2013 Malaysian GP - Sepang

[Cam]

So they have a code for something that is completely legal.
Makes no sense in the world.

I´d love to see the interview if you find it,

But it does make sense:
"multi21" as opposed to "let Webber win"

"maintain the gap" as opposed to "let Vettel win"

It's all PR and you can rightly imagine the noise if that was clearly stated on the broadcast. Most people have no idea what the codes are - or might suspect, yet cannot prove - but "let Webber win" is blatantly clear.

[WhiteBlue]

Bernie has criticised Red Bull and Merc for giving out team orders for the second race of the season and I think there is some truth in that criticism. Rosberg did have more fuel than Hamilton and could have gone after the two Red Bull cars. It was wrong to block him behind Hamilton. Brawn will get some flak for this from the Austrians. The Red Bull team order was questionable as well. Vettel knew that his team mate was not likely to listen to any team order as demonstrated in Turkey 2010 and Silverstone 2011. So why should he hold position if Webber would not in the same situation? It would have been much better for Red Bull to let them race and demand from them to give each other proper space on track.

[bhall]

[nipo]

Long time no post.

Got to say it's a very depressing race to watch at the end, and the weirdest, unhappiest podium I've ever seen. Apart from [fanboyism alert] Alonso crashing out after the first lap - the high point of the race for me - the rest of it was about erroneous pit stops, tyres falling off and team orders.

It's really time for Bernie and F1 to think whether they really want this, especially now that Mark has explicitly mentioned that the drivers are doing "eight-tenths" most of the time... that's nowhere near flat out! This tyre / fuel -saving thing is really detrimental to the sport. I think they got it right last year when it is not so extreme, and it did spice up the fight, but looks like this year they've gone over it.

If you ask me it is actually more disappointing to watch Nico getting stuck behind Lewis, compared to seeing Webber get robbed of victory. I don't know what's in his mind but Ross Brawn should have let Nico pass and run in clean air (if not try to catch the RBs) given Lewis is required to lift off and coast into corners. It's also very disappointing that Merc got fuel calculations wrong and put Lewis in this unfortunate situation. They've done a nice job to get a 3-4 but they should really have been fighting for victory.

As for Seb I think we got some truth from Mark in terms of the "protection" he gets in the team. I think it is quite clear Mark is the no.2 in the team, and I suppose the fact that he's still with RB means he is willing to accept some terms that favour Seb over himself under certain situations. However Seb's gone beyond that and made his own decisions - he's actually showing some "class" in this do-everything-to-win attitude, which a lot of the "greats" in the sport have shown in the past... We just might have found the man to challenge Schumi's record! (and the latter have done much more controversial things...) Of course, I didn't like Webber getting robbed of the win, but I find it hard to blame Seb or say he's wrong because he is a racer and sometimes you get hot-blooded and you do certain things. Nobody remembers who came second, it's the winner who's remembered.

So, yeah, we got 3 gentlemen and a naughty racer today - fine by me.

([fanboyism alert again] After all the villain was removed from the race hence it must be fine )

That said, fans like me love a fight, we didn't get much of that today, shame, and in this regard the race was a failure. I will consider to stop following F1 if it continues to be like this this season...

[raymondu999]

Something Shelly posted in the Red Bull team thread that I thought was interesting:

I have one question: why does redbull start issuing team orders in favour of mark webber? In the past iirc if webber was ahead they were let free to race (see turkey 2010 for example) if webber was behind he was asked to stay behind ("maintain the gap") They did not apply team orders fro webber in brazil 2010, penultimate race with web ahead in the chapionship and easy dominance of that race.
So what's happening? Why does redbull behave the opposite of last three years?

Is this the first sign (together with massa renewed form and the promptly removed anti-Alonso article on omnicorse) that the contracts for the alonso-vettel swap between ferrari and redbull have aready been signed?

[CHT]

Bernie has criticised Red Bull and Merc for giving out team orders for the second race of the season and I think there is some truth in that criticism. Rosberg did have more fuel than Hamilton and could have gone after the two Red Bull cars. It was wrong to block him behind Hamilton. Brawn will get some flak for this from the Austrians. The Red Bull team order was questionable as well. Vettel knew that his team mate was not likely to listen to any team order as demonstrated in Turkey 2010 and Silverstone 2011. So why should he hold position if Webber would not in the same situation? It would have been much better for Red Bull to let them race and demand from them to give each other proper space on track.

Vettel needed 3 points to win the WDC last year at Brazil, and Webber was no where to assist him. So fast forward, why should Vettel give Webber 7 points here.

And who would have expected Webber to not fight back?

[Gridlock]

Good to see Sauron found good employment after everything

[HVS5b]

why should Vettel give Webber 7 points here.

And who would have expected Webber to not fight back?

Well primarily because he was instructed to do so by issue of specific and repeated team orders. To utterly dismiss these and subsequently go on to mug MW (who probably thought SV was only going to 'noise him up a little' to return a few old favours, was a pretty despicable move in my book.

At the pinnacles of motor sport, trust and respect are extremely healthy virtues amongst the drivers. Vettel is worthy of neither of those after this display.
A 3xWDC showed his true colours today...

Why Webber didn't fight back after the pass? Hards vs mediums I think?

[Websta]

I am pretty confident the answer to this question is no, but is there a setting that you can select that irreversibly reduces engine performance that Webber may have selected to coast through the final stint? By irreversibly, I mean until they reset the ECU or something back in the pits - I have very little understanding of the ECU software.

I'm pretty sure that is not the case, so is reselecting the higher engine setting as easy as just flipping a knob? I assume in cruise mode they would alter a lot of other parameters that reduce speed but preserve tyre life, gearbox life and fuel as well.

I just don't really understand why Webber didn't try to retake P1. I personally think he might have been low on fuel, but there are no radio transmissions to indicate that. Vettel pulled out a big gap very quickly and unless he was thrashing his tyres, I don't understand how. Webber was on the harder compound to Vettel's medium, but that didn't hinder Webber in his second stint. Surely he wasn't still honouring the "Multi21" call?

[sAx]

So it is an engine setting or code?

If that question is directed to me, then for my $0.02c its an instruction (explicit) to change the knurled wheel to a setting that controls multiple input parameters, chiefly amongst which is peak engine torque. The instruction to select a lower performance setting, guides the drivers to maintain positions as the lower conservation setting means that the racing is over (implicit). Wherever we place our money, the RB drivers, team principal, technical director and Seb's race engineer, all knew what it meant and it does not require a great leap of the imagination for us to understand similarly.

Autosport is saying it's a code - not a specific actual setting on the one knurled wheel.

Webber was leading the race after the final stops, the Mercedes threat receding as Hamilton desperately saved fuel, so team orders were imposed. 'Multi 21' both drivers were instructed, a code that essentially means turn everything down, cease racing, hold position, save the tyres.

And I think this makes more sense as I find it difficult to believe that one setting on one knurled wheel could override every other setting on the steering wheel. Here's an overview and you can see all the settgins that one would adjust - there's a few.

http://www.auto123.com/ArtImages/150593 ... nline1.jpg
Button Function*

DIF Adjust the behaviour of the differential
N Puts gearbox into neutral
RADIO Push to talk to the team
X Sets a marker in the telemetry to indicate a problem is encountered.
DRINK Push to drink
DEFAULT Reset certain settings to their original values
TYRE Driver adjust this knob to tell the team about the tires and adjust electronics to suit different tires
KERS Select KERS settings
CLUTCH Select clutch adjustment
MIX Change engine's mixture settings
FW. EN Tells the team if there's a need to change front flaps angle
REV Allow more engine revs to pass another car
OIL Activates supplementary oil tank for engine
OK Driver acknowledge if radio does not work
FAIL Command all systems into a fail-safe mode just to get the car going again
PIT Activate speed limiter in the pit lane
TRO Change throttle pedal map

*The functions of the buttons and switches are estimates.

Also, as the ECU is a standard unit - the same settings would apply to all the other teams. Nico's video is good example where he shows many settings and discusses what some of the do. I think you would need to adjust a lot of these, not just one, to go into 'cruise' mode.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTGBr0jY40s[/youtube]

Guess it must be an innocent omission why you don't have an estimate for button/thumb wheel far right with word MULT written next to it. Any thoughts?

Just to prevent further obscurration - http://i45.tinypic.com/35jmng8.jpg

[myurr]

I am pretty confident the answer to this question is no, but is there a setting that you can select that irreversibly reduces engine performance that Webber may have selected to coast through the final stint? By irreversibly, I mean until they reset the ECU or something back in the pits - I have very little understanding of the ECU software.

I'm pretty sure that is not the case, so is reselecting the higher engine setting as easy as just flipping a knob? I assume in cruise mode they would alter a lot of other parameters that reduce speed but preserve tyre life, gearbox life and fuel as well.

I just don't really understand why Webber didn't try to retake P1. I personally think he might have been low on fuel, but there are no radio transmissions to indicate that. Vettel pulled out a big gap very quickly and unless he was thrashing his tyres, I don't understand how. Webber was on the harder compound to Vettel's medium, but that didn't hinder Webber in his second stint. Surely he wasn't still honouring the "Multi21" call?

It won't be irreversible, what if there was a safety car for example.

However the hard tyres were graining up a bit more than the mediums so were the worse race tyre over a stint, and Mark and his setup are generally a little bit harder on the tyres. He was saving tyres and sticking to the calls to look after the car.

But before everyone rallies against the tyres again don't forget he was also saving the engine. They have only 8 engines to last 19 races, so being able to turn them down and save some life is very important. This is likely to get worse next year when I think they're restricted to just 5 units.

[jamsbong]

Good to see Sauron found good employment after everything

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BGNMw44CMAAGnK1.jpg

LOL
My Precious....

[Cam]

Guess it must be an innocent omission why you don't have an estimate for button/thumb wheel far right with word MULTI written next to it. Any thoughts?

You didn't visit the site the did you. Let me give that to you again: http://www.auto123.com/en/racing-news/f ... tid=150593

If it's not there, take it up with René Fagnan - who wrote the article. But I like how you didn't consider that before accusing me of withholding that in a post =D>

Apologies for re-registering, I lost my username...

Multi-21 means nothing more than car with no. 2 stays ahead of car no.1. Period.

I re-saw the recording after the race where the german tv commentator interviewed Lauda and Horner together. They both laughed when he asked what Multi-21 meaned. They knew but wouldn't comment yet. After a commercial break he confirmed no. 2 stays ahead of no. 1. It is that simple.

Now although we haven't seen the video - I don't see anyone sticking to the 'it's a switch' theory anymore. I guess now it's cleared up - it's not a switch - it's a code. Come to terms with it. This is why I don't accept people's theories without evidence - no matter how 'axiomatic' you may consider it. Guess that light in the tunnel was a train

[hollus]

To everyone asking why Vettel shouldn't have grabbed those 7 points as he did: Apart from moral or personal considerations, and apart from what the team might or might not think of it...

Red Bull has been utterly dominant in quali so far. We have 17 races left, and they are likely to be 1-2 at the starting grid of many of them. So far Webber might or might not have followed team orders, but in the last years he has given Vettel space.
We'll see how much those 7 points were worth when they go side by side into the first corner of many, many races.

[FW17]

Wonder what the reaction would have been if SV had stayed put and then puked it to the media that he was asked to hold station.