I’ll admit I laughed out loud. What a bonehead move. I also loved the comment made by one of the TV guys saying that Hamilton had to be “spitting feathers”. Hadn’t heard that one before but it made for a fun mental picture.
Honestly I thought the race was kind of dull until Verstappen put it in the wall. Sure, there were some interesting battles back in the field but it was looking like another Hamilton runaway until the safety car came out.
The team is taking the blame, but if I was Hamilton and they told me to pit, I would have
said, “Go Screw!”.
Post-race interviews were classic.
Hardly his fault. The team called him in, so he pitted.
Absolutely his fault. He had his hands on the wheel. He knew where he was and what his position was. Should have stayed out. No way he could have lost that race. A man of his experience should have known that. He lost focus, and lost the race because of it.
I’m sure his new 150 million contract will mop up his tears over this race.
Balls.
He does what the team tells him in that situation. He doesn’t have all the info he needs to make that decision and he has to trust that his people know what the gap was and what he likely scenario is for his rivals as well.
In slightly related news, I am becoming more of a Max Verstappen fan with every race. Kid’s got the balls of a concrete elephant. It was hilarious watching him sneak past everyone by tucking in behind Vettel. My heart might have leaped all the way out of my mouth when I saw his crash live, though.
He knew what his position was. How was he supposed to know whether he was far enough ahead to pit? It’s not like they have little leaderboards displayed in the cars like in a video game.
During Qually today, the talking heads said something about transcribed radio traffic that indicated Lewis wanted to come in and pressed the issue, not wanting to be the only guy without fresh tires.
I didn’t catch the FIA press conference that backed this. I stand by my blame on Lewis. (Like he cares about me :rolleyes: )
But the driver, ultimately, is in control and needs to have situational awareness of where he is and where he is (a track that nobody can pass you on).
Recent, and not so recent examples: Kimi telling his engineers, “I know what I’m doing” and basically telling them to shut up. Alonso’s, “reluctant” exit from the pit, while Lewis sat behind him waiting for the spot. And my favorite: Rene Arnoux refusing to let his teammate Prost pass him for a win during the Renault Turbo Era.
Should be an exciting race tomorrow, with some real fast guys in the back of the pack, assuming they can get their cars up and running.
Personally, I’d like to see Lewis over-defend a pass by Nico in the first turn (taking them both out) and then a flag to flag win by Kimi. But I’m biased.
Again, you are absolutely wrong. The driver cannot have “situational awareness” regarding cars that are 20 seconds behind him.
No. I am not wrong. The only situation Lewis needed to be aware of was that he was leading in Monaco behind the safety car with very few laps left.
If he stayed out, he would have won the race, and he should have know that.
I don’t think you are being fair to Lewis. Imagine if he had ignored his team’s instructions to come in, and been passed on the last lap to lose the race. He would be rightly castigated for doing so. Despite their overinflated egos (none more so than Lewis’s, I think, and I say that as a fan of his), these guys are trained to listen to their race manager for good reasons. On this occasion, they made an error and I don’t think you can blame the driver for that.
Kimi sounded like a little bitch after Montreal. He actually blamed the car for spinning. That’s a guy who needs to accept responsibility for his errors. It’s disappointing, really; he used to be a class act, or at least saved his complaints for other drivers. Now he’s like the anti-Hakkinen.
I watched my very first F1 race last night (I had recorded the Canadian GP). My racing knowledge is very minimal, and what I mostly know is based on watching NASCAR for a year or so in the mid nineties. And the only thing I know about F1 is what has been mentioned on Top Gear. and even then they may as well have been speaking Greek when the topic came up. But, after getting into Project CARS on PC with a steering wheel and pedals and now being all consumed by hitting the apex and not breaking too early I wanted to watch the best non-oval track racing and see how it held up. So, a few comments and questions…
My preconceived notions led me to believe that there’d be minimal passing. In this race at least, that wasn’t the case at all. Other than the top 2 (3?) positions there was a lot of excitement. I was generally interested for pretty much the whole time! How “exciting” was this race compared to the average F1 race?
I’m curious about pit strategies. Early in the race the commentators mentioned driver X was planning on 1 pit stop, driver y was planning on 2. Now, after watching the pit stops and seeing that the drivers could get in pit lane, get the pit stop, and get back on the track without losing position it was less confusing. How much time do drivers expect to lose in a pit stop? In NASCAR if you’re in the front of the pack and you pit, by the time you get back on the track most of the field has passed you. But you expect that the drivers who did pass you will have to stop later anyway, so it sort of evens out in the end. But to PLAN on more time in pit lane than your opponent, as in F1, are you expecting that the new tires from your additional pit will more than make up for lost time? I’d guess so…I guess I’m just not used to how blindingly fast F1 pits are, compared to the still really fast pits of NASCAR.
the announcing crew in the version I watched were (I think?) Martin Brundle (sp?) and some others. At first I thought they were gonna scream the entire race with amped up excitement. But after a little while it became a bit more subdued. Is that announcing crew, who I assume will be covering all the races I watch, well regarded? I thought they were interesting enough, and gave enough info about stuff like DRS that even a newbie like me could at least make heads or tails of it.
Speaking of DRS, that “opens” the back wing to allow for less down force and more speed through straights, yes? And it can only be deployed on certain parts of the track and only if you are within 1 second of the car ahead of you. Is that 1 second timing for each track that has DRS, or is it track dependent? And if the car behind can deploy DRS, does that mean the car ahead can as well? I’m guessing not. So DRS is sort of a field leveling mechanism?
