2013 Japanese GP - Suzuka

[henra]

Alonso overtake Massa was a team order?, I think we have seen different races.
And you are right, are a lot of person who hate Vettel and Red Bull, and they are feeding them every sunday.

In this particular instance you might even be right.
That said, reading your post I have to raise an honest question:
Since when are you watching F1?
I assume it was the first race you ever watched.
Otherwise you would have noticed that Ferrari is probably the most obvious example of using Team Orders since the Schumi days. Poor Massa has (had to) given away some many opportunities to Alonso (Grid places by unnneccessary Gearbox change as well as on track) that I can't imagine anyone kept track of it similar to what happened to some of his No 2 predecessors before (Ask Rubens).
That said, RB seems to have learned a lot from them.

[iotar__]

It's hard with Vettel, either over-praised or bashed, nothing in between, so let's be clear - he did his job apart from the start, I'm not questioning that, I'm questioning strength of the opposition and difficulty of this win/strategy.

Grosjean had 11/10 race, better than anything Hulkenberg did in his career. Only missing part is media propaganda/misinformation machine. The one that recently tried to convince audience, after all time great seasons, that Alonso is a bad qualifier. If they can do that, anyone else has no chance .

I was cautiously suspicious/disinterested in RB strategies but after Webber's comments it stinks more, he should know how it smells. It could have been interesting for RB, regardless of the outcome, if Lotus changed for three stops and mediums leaving Webber in front in free air and Vettel behind him. I'm not sure they would have pitted Webber then.

[Moanlower]

webber's 1st & 2nd stint, no deg.
http://i.imgur.com/X1kDKU5.jpg

Where did you get those laptimes?

Can you give us Vettel's laptimes from his first stint ?

[Jonnycraig]

The one that recently tried to convince audience, after all time great seasons, that Alonso is a bad qualifier. If they can do that, anyone else has no chance .

Agreed, those devious so-and-so's daring to speak the truth that Massa out qualifying Alonso at 3 of the last 4 races and also at the crucial end of 2012 season races show Alonso isn't qualifying well.

[henra]

It could have been interesting for RB, regardless of the outcome, if Lotus changed for three stops and mediums leaving Webber in front in free air and Vettel behind him. I'm not sure they would have pitted Webber then.

It is pretty safe to assume that in such a scenario Grosjean would have ended up 3rd instead of 3rd.
Edit: If there was a tiny chance for Grosjean to end up better than 3rd it would have been staying out covering Vettel instead of Webber.
Still doubtfull if it would have worked.

Re pitting Webber: Once they called him in relatively early and based on the (not so daring) assumption that Webber doesn't save tyres as well as either Lotus or Vettel, there was no other reasonable strategy for Webber left than the one they used.

Leaving aside the effect for each driver personally (One profits, one doesn't) a perfect strategy from RB, fully exploiting having two cars opposed to one Lotus. Text Book example.

[SectorOne]

Disaster race for Mercedes again. I think without the puncture Hamilton would have been right in the mix for the win. A certain podium position at least.

[Just_a_fan]

Really? What was he supposed to do? Both Red Bulls were slow away and he'd passed Vettel and was alongside Webber. Was he supposed to slow down and allow the Red Bulls to stay ahead of him off the line?

Without wishing to get into the 'fanboy ying yang' stuff, Alonso was in an identical situation in Melbourne, he was going for a gap between Massa & Hamilton off the line that suddenly closed and backed out, set himself for T1 and overtook Hamilton into T2. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour.

Hamilton had gone through the gap though. Vettel was in effect behind him. Hamilton was alongside Webber. It was Webber's swerve that made Hamilton move across and lightly clip Vettel's front wing. In that respect, Webber's swerve worked because it caused one of his competitors to fall back. I bet he'd have been happier if Hamilton had wiped Vettel's nose off completely.

[iotar__]

I didn't think much about Webber during the race, but really even if he was slower on hards or couldn't push them as long as Vettel they could have left him in front and see what happens. I'll wait for reactions but safe bet they would have done it either way.[/quote]

And if they had left him out and it never worked out according the outcome you want you would have cursed RBR for a stupid strategy and for constructing a win for Vettel...[/quote]
That's a given . On the other hand, both Webber and Vettel would have had to drive at Grosjean's speed until pitstop (I don't remember how long), that would have equalised some pace, tyre advantage (?).

Edit:
1 more thing, if they stayed at the same strategy one pitstop might have been compromised, undercut Webber in front let's say, another chunk of Vettel's advantage gone.

[turbof1]

Disaster race for Mercedes again. I think without the puncture Hamilton would have been right in the mix for the win. A certain podium position at least.

Yeah. you have to feel for the man. Webber moved a bit to the right, forcing Lewis to do that as well, which ended up in Vettel's wing. Nobody can be really blamed. It's bad luck.

Raikkonen really was nowhere today, wasn't he? Since Raikkonen signed for Ferrari, Grosjean is driving suddenly much better compared to the Fin.

[Joie de vivre]

Since Raikkonen signed for Ferrari, Grosjean is driving suddenly much better compared to the Fin.

But why is that? Maybe sabotage Kimi after what happened in Korea?

[iotar__]

The one that recently tried to convince audience, after all time great seasons, that Alonso is a bad qualifier. If they can do that, anyone else has no chance .

Agreed, those devious so-and-so's daring to speak the truth that Massa out qualifying Alonso at 3 of the last 4 races and also at the crucial end of 2012 season races show Alonso isn't qualifying well.

This is so perfect, thanks for proving my point with selective statistics. [Especially Korea was one-sided]. How about full statistics? Maybe also race finishes, wins, podiums (I forgot this one's about qualifying only and proves nothing). Not so impressive then?

After Grosjean nailed Hamilton in Korea the same dishonest statisticians announced, a propos of nothing, that it was ONLY THE SECOND TIME RG gained positions, ignoring Hamilton's not gaining but also losing position not only in this race but also in every other race recently. Where is "Hamilton sucks at starts, gets into trouble all the time and is overall menace to society" after Japan? (I'm not saying that but routine is obvious).

[acidtech]

Where did you get those laptimes?

Can you give us Vettel's laptimes from his first stint ?

there you go !

[LionKing]

What is not optimal qualifing in Ferrari is the car.
Alonso has won every teammate in all the teams and have been in similar rate os poles with Hamilton in McLaren, who is by far the best qualifier out there. So you don´t have to many arguments to tell he is not good qualifier.
Raikkonen is always tuning the car for race not for qualy.

It would have been nice, if it were true However:

Alonso also narrowly lost the qualifying matchup vs Trulli (15 - 16).

He lost the matchup against Lewis 9-7 plus 1 Hungarian quali in which he stopped Lewis from doing his fast lap in Q3. Lewis was 0.35 second faster in Q2 so very likely easily qualify Alonso in Q3 as well had he had the chance...

PS: Lewis 5 poles in Mclaren 2007, Alonso 3

[Gerhard Berger]

Since Raikkonen signed for Ferrari, Grosjean is driving suddenly much better compared to the Fin.

But why is that? Maybe sabotage Kimi after what happened in Korea?

who knows. We do know that earlier in the season Kimi was getting the newer parts ahead of Grosjean.

[iotar__]

Disaster race for Mercedes again. I think without the puncture Hamilton would have been right in the mix for the win. A certain podium position at least.

Yeah. you have to feel for the man. Webber moved a bit to the right, forcing Lewis to do that as well, which ended up in Vettel's wing. Nobody can be really blamed. It's bad luck.

Raikkonen really was nowhere today, wasn't he? Since Raikkonen signed for Ferrari, Grosjean is driving suddenly much better compared to the Fin.

No he's not driving "better" it's a matter of running out of updates to disadvantage, qualifying sabotages (Bahrain), robberies (Germany, Hungary), reliability (Singapore) and luck (Korea). It's one of those media realities, he was good enough in Bahrain, fourth overall and first almost normal race in terms of updates, set-up, yet still far away from 100%, he's not suddenly much better than in Valencia 2012. Better overall, more experienced but no much changed since 2012 for either of drivers. Same for Raikkonen, Deduct RG from Japan and Raikkonen is strong fourth, third without bad qualy, only losing to unbeatable Red Bulls, sound good, right?

Lotus could have had Grosjean as good as today in Australia, China and Malaysia and much better now, they chose something else for marketing reasons. Most importantly it's about percentages of races you have a chance of doing sth in succession and strong car, no mystery here.