Chinese GP 2011 - Shanghai

[raymondu999]

Vettel has had his KERS problems too. I think he cooked his in qualifying which sound ominous for the race.

Quoting from the MGP02 thread to avoid polluting it with the off topic stuff:

I agree with you,i just find if not suspicious,at least disturbing that lately Webber gets consistently the bad end of the stick.

With all due respect to Webber; the same thing happened last year. Vettel's brakes/sparkplug/engine would fail, while Mark Webber had a far greater (nearly 100%) run of reliability. I'm not saying this in terms of Vettel-Webber. But RBR seem to have always had this problem that they can't successfully do proper QC on 2 cars - one always seems to be in the doldrums

[i70q7m7ghw]

I don't think there's anything going on in RB which is going in favour of Vettel. I think Webber is being crushed by Vettel's dominance at the moment, and it really shows. The guy practically exploded when somebody asked him if Vettel was unstopable. Mark has been looking really tense lately.

[raymondu999]

Are you referring to the comment that he was like Eddie Irvine? Someone asked him if he was the Eddie Irvine in RBR to Vettel's Schumacher. And his answer was something along the lines of "That's f**king ludicrous"

[i70q7m7ghw]

Yup that's it, seemed to really get under his skin...

[speedsense]

I don't know if this was mentioned, but Newey and Horner and a guy at the end of the table were engaged in a heated conversation as Vettel pulled in. Newey and Horner had a look of great concern as though something major had just happened. Unlike Aussie, when Vettel took the pole by .8, Newey and Horner were all high fives and celebrating like they won a race. Same in Mayalsia when Vettel took pole.

This time there was gloom looks on their faces, hardly the look of blowing out your competition in qualifying. Something major occurred, engine? trans? KERS? ..something's wrong.

Even Vettel's post qualifying interview seemed subdued and the answers weren't as up beat and happy as usual... something's up IMHO....

[andrew]

I think it is just that Vettel is driving at a higher level than Webber. Ok Webber has had some equipment failures, which is part of the game, but these are being exaggerated as Vettel is just naturally faster and has the confidence of being champion.

We used to see this with Barrichello. He would be doing fantastically in a race then he would get overtaken or have a bad pitstop and his performance would just drop off. I think this is similar to what has happened to Webber, his head has gone. Part of the cause is probably that he built himself up so much last year and believed that he could win the title (he's good but not title good) and obviously that didn't happen and he was trounced by some young Schumacher-esk kid.

I wonder if he now knows his place in Red Bull as he looks like a guy who, for want of a better expression, cannae be arsed anymore.

I may be wrong but it is a theory that seems more plausible than Red Bull deliberately screwing him.

EDIT:

Just read this: http://www.thef1times.com/news/display/03106

[andrew]

I don't know if this was mentioned, but Newey and Horner and a guy at the end of the table were engaged in a heated conversation as Vettel pulled in. Newey and Horner had a look of great concern as though something major had just happened. Unlike Aussie, when Vettel took the pole by .8, Newey and Horner were all high fives and celebrating like they won a race. Same in Mayalsia when Vettel took pole.

This time there was gloom looks on their faces, hardly the look of blowing out your competition in qualifying. Something major occurred, engine? trans? KERS? ..something's wrong.

Even Vettel's post qualifying interview seemed subdued and the answers weren't as up beat and happy as usual... something's up IMHO....

I think there are concerns over the Red Bull KERS unit. It is still new, practically untested and very fragile. I think Vettel cooked his in qualifying didn't he?

[myurr]

I don't think there's anything going on in RB which is going in favour of Vettel. I think Webber is being crushed by Vettel's dominance at the moment, and it really shows. The guy practically exploded when somebody asked him if Vettel was unstopable. Mark has been looking really tense lately.

Personally I don't think it's anything to do with Vettel's dominance and everything to do with the tyres. Apparently the tyres naturally suit Vettel's driving style in that the cars are set up with some understeer to try and preserve the weaker rear tyres, and Vettel's preferred line involves an earlier straightening of the corner which again limits the wear on these particular tyres. We've seen that Hamilton has had to abandon his favoured technique and is trying to ape Button's smoother style in a bid to make the tyres last, and it has been mentioned on several news sites that Webber is similarly suffering from his natural technique causing the rear tyres to wear too much leading to him compromising on pace and setup in order to make them last.

