Malaysian GP 2010 - Sepang

[Raftaar]

Anyone saw Webber about to explode in the podium press conference?
He was either going to cry or strangle Vettel to death. He didn't like the fact Vettel mentioned his name so many times as if he were a joke.
Vettel's long speech was also getting on his nerves, you could see his chest puffing and blowing. Very awkward and tense moments.
That man Webber is going to physically hurt that boy Vettel one of these days..

Yes, ringo is right there, maybe a little too exagerated.

But I think it was visible even before that, in the Podium finisher's private area, the TV footage showed Webber just bowed down on the sofa, very passive, and not speaking to anyone, while Vettle and Rosberg were talking in German. He didn't do anything on the podium, his response on getting the trophy seemed as if he was pretending to look happy, his body language said it.
AND YES, it really boiled over in the press conference. It was clearly VISIBLE from his face, and Vettle with his speach was really niggling in, rubbing salt to the wound. He then really tried very hard to hide his contempt in his speech, and did well too.
I think, it was because of Webber, being the gentleman he his, that this episode didn't get ugly, but Vettle was really pushing it [-X .

[andartop]

I really really really like Mark Webber as a driver, and used to think back in his Minardi days (same as for Alonso) that given a championship winning car he would get at least 2 driver's titles, but he just doesn't deliver. Yes, he had a poor start which can happen to anybody, and was delayed at his pit stop, which can happen to anybody, but he didn't really challenge for the win today at any stage of the race. I can't shake the feeling that had it been a Michael Schumacher, Alonso, Kimi or even Lewis in his shoes he would have had a go at Vettel. I think he is unfortunately turning out to be just another Rubens. Here's hoping he won't turn out to be a new Ralf!

[Pandamasque]

I was amazed by Alonso today. He seemed to be the fastest man out there even with that clutch problem (fastest apart from the RBR who were in their own league and didn't have to push much).

Man of the race? Rob Smedley! Traditionally in Malaysia he gave us a new nickname for the baby - the good boy.

@ andartop - it didn't look like Red Bulls really raced each other apart from lap 1 and surely not after the pitstops. It was decided at the start.

[szlaszlo84]

In light of the penalty of Hamilton, how do you guys judge Massa's actions in Australia?

[andartop]

Surely it seemed that way, but then again where are all those people yelling, screaming, moaning and pointing fingers while proclaiming Formula 1 was dead when Ferrari was issuing Team Orders?





(Oh, right, it's ok if you do it in a somewhat discrete fashion! :-" )

[Giblet]

...
Cheating is a bit strong but the 3 moves down the straight were still dirty and I was not impressed.

I did luv how Webbo banged out a 1:30.054 on lap 53 just to rub the other teams faces in how fast the RB6 is! =D>

1:37.054. The Red Bull is fast, but not that fast.

[pacerboy]

Did Vettel pass I think a Lotus under yellows on the last lap - just near where Alonso failed? There was a flashing green on the exit of the corner!

I thought so! http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/story/13661.html

[Raftaar]

I really really really like Mark Webber as a driver, and used to think back in his Minardi days (same as for Alonso) that given a championship winning car he would get at least 2 driver's titles, but he just doesn't deliver. Yes, he had a poor start which can happen to anybody, and was delayed at his pit stop, which can happen to anybody, but he didn't really challenge for the win today at any stage of the race. I can't shake the feeling that had it been a Michael Schumacher, Alonso, Kimi or even Lewis in his shoes he would have had a go at Vettel. I think he is unfortunately turning out to be just another Rubens. Here's hoping he won't turn out to be a new Ralf!

I agree with andartop, but only partially, I think you are being a little harsh on Webber.
Webber is a very good race driver, a great professional. They say, he is one of the most popular drivers in the F1 circles and always seems a really nice man. He has been on the F1 grid for many years now and that is because he has been a very competetive racer, otherwise he won't be there. Now that he has a quick car under him for the first time in his career, his teammate is proving to be quicker than him, by a little though, but quicker still.
He did loose his position in the race, maybe because of a bad start, but I am sure he could have been much more aggressive than he did, and I am sure the team must have instructed him to "keep off any risk". He was as quick as Vettle today, but still had to come second.
I know people, specially commentators, like to call Vettle the "golden boy" in the team, and so on, but let us not decredit Webber in any way.

Webber will have his days, I am sure .

[mach11]

In light of the penalty of Hamilton, how do you guys judge Massa's actions in Australia?

i suppose you are refering to the first corner move with webber and also hamilton behind him... that was clearly racing... it just looked dramatic... massa had the oppurtunity to squeeze into the area and so he did it...

Surely it seemed that way, but then again where are all those people yelling, screaming, moaning and pointing fingers while proclaiming Formula 1 was dead when Ferrari was issuing Team Orders?

well reading several previous posts i guess this issue has been dragged along... according to me... well if a driver makes a dangerous move which hinders the other driver's position or in some way affects his progress ( refering to the rule quote in the above posts) in the race then yes he has to be penalised... but here both drivers were fighting for a postion in the race and clearly it was pure racing....

its been a long time since i have seen such movement of cars on the race track...

racing guys... thats how it is...

racing guys... sometimes thats how it is...

[Giblet]

Back to a regular safety car I see? No gull-winged beauty.