Speaking of subdued (see comment/question before last), the after race bit where the drivers were in that little room area before the outdoor interview, it was like a funeral wake in there! Is that normal? They were just averaging, what ~200 kph, for about an hour and a half and that’s as amped up as they get? Not complaining, mind you, it just seemed so…foreign. Wait, it was a Canadian thing, right? After the Australian GP did they each down a Foster’s and smash the cans on each other’s foreheads?
The biggest thing that got in the way of my enjoyment was my ignorance of the sport in general. Not the technical stuff, though I am excited to learn that stuff as it trickles its way into my brain. I mean mostly not knowing the drivers, the cars, what the driver’s cars look like. That is, in a cockpit view it’s simple…the name is right there on the screen overlay. But then when they switch to overhead view I don’t know if i’m still looking at the same driver. In NASCAR it was easy. each car is a giant billboard with a unique number on it. In F1 the cars have such minimal bodies to paint that I was pretty often lost.
But, none of this is a complaint, just the observations of a genuinely virginal F1 viewer trying to get a better understanding. And I enjoyed this first race much more than expected to. I just hope it wasn’t a fluke.
Oh, wait, one more question…since in sports I enjoy I must have a team to root for. In this case I don’t really care about teams at the Ferrari or Mercedes level, I just mean a driver. I’ve tentatively decided it’d be Lewis Hamilton. Only because he seemed likable the few times he’s been on Top Gear. And in his post race interview (the one where all the top 3 were standing there) he seemed maybe a bit cocky, but didn’t come across dickish. It seems pretty clear that being a newbie Hamilton fan is like getting into baseball and deciding to like the Yankees. But which sort of Yankee is he? Bernie Williams who is good and doesn’t piss people off by acting like an arrogant, cocky asshole? Or is he the Barry Bonds (had he been a Yankee) who’s just an asshole?
Thanks!
Jeff
Montreal is a power track (basically, lots of straight bits) which is run at high average speeds. That means DRS (and drafting or slipstreaming) is more effective, as the effect of drag increases with the square of speed, or something along those lines. So there’s lots of overtaking. If you’d watched the Monaco Grand Prix two weeks ago, you might have been bored instead. Having said that, I watched F1 religiously until I moved to the US in 1996. My (possibly flawed) recollection is that this is the most-overtakey period in F1 since I started watching in 1987.
Drivers expect to lose between 20 and 25 seconds during pit stops, though it depends on the track/paddock layout (Donington Park, which hosted one GP in 1993, is unique in that the fastest way around the track involves a short cut through the pit lane.)
Nearly all the drivers are arrogant, cocky assholes.
There was arguably more passing than normal in Canada this year because a couple of the better cars (Vettel, Massa) had serious problems in qualifying, so they started deep in the field.
Typically, if Vettel and Hulkenburg are mixing it up, it means something went very, very wrong for the Ferrari at some point that weekend.
Now, there are still usually some decent fights going on in the field in any given race, but a lot of people don’t much like it when first place has a 20 second lead on second, who has a 12 second gap to third, who’s 8 seconds ahead of fourth, and they’re watching “Who’s going to get that 10th place point” all race (in F1, only the top 10 cars score points).
I think with the exception of one grand prix, winner and second have been less than 5 secs apart this year. It is a bit boring to have such a clear discrepancy between the teams at the top; they really seem to be just racing their teammate.
Abou the pit strategies. Stopping more often will give you more time on fresh tires, which can make a difference of seconds per lap. Last sunday was one of the rare occasions the last few years, where the tires were actually holding out very well and thus pitting often wasn’t the most obvious strategy.
One of the complaints of current F1 is that drivers spend more time managing tires and fuel, than actually going all out. Very little time is spent driving on the limit, which translates into drivers that are not too tired or very amped up after the race.
It’s more of an overtaking-promoting mechanism. If you are within one second of the guy in front while in the DRS zone (any track), you can press a button to open the DRS flap. It stays open until you leave the zone. So if you’ve just overtaken someone using DRS it will still be open after you pass them, and then they can turn theirs on too. Canada is one of few tracks with a straight long enough (the one right before the chicane, Wall of Champions, and start-finish gantry) to have “double DRS” overtaking where the guy who got overtaken can use DRS to “overtake back.”
Once the adrenaline wears off, they’re exhausted. In NASCAR, there are lots of g-forces but relatively few changes of direction. Plus, with the banking on ovals the forces act on the drivers’ necks less. In Formula 1, there are even more g-forces in some corners and constant changes of direction. You’ll notice the drivers’ heads are flapping around constantly; that’s because they can’t keep them still. It’s extremely tiring. If you or I was able to drive an F1 car at race speeds, we’d only complete a couple of laps before our neck muscles basically just gave up. You can see it alluded to in this video, where Richard Hammond gets to try an F1 car and basically gets shaken to pieces.
You get used to a sort of two-step identification process: look at car, look at helmet. It’s relatively easy with Hamilton and Rosberg because Hamilton wears a white helmet and Rosberg wears a black one. I think the only ones who still give me trouble are the Force India guys, because they both have orange and black in their designs.
Right, so basically what was released was that Lewis asked what was going on, and the team said “Stay out.” He said, “Are you sure, everyone else is going to be on fresh super softs,” and rather than the team saying, “No, nobody else is pitting, everyone’s going to be on cold shitty tires,” they said, “OK, then come in.” And then, common sense prevailed, and they said, “No, stay out actually,” without actually explaining their decision, so again he said, “But everyone will be on fresh super softs.” And for a second time, rather than pointing out that he was misunderstanding the situation, they conceded and let him come in.
Clearly Lewis was making decisions from a