2013 Spanish Grand Prix - Barcelona

[henra]

We should ask team bosses:

Should we eliminate the 2011 championship, 2012 championship and the 2013 championship till now for tires problems ?

i don't know what exactly you are smoking but it must be gooooood stuff...

In all seriousness.
We should not eliminate championships (What benefit would this bring that would make racing more interesting?),
Pirelli should fix the tyres!!!
My understanding was Pirelli wanted to make the tyres last longer. Result: default strategy was a whopping 4 stop. With renault being the odd exception (expectedly though).
Find the error...
I saw 22 drivers driving to a target laptime (If you don't believe it, compare the laptimes to the pole time - no one ever drove along the dynamic limit of the car everyone along the sustainable limit of the tyres) everyone driving his own race against that delta.
That can't be the goal of F1.
Seriously.

[muhammadtalha-13]

First time in a decade that i switched from watching a F1 race. This isn't the sport it just to be. Every single driver getting told to hold off and not to race. When Vettel got the message and let Kimi trough is was fed up and switched to football. It's getting really retarded this so called F1 king of motorsports. 22 drivers doing a procession on sunday and the funniest part is that some pundits say this is the best RACING that have seen in F1 for a long time. This formula is scam, because no one is racing. F1 hast been less entertaining since the Pirelli's. The cars arent even been pushed to the limit 9-10 sec a lap slower then quali, how can you cal that racing. Now days the race is on Saturday I find Quali more exciting then the race. First of all no one knows who is racing who, only the race engineers know who their drivers are racing. Even the drivers don't know who they are racing...... F1 now days is a show instead off a battle between the quickest drivers where the drivers and the cars are the limiting factor and not the tyres.

Maybe the hardcore fans need to make their voices heard, because our be loving sport is slowly getting pulled a way from the hardcore fans. I want to see hardcore racing i want to hear the commentators commenting on a long duel between the best drivers not a DRS move or drivers simply pulling to the side to preserve their tyres that's ridiculous. I haven't seen a real battle between top drivers for 2 years. This scam should not be even called F1, because this stains the brand and reputation of Formula 1.

Martin Brundle was spot on when he saw the footage of Raikonnen "racing", its pathetic he driving like an old lady on the M1....no commitment whatsoever. How is it possible that the fastest cars in Qualifying are not even fast in the race, since i have watched F1 if have never witnessed anything like that. Red Bull and Merc have built the fastest cars but come racing they can extract the maximum because that causes the tyres to degrade.....

I agree. I just don't understand when they say that F1 now a days is more close and packed. I mean in 2010, Championship was decided at the final race and there were 4 contenders. Then pirelli came and guess what, Championship was decided a few races before and there was only 1 championship leader throughout the season. In 2012, only 2 drivers were contender for championship at final round and only those 2 kept changing the championship lead. Back then was a lot more exciting in my opinion. Back then was the thing that deserved to be called RACING.

[Shakeman]

Kooleracer I agree, it's borderline WWE motorsport. The title will be won by the team that lucks into the tyre window more than the other teams.

The drivers look like they're mildly perspiring getting out of the cars rather than completely knackered.

Durable tyres and low down force will bring the spectacle back to racing and put the driver talent back where it should be.

No wonder there is such a demand for pay drivers and they'll only increase under these types of conditions.

[Richard]

I agree. I just don't understand when they say that F1 now a days is more close and packed. I mean in 2010, Championship was decided at the final race and there were 4 contenders. Then pirelli came and guess what, Championship was decided a few races before and there was only 1 championship leader throughout the season. In 2012, only 2 drivers were contender for championship at final round and only those 2 kept changing the championship lead. Back then was a lot more exciting in my opinion. Back then was the thing that deserved to be called RACING.

You obviously missed the Schumacher years.

Also the cars are closer in performance than they have ever been.

[dxpetrov]

First time in a decade that i switched from watching a F1 race. This isn't the sport it just to be. Every single driver getting told to hold off and not to race. When Vettel got the message and let Kimi trough is was fed up and switched to football. It's getting really retarded this so called F1 king of motorsports. 22 drivers doing a procession on sunday and the funniest part is that some pundits say this is the best RACING that have seen in F1 for a long time. This formula is scam, because no one is racing. F1 hast been less entertaining since the Pirelli's. The cars arent even been pushed to the limit 9-10 sec a lap slower then quali, how can you cal that racing. Now days the race is on Saturday I find Quali more exciting then the race. First of all no one knows who is racing who, only the race engineers know who their drivers are racing. Even the drivers don't know who they are racing...... F1 now days is a show instead off a battle between the quickest drivers where the drivers and the cars are the limiting factor and not the tyres.

Maybe the hardcore fans need to make their voices heard, because our be loving sport is slowly getting pulled a way from the hardcore fans. I want to see hardcore racing i want to hear the commentators commenting on a long duel between the best drivers not a DRS move or drivers simply pulling to the side to preserve their tyres that's ridiculous. I haven't seen a real battle between top drivers for 2 years. This scam should not be even called F1, because this stains the brand and reputation of Formula 1.

Martin Brundle was spot on when he saw the footage of Raikonnen "racing", its pathetic he driving like an old lady on the M1....no commitment whatsoever. How is it possible that the fastest cars in Qualifying are not even fast in the race, since i have watched F1 if have never witnessed anything like that. Red Bull and Merc have built the fastest cars but come racing they can extract the maximum because that causes the tyres to degrade.....

this. +1 =D>

[Shakeman]

You obviously missed the Schumacher years.

Also the cars are closer in performance than they have ever been.

We wouldn't want to go back to those times but with DRS, KERS and other energy recovery systems in 2014 there's plenty of strategy that can be played out without putting the cars on tyres that are so peaky in performance. The finest brains in motorsport are struggling to get on top of them which cannot be right, it's a lottery.

[muhammadtalha-13]

I agree. I just don't understand when they say that F1 now a days is more close and packed. I mean in 2010, Championship was decided at the final race and there were 4 contenders. Then pirelli came and guess what, Championship was decided a few races before and there was only 1 championship leader throughout the season. In 2012, only 2 drivers were contender for championship at final round and only those 2 kept changing the championship lead. Back then was a lot more exciting in my opinion. Back then was the thing that deserved to be called RACING.

You obviously missed the Schumacher years.

Also the cars are closer in performance than they have ever been.

Maybe you are right. But in Schumacher's time, a team's weakness was related to everything on the car. Aerodynamics, Engines, car setup etc. These days, it's just about tyres and that's why i don't like it. These days, nobody discusses if Newey added some piece to his car to increase performance. It's just about "Hey! Lotus looks kind on it's tyres" etc etc.

[fiohaa]

I agree. I just don't understand when they say that F1 now a days is more close and packed. I mean in 2010, Championship was decided at the final race and there were 4 contenders. Then pirelli came and guess what, Championship was decided a few races before and there was only 1 championship leader throughout the season. In 2012, only 2 drivers were contender for championship at final round and only those 2 kept changing the championship lead. Back then was a lot more exciting in my opinion. Back then was the thing that deserved to be called RACING.

You obviously missed the Schumacher years.

Also the cars are closer in performance than they have ever been.

oh here we go, the old 'schumacher years' argument being drolled out.
Welll, for starters, at least none of them in those days were driving 10 seconds off the pace to engineer dictated laptimes.

secondly, apart from 2001,2002,2004 - all other years and championships that schumacher competed in were competitive. Fact.
2000 - awesome dual between him and Hakinnen for the title, that ended at the final race.
2003 - 4 way scrap between him, Kimi, and the 2 BMW's, ended at final race.
2005 - schumi not in the running, but again a great dual between Alonso and Kimi for the championship - and those tyres had to last an entire race distance and did so with ease (IMAGINE THAT.....)
2006 - another great flat out dual, pushing to the absolute limits of car and driver, all the way to brazil.

even in 2004 when competition was at its worst - at least behind the ferraris there were some great scraps, all the drivers pushing hard, Webber especially in his Jag, the cars were at their fastest.
infact, EVEN in the 'non competitive' 2002/2004 years - it was NOT the case that Barichello finished 2nd behind Schumacher, every race. IT was nothing like a Mclaren 1989 situation with Senna and Prost.
Barichello regularly finished 3rd, meaning either BMW or Mclaren were in the hunt normally, every weekend - its just that schumacher completely outperformed his teammates and consistently...thats why he won 5 championships in a row.

so yeh........i found the schumacher years great, to be honest.

sorry , what we have now is unarguably terrible - Teams and now team principals, and NOW the tv pundits themselves agree. All of whom have a vested interest in not saying anything bad, and keeping the show going.
its unarguable. Sorry.

oh and last time I checked, Vettel has won it the last 3 years in a row.

What you're basically saying, when you say 'we dont want schumacher years' is.......we dont want a driver to be so good as to dominate.....No, we need to mix it up so that the Best driver/team combo DOESNT win every year.
Unlike...........any other sport in the world. Was Ferrari/Alonso the best team/driver combo today? yes.......maybe.........how much of that was INTENTIONAL? I'd argue very little.
Even Alonso acknowledged this, in the driver pen he said that its incosistent that they are down 1 race, up the next race, and that they need to find the consistency.

They won't. none of the teams will, because the tyres have been designed to operate in narrow parameters, and every circuit will have different temperatures.
Hence the 'suck it and see' approach that was mentioned in commentary, and its the approach which all the teams take.
Its not like each team has a fixed strategy, that they plan on doing. No.... they have to monitor the tyre wear per lap to see what to do next because its completely unpredictable on race day.

I believe Ferrari did intend on doing 4 stops from the off........was it coiincidence that it happened to be the best strategy on the day? What if the temperatures had been a bit hotter. Who knows?

[stefan_]

Wow, what a race! I slept like a baby through laps 22 and 53. I don't know if it's beacause I'm getting older, but this is the first race in 13 years of following F1 that actually puts me to sleep.

I am glad that Massa was on the podium, nice to see Felipinho waiting for his dad to finish at the pit wall. Would have preferred for Kimi to be 1st, but it is what it is and I'm glad that Lotus are still up there fighting.

[fiohaa]

i think Federer is dominating tennis too much, he's winning everything.
lets do something about it to spice it up. we should make the tennis balls extremely sensitive to wind direction.

[Blackout]

Niki Lauda stated this is not formula anymore it's a joke.

Mercdes is a Joke since 2011 atleast. it's not down to the tires
I agree the tires are ridiculously important nowadays... thei're ridiculous period.

[Neno]

i think Federer is dominating tennis too much, he's winning everything.
lets do something about it to spice it up. we should make the tennis balls extremely sensitive to wind direction.

you have different surface in tennis, also you can't compare tennis and f1 because in tennis you can choose your schedule when do you want to play and on what surfaces, also playing on rain in tennis match is always stopped. in tennis you dont have constructors so i dont see a point of your post.

[turbof1]

i think Federer is dominating tennis too much, he's winning everything.
lets do something about it to spice it up. we should make the tennis balls extremely sensitive to wind direction.

you have different surface in tennis, also you can't compare tennis and f1 because in tennis you can choose your schedule when do you want to play and on what surfaces, also playing on rain in tennis match is always stopped. in tennis you dont have constructors so i dont see a point of your post.

You are missing the point. He essentially said it would be idiotic to make a sport more random.

[Neno]

i think Federer is dominating tennis too much, he's winning everything.
lets do something about it to spice it up. we should make the tennis balls extremely sensitive to wind direction.

you have different surface in tennis, also you can't compare tennis and f1 because in tennis you can choose your schedule when do you want to play and on what surfaces, also playing on rain in tennis match is always stopped. in tennis you dont have constructors so i dont see a point of your post.

You are missing the point. He essentially said it would be idiotic to make a sport more random.

on what is f1 made random? they all have same time for build car, to test car and to drive on same 20 races like others 19 teams? That would be point if we took tennis if we took as example of it, that you need play 5 games on clay, 5 on grass, 5 on hard, etc. Nothing is random in F1. So i dont see point of his post. Random would be if FIA choose to bring in artificial rain, and during race watering a track or some other sh?t.

Mercedes problems dont come from 2013, or 2012... they have long history with their tyers problems, which is even worse when pirelli changed their hard component for rest of this season. their problem dont lay with tires, it lie with dna of car.

[turbof1]

Again you are focussing too much on the story and not on the message. He basicilly said tyres made the sport random, which I agree with; it's just madning that you have front grid lockout, but fall back to sixth and twelfth just because the tyres aren't working. We had on average 4 to 5 stops. 4 to 5 stops, that's just too much. Racing should be decided on track, not in the pits!

I'd much rather have the old Schumacher era back. Back then we had one car dominating the field. This race we had one car dominating the field, with the addition that the field was not brutally fighting eachother, but asking with a frightened voice over the radio of they are allowed to defend their position.