufficed along with striping the team off the constructor points. The driver has genuinely nothing to do with this. To support my point look at 2007. Lewis didn't have anything to do with that and he got to keep his points. Only McLaren got stripped off the points for the mistake they committed. Same should be the case here.

For once in 4 years they came up with a car that's outright fast and reliable from day 1, yet they are screwing their own fortunes by making such blunders. I pity the drivers.

[Gerhard Berger]

I don't believe we should be separating the driver and the car/team. I know it was done in 2007, but if we go down a route where we punish the team and not the driver, then teams could easily claim that they made a mistake by having (for example) the barge boards too high, and the driver should not be punished for it.

It's a team sport, and in many cases a driver will have to pay a penalty for mistakes from other members of his team (poor pit stops, engine failure, badly designed car etc.)

[banibhusan]

Agreed mate. If that's the case the penalty could have been 5/10 place also. Not necessarily a disqualification.

[myurr]

It just seems that the scale of the penalty was completely out of whack even if you believe a penalty was required despite the precedent set by the Vettel incident.

Vettel incidence was something that happened for the first time. May be that's the reason the stewards decided to just hand him a reprimand or warning. What McLaren did yesterday had happened in 2010 and by them only. No one has ever repeated something like this in qualifying. May be just to prove their point they had to such a bold and ruthless step.

McLaren's first breach of this rule was before the rule existed, it was brought in as clarification after Canada 2010 to prevent it becoming routine. One mistake two years later isn't routine...

Vettel's transgression was already explicitly against the rules. Schumacher was reprimanded for leaving the track this very weekend, another failure to enforce the letter of the law. Schumacher parking it in Monaco and Maldonado crashing into Hamilton deliberately were also first time transgressions. Schumacher's wasn't even explicitly against the rules, rather he was convicted of a more general bringing the sport into disrepute.

What about Hockenheim 2010 when Ferrari blatantly used team orders and proceeded to lie about it to the stewards? What was the punishment there? The team were punished financially but the drivers who were complicit in both the event and the subsequent coverup faced no sanction and all parties retained their points.

Whatever your view of this particular incident I hope everyone can at least admit there is no consistency what-so-ever in the way the FIA applies, polices and enforces the rules nor with the level of punishment given for transgressions. And that is damning given that it is the primary function of the FIA.

[Javert]

They can change the setup to a purely race oriented one

Shame that rain is not expected ... It would have been funny

[myurr]

They can change the setup to a purely race oriented one

Shame that rain is not expected ... It would have been funny

Rain is still a possibility, but no one really knows.

You do make a good point though. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they started from the pit lane and made some setup changes. It'll be far more important to get the car dialled in 100% than to make up a couple of places at the start that he'd be able to make up in the first couple of laps anyway.

Fortunately he also has one of the faster cars on the grid anyway with good gearing (was bouncing off the limiter for a fair part of the straight). So the DRS zone *should* be kind to him.

Might as well go for a new gearbox as well.

[marcush.]

they can change whatever -the tyres have still done too many laps already and that is compromising the potential elapsed time in the race.He has to make up something like 10 seconds returning from lap 1 .

[myurr]

they can change whatever -the tyres have still done too many laps already and that is compromising the potential elapsed time in the race.He has to make up something like 10 seconds returning from lap 1 .

A fully dialed in car can be one to two seconds a lap faster than one struggling with the conditions, so to me that is more important than anything else.

He also has two sets of brand new hard tyres, the faster tyre in the race, that he should be able to lean on a bit plus his other set only has 3 laps on them. Only Red Bull have three unused sets of hards as far as I know. Lewis also has at a set of softs with only three laps on them, same as most of the grid, for his other stint.

I don't think he's particularly worse off with the tyres, especially if they can really dial the car in and carry the performance advantage they had in qualifying over.

[marcush.]

those three laps are the quickest unfortunatelly ...so thats something around 5 to 10 seconds elapsed time in the race...
As we have learned ,the cars potential is not the limiting factor in the race anymore ,it´s nursing the tyres.
So it depends on your setup if you are able to carry the black stuff the odd lapp longer or not ...
starting from the back usually you have the advantage of lots of unused sticker tyres .
No advantage for Lewis there this weekend ,button seems to have miraculously lost balance as well ...so a track where mclaren has lost the plot on setup ..or they have a freakin chaos with their mechanics messing up tyre pressures or what..