2013 Malaysian GP - Sepang

[atanatizante]

Those ferrari's are going swamp Vettel off the line. With Hamilton in there too. Going to be a good start.

With their rocket start Massa will go to the left forcing Vettel to defend his position and unfortunately letting Alonso past him on the right in the first turn
A good strategy, isn't it?

[jamsbong]

Ferraris are mighty at the start. Vettel will have to fend hard. Unless it rains, then everyone will just be holding their breath to get through each lap.

I still think Vettel committed to a wet setup. Where as Webber is sort of towards the dry set up.
I am really looking forward to this race!

[stefan_]

Vettel will probably be eaten alive by the 2 Ferraris at the start. Great qualifying from Massa & Alonso (Felipe beating again Fernando in Q). I feel bad for Grosjean, don't know what's up with him, but he needs to pick it up fast. Poor qualifying for Raikkonen too, but the fact that he has Webber in front of him at the start gives me some hopes. Again, a good performance from Sutil, glad to see him perform like this.

I don't know what was worse at the end of qualifying, hearing once more "Yes, yes and yes again" or the fact that my commentators are Hamilton fanboys.

[CHT]

Dominant display by Vettel (after a weird Q1 and 2), on both of his Q3 laps he was almost 1s clear of the opposition.
Good job by the Ferrari team and the revived Felipe Massa.

RBR didn't use any hards during qualy, that could be an advantage...

Vettel was using FP3 medium tires during Q1, must have been 6 to 7 laps old tires when they put it on for Q1.
In Q2, Vettel did 3 laps on another set of medium.

So he should have a set of brand new medium tires for the race tomorrow.

[rssh]

Damn these tyres , I can't really understand really relate the tyre performance this year to last year inspite of stable regulation . Pirelli says that the new tyres have a bigger window (Button confirmed it) but now these tyres suffer thermal degradation as well as hit the cliff faster than 2012 tyres . Now all I can see is that adding more downforce to the car will lead to thermal degradation more than a car with lesser DF ,may be Lotus had just about right DF for these tyres whereas RB and Macca more ( ).

I really liked the Pirelli 2011 tyres (except hard tyres which didn't have life) were the drivers could push in qualy somewhat and degradation was good enough for 2-3 stop races .

2011>2012>2013
SS>same tyre>really soft
S>midway btw 2011 soft and supersoft> little bit harder than 2011 supersoft
M>softer than 2011 soft tyre>btw 2012 soft and medium
H>almost 2011 medium with better life>softer than 2012 medium

Offcourse the 2013 tyre suffer more thermal degradation
!!! - These are my evaluations and I in no way sure of the above and my judgement is made somewhat on what the driver compare to the previous years tyres

[Mika1]

Vettel will probably be eaten alive by the 2 Ferraris at the start. Great qualifying from Massa & Alonso (Felipe beating again Fernando in Q). I feel bad for Grosjean, don't know what's up with him, but he needs to pick it up fast. Poor qualifying for Raikkonen too, but the fact that he has Webber in front of him at the start gives me some hopes. Again, a good performance from Sutil, glad to see him perform like this.

I don't know what was worse at the end of qualifying, hearing once more "Yes, yes and yes again" or the fact that my commentators are Hamilton fanboys.

I can understand that.

[Forza]

Raikkonen drops three place on the grid for impeding Nico Rosberg.

Kimi Raikkonen has been given a three-place grid penalty for impeding Nico Rosberg in Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying. The Australian GP winner had been seventh fastest in the rain-affected Sepang qualifying session. But his Lotus will now start 10th after he was adjudged to have blocking Rosberg's Mercedes at Turn 14.

[Maxion]

Raikkonen drops three place on the grid for impeding Nico Rosberg.

Kimi Raikkonen has been given a three-place grid penalty for impeding Nico Rosberg in Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying. The Australian GP winner had been seventh fastest in the rain-affected Sepang qualifying session. But his Lotus will now start 10th after he was adjudged to have blocking Rosberg's Mercedes at Turn 14.

This is odd, didn't see this at all on the TV.

[raymondu999]

Vettel was using FP3 medium tires during Q1, must have been 6 to 7 laps old tires when they put it on for Q1.
In Q2, Vettel did 3 laps on another set of medium.

No he wasn't. The tyres they (dare to) use in FP3 are all handed back after the session ends.

But what he did do was use his Q1 tyres in Q2, meaning he starts tomorrow with 2 sets of new options and 3 of new primes, with one set that's done Q1 AND Q2.

[munudeges]

Somewhat odd. Didn't see that, especially considering that Perez didn't get penalised for impeding Hulkenberg. It's what we've come to expect though and it has a wiff of politics about it.

[stefan_]

I didn't see the event, but I would expect the same thing to happen to Perez considering the fact that he was slowing down on the racing line and clearly impeded Hulkenberg.

[myurr]

Vettel was using FP3 medium tires during Q1, must have been 6 to 7 laps old tires when they put it on for Q1.
In Q2, Vettel did 3 laps on another set of medium.

No he wasn't. The tyres they (dare to) use in FP3 are all handed back after the session ends.

But what he did do was use his Q1 tyres in Q2, meaning he starts tomorrow with 2 sets of new options and 3 of new primes, with one set that's done Q1 AND Q2.

What I think Vettel was actually trying to do, and it nearly backfired so he was very lucky to make it through, was to drive Q1 to a target time to not take too much life out of that set of tyres; and then use the same set for Q2 taking the rest of the life out of them. He'd then use another set for Q3.

That way he'd have an extra set of prime and option tyres available for the race, so even if he had to do an extra stop then he would have been able to push the tyres and try to overtake on track.

[Donuts]

Second time Rosbergs says that pole was possible. Maybe it's time to show that it's possible rather then just talk about it.

[dxpetrov]

Vettel was using FP3 medium tires during Q1, must have been 6 to 7 laps old tires when they put it on for Q1.
In Q2, Vettel did 3 laps on another set of medium.

No he wasn't. The tyres they (dare to) use in FP3 are all handed back after the session ends.

But what he did do was use his Q1 tyres in Q2, meaning he starts tomorrow with 2 sets of new options and 3 of new primes, with one set that's done Q1 AND Q2.

Man I must say I fell for you.many times I also tried to state the obvious and observed from the facts but many here just unable to read or grasp the real truth.
Anyways, thanks for good intel, bro. My gut feeling was that the RB were doing exactly the game from Korea 2011. - pacing themselves to keep tires work for two sessions. I watched it recorded. And you confirmed.

[Nando]

Second time Rosbergs says that pole was possible. Maybe it's time to show that it's possible rather then just talk about it.

Problem is when you have Vettel in the field. Nowhere near the possibility of taking pole so what he needed the most was a bit of rain and obviously it starts pouring down and RBR went from ok-ish to very quick.

Note that in Q1, Rosberg and Hamilton ran the hard compound and everyone else (near them) ran Medium.
That is pretty impressive.