I would imagine that the understeering nature of the cars is also hurting drivers like Schumacher who prefer a pointy car. I haven't read through the board recently but I'd be surprised if Hamilton's frustrations in free practice 3 at not being able to push the tyres and attack the circuit had gone unnoticed.

Whilst I'm 90% behind Pirelli's aim of building relatively fragile tyres to improve the racing, it is definitely unfortunate that they also have imbalanced tyres where the rears are wearing more quickly than the fronts. I hope they try and address that aspect to make the fronts and rears more balanced in their wear rate so that some drivers don't end up favoured over others or others are unfairly penalised. I also hope that they try and produce a tyre that the drivers can use to attack the circuit without paying so much of a penalty in the tyres falling off the cliff. By all means allow drivers like Button to eek out an advantage by being kinder to the tyres, but equally let drivers like Hamilton attack and show us what they can do even if they have to make an extra stop. It should at least be an option.

[raymondu999]

I think it is just that Vettel is driving at a higher level than Webber. Ok Webber has had some equipment failures, which is part of the game, but these are being exaggerated as Vettel is just naturally faster and has the confidence of being champion.

We used to see this with Barrichello. He would be doing fantastically in a race then he would get overtaken or have a bad pitstop and his performance would just drop off. I think this is similar to what has happened to Webber, his head has gone. Part of the cause is probably that he built himself up so much last year and believed that he could win the title (he's good but not title good) and obviously that didn't happen and he was trounced by some young Schumacher-esk kid.

I wonder if he now knows his place in Red Bull as he looks like a guy who, for want of a better expression, cannae be arsed anymore.

I may be wrong but it is a theory that seems more plausible than Red Bull deliberately screwing him.

EDIT:

Just read this: http://www.thef1times.com/news/display/03106

+1

[ell66]

Actually, did anyone catch during Q3, that on the 2nd runs, Button went first, then Vettel. But by the T14 hairpin's exit, Vettel was ahead of Button. Anyone know what happened?

that never happened lol,button set the fist timed lap in q3

[donskar]

Too many hours at work, so I am not following closely, but it seems the only hope for a close race for the win is a Red Bull mechanical/KERS problem. Not good. Unless McL can find a SECOND (!) we might be facing another Brawn season. Brawn did it with DDD, and it was clear they had that advantage. Not so clear what RB's magic potion is. Flexible wing? Stunning that the RB can compete/win with an occasional 80 HP disadvantage. . . .

[forty-two]

I imagine that would depend on how many cans of fizzy drinks they think they can sell in Germany/Switzerland and for what price vs. how many they think they can sell in Australia/UK and for what price.

Out of interest, can anyone tell me how much a ca of Red Bull sells for in Germany/Australia? It's around the £1.40 mark here and pretty darn popular, although I confess I don't drink it. I tried Monster following their advertisment on JB's helmet during 2009 and think it tastes much less like bull's piss than Red Bull does (I think that's the secret "Taurine" ingredient actually ). But please don't ask me how I know what Bull urine (or perhaps semen) tastes like, I am using my imagination!

Anyway, back to topic, I for one am looking forward to a VERY interesting race. With LH having a spare set of tyres more than JB and MW having to fight his way through the field it should be a good one!

[forty-two]

Too many hours at work, so I am not following closely, but it seems the only hope for a close race for the win is a Red Bull mechanical/KERS problem. Not good. Unless McL can find a SECOND (!) we might be facing another Brawn season. Brawn did it with DDD, and it was clear they had that advantage. Not so clear what RB's magic potion is. Flexible wing? Stunning that the RB can compete/win with an occasional 80 HP disadvantage. . . .

Perhaps they inject "Taurine" into their fuel lines? Hehe! Apparently it gives you flexible wings. Although to be honest, I would have thought if anything it would have made your wings go stiff rather than floppy!

[CHT]

I think there are concerns over the Red Bull KERS unit. It is still new, practically untested and very fragile. I think Vettel cooked his in qualifying didn't he?

If KERS is worth about 0.2+ sec a lap at shanghai, I think Vettel should be able to win this one without KERS unless he screw up the start.

[forty-two]

That does highlight something I've felt about Red Bull for some time. If they have the lead, then they're off into the sunset. If however they're havin to make places in dirty air, they seem to be nowhere.

Perhaps it's a little like certain tennis players who shall remain un-named who practice only serving. Yeah, you can ace yourself to a Wimbledon final, but does it make good viewing?

Don't get me wrong, I think that both Webber and Vettel are extremely talented, but any season long (or more) total dominance from start to finish drags a little bit for me.