Nico Rosberg has secured his first ever Formula One race win in dominant fashion. While his closest competitors had trouble in the pits or abandoned, Nico stayed out of trouble and won the race comfortably. Jenson Button finished second, Lewis Hamilton third.
Websta wrote:Last year Webber only made the massive come back because everyone else was on the wrong two stop strategy and Webber was forced into a three stopper - it wasn't really down to him having fresh tyres.
Hopefully Kobayashi can get on the podium.
There were only 2 or 3 people on 2 stoppers...
There were only 9 drivers on 3 stop strategies and of the front running drivers only JB, Hamilton and Rosberg 3 stopped. Webber's advantage came from starting on the prime tyres and then sprinting on the softs in a car that was the class of the field, it wasn't down to just having fresh tyres so people shouldn't expect Vettel to storm onto the podium from 11th just because he has one set of fresh tyres and can start on the medium compound.
mcalex wrote:My bet would be Kimi.
Lotus had trouble getting temperature in the tyres - they said that they're not warm enough for 1 lap but in the race this non aggresive tyre managment could very well paly in their cards.
Or they could be nowhere. Not getting tyre temp is different to taking care of tyres. The two might coincide, but not necessarily.
kris wrote:This race could be an indicator if Vettel can really drive a not so good car.. I for one expect him to be in the top 4 (hopefully 3) by the end of the race
kris wrote:This race could be an indicator if Vettel can really drive a not so good car.. I for one expect him to be in the top 4 (hopefully 3) by the end of the race
I don't think so. Vettel obviously choose the wrong exhaust solution. The wide style McLaren exhaust seems to be the way to go. He will catch up some but his chances to catch Webber are not good. This is going to be another bad one for Heppenheim.
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kris wrote:This race could be an indicator if Vettel can really drive a not so good car.. I for one expect him to be in the top 4 (hopefully 3) by the end of the race
I don't think so. Vettel obviously choose the wrong exhaust solution. The wide style McLaren exhaust seems to be the way to go. He will catch up some but his chances to catch Webber are not good. This is going to be another bad one for Heppenheim.
Bad choice or not, but I would like to see him drive the wheels of that red bull, as alonso has been doing with the ferrari.
Button beaten by a friggin Sauber and nearly 6 tenths slower than Lewis. If someone from McLaren is going to win this year, it's gonna be Lewis. Button's tyre management won't make up for the speed deficit he has.
Vettel made a wrong choice with the exhaust. So far it looks like the EBD was flattering him enourmously last season and it's probably the last thing he wants (to look this way).
Last edited by Shrieker on 14 Apr 2012, 10:24, edited 1 time in total.
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kris wrote:This race could be an indicator if Vettel can really drive a not so good car.. I for one expect him to be in the top 4 (hopefully 3) by the end of the race
I don't think so. Vettel obviously choose the wrong exhaust solution. The wide style McLaren exhaust seems to be the way to go. He will catch up some but his chances to catch Webber are not good. This is going to be another bad one for Heppenheim.
I think you're right, but hope you're wrong.
kris wrote:Bad choice or not, but I would like to see him drive the wheels of that red bull, as alonso has been doing with the ferrari.
djos wrote:I wanna know why Webber was able to do a 35.7 in q2 but could only manage a 36.2 in q3? Did he use the set from q2 on purpose to have more tires in the race?
Btw WB, in q2 Mark & Seb did identical sectors 1 & 2 but Webber found all the time in sector 3 to bang out that 35.7.
My feeling is that, in an effort to avoid relegation, he actually used up the soft compound that was supposed to be used in Q3. If you look at Vettel, you can understand this point. Vettel didn't do it as he hoped to come within top 10 and then go for a Q3 laps, but he failed to get into top 10. Webber doubted that he could come within top 10 and used up his final set of tyres. But when he did came in top 10, he had to use the used up soft tyres for Q3 run, which had obviously lost the sheen.
I also feel that, now that Webber has used the soft tyres in two runs (Q2 and Q3), he would struggle to get a good start tomorrow, with these set of tyres.
seriously, Mark has owned Vettel in most sessions so far this weekend and if you watched qually you'd have seen them use identical numbers of the Same compounds!
kris wrote:This race could be an indicator if Vettel can really drive a not so good car.. I for one expect him to be in the top 4 (hopefully 3) by the end of the race
I don't think so. Vettel obviously choose the wrong exhaust solution. The wide style McLaren exhaust seems to be the way to go. He will catch up some but his chances to catch Webber are not good. This is going to be another bad one for Heppenheim.
You're probably right to a degree but not necessarily. In Malaysia Vettel was a couple of tenths off Mark's qualifying time and it's only three tenths here. So it could be that Vettel just cannot get the quali setup right with this car. In the race if he has a better balance, for him, with the old style exhausts then that could make a difference with the long run pace and tyre degradation.
I actually think we could see Vettel try and two stop whereas the front runners will be more aggressive. But the beauty of not having refuelling is that they can now adapt their strategy depending on the progress they make. So if Vettel doesn't make much headway then they'll adapt and put him on a contra strategy.
The way Nico and Michael were talking at the post Qualifying interview I doubt they'll do better than 4th-5th.
But good job from both of them. A 1-2 Qualifying is brilliant effort. Let's hope the tyre degradation is better than Melbourne and Sepang atleast. It's going to be a fantastic race.
I'm thrilled at Webber beating Vettel again and Vettel starting at 11th place. I think Kobayashi and Hamilton could both make the podium.
Let's hope they get a good start and can manage their tyres well. After a 1-2 qualifying if they can't get atleast a 4th place finish i'd be disappointed.
I guess there will be many wheel-to-wheel battle tmr.
Did Kobayashi had his carreer-best grid? Sauber really have a decent car. With a little bit of fortune they could be leading championship somewhere along the season.
Maelstrom wrote:Let's hope they get a good start and can manage their tyres well. After a 1-2 qualifying if they can't get atleast a 4th place finish i'd be disappointed.
no way, unless failures for other teams
macca, rb, sauber, lotus, and alonso will be faster than them.
Maelstrom wrote:Let's hope they get a good start and can manage their tyres well. After a 1-2 qualifying if they can't get atleast a 4th place finish i'd be disappointed.
no way, unless failures for other teams
macca, rb, sauber, lotus, and alonso will be faster than them.
they will fight with massa for position 10
Alonso will be faster than them? Really? Massa will be lucky to get P10. I think you were not watching the same qualifying session that I was.
I guess there will be many wheel-to-wheel battle tmr.
Did Kobayashi had his carreer-best grid? Sauber really have a decent car. With a little bit of fortune they could be leading championship somewhere along the season.
Leading the championship? I think not. But I can certainly see them getting no 3-4 position by the end of the year in the WCC.
seriously, Mark has owned Vettel in most sessions so far this weekend and if you watched qually you'd have seen them use identical numbers of the Same compounds!