[ringo]

I really really really like Mark Webber as a driver, and used to think back in his Minardi days (same as for Alonso) that given a championship winning car he would get at least 2 driver's titles, but he just doesn't deliver. Yes, he had a poor start which can happen to anybody, and was delayed at his pit stop, which can happen to anybody, but he didn't really challenge for the win today at any stage of the race. I can't shake the feeling that had it been a Michael Schumacher, Alonso, Kimi or even Lewis in his shoes he would have had a go at Vettel. I think he is unfortunately turning out to be just another Rubens. Here's hoping he won't turn out to be a new Ralf!

I agree with andartop, but only partially, I think you are being a little harsh on Webber.
Webber is a very good race driver, a great professional. They say, he is one of the most popular drivers in the F1 circles and always seems a really nice man. He has been on the F1 grid for many years now and that is because he has been a very competetive racer, otherwise he won't be there. Now that he has a quick car under him for the first time in his career, his teammate is proving to be quicker than him, by a little though, but quicker still.
He did loose his position in the race, maybe because of a bad start, but I am sure he could have been much more aggressive than he did, and I am sure the team must have instructed him to "keep off any risk". He was as quick as Vettle today, but still had to come second.
I know people, specially commentators, like to call Vettle the "golden boy" in the team, and so on, but let us not decredit Webber in any way.

Webber will have his days, I am sure .

That man is fueled by anger, he will win soon. Big mistake in letting third place take the lead, but at least he has the speed to fight back. He will have his day to pummel vettel, anytime Vettel makes the mistake to qualify midfield, he will be in Webber's yard and things wont look so rosy fighting Webber.

However as long as Vettel is "time attack king" aka DER ZEIT-ANGRIFFS-KONIG he is out of Webber's reach.

[audifan]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82716

absolute common sense in my view , I can imagine johnny herberts comments

I can also imagine what would have been awarded if it had been hamilton when max's man was the arbiter ...the guillotine perhaps ?
and if it had been the same panel last year , no liegate !

[Raftaar]

To everyone , I think this arguement has gone long enough , so let us please stop it, why not discuss on something else!!

Let me try by posting a query that I have - We know that Alonso had a gearbox problem in the race, could anyone tell at what time in the race did this problem start??!

on the warmup lap
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82694

I am amazed to know this !!!

It really amazes me that he drove the whole race with that problem, and still clocked very competetive laptimes!!
I was watching the race on TV, and in the coverage, it was really after his pitstop that one had a hint that there was a problem with his gearshifts, it was evident from the engine sound while he exited corners. And commentators picked it up when he was chasing Button. It was only very clear when he was trying to overtake Button, cleary he was quicker than him (till then he was approaching at 2 sec. per lap quicker than Button), but was just loosing ground in the corners, especially the 1st and final corner. Went past him twice in p1, but each time went wide, and took ages to upshift. His car was making a wierd sound while he made upshifts in corners, it was a terrible sound.
Just before the lap he retired, in the final hairpin, his engine made a very loud noise, he was again looking to overtake along the straight in p1, he did, but then, there was a loud noise again, and then we all know what happened.

I actually thought, after his initial attempts on Button, that he would back off, not risk it, and settle for the 2 points, but well, we can't blame him, he is a racing driver.

I was very dissapointed , cruel luck for him!!

I don't know if the team warned him about the effects on the engine, what was the official word for the cause of retairement??!

[horse]

The new points scoring system is certainly keeping it tight. Not just the extra win bonus but the fact that teams can score all the way down to P10 has kept drivers with yoyo-ing form tight at the top. Very exciting, and for nearly all of the top drivers, apart from Schumacher, it is virtually a reset 16 race championship from now on.

[WhiteBlue]

Man of the race for me was Johnny Herbert. He was very likely behind the decisions to issue a warning to Hamilton for breaking the code by that blatant weaving and most likely also drove the decision not to penalize Vettel when he passed the slowing car of Trulli. DC clearly is fishing for a management contract with his one sided comments. This weaving is certainly not ok.

Hamilton is on notice now and if he messes up one more time like that he will have to pay the price. I don't think it was cheating. More likely a certain exuberance in the heat of the moment. We know that it happens to drivers occasionally. It is good that the stewards made clear that it isn't ok but kept Hamilton going.

Shame that Michael mechanicalled out of a race that could have seen him take important points. Well done Nico to drive to the podium. All three podium drivers were clearly totally exhausted. Nico had a very strange color of face initially and Webber had to sit down in the weighing room. I guess that Vettel has stamped his authority over Webber and that Webber will loose the psychological battle for the championship sometime in the next three or four races.

Special congrats to Sutil who did a good job as Kubica did. But he also did a nice rear guard fight and deserved to finally bring the points home.

Massa is the lucky points collector but he is in danger to be made a target of joke by his race engineer. Smedley should hold back a little bit. Button made a strange decision to start on soft tyres and had his race compromised as a result. He never managed to get anything worthwhile to watch out of the car.

Alonso drove a very hard race with a failing clutch and may have thrown away two points by attempting to pass Button. We know the Ferraris have a special boost button which gives them final revs when needed. I'm pretty confident he pushed the button to pass and that may have blown his engine which was already stressed by the lost clutch driving.

Alguersuari drove a mature race beyond his age and the Hulk brought the car home in the points. All of them well done. Di Grassi, Chandhok, Senna and Trulli managed to get classified which isn't easy for the new car drivers.

Had the rain not spiced things up in qualifying we would have seen a very boring race. F1 is by no means out of the woodworks. The teams need to go for more mechanical grip cut aero back significantly beyond the ban of the DDDs and bring back unlimited KERS next year. These decisions are urgent because the main specs for the 2011 cars are set now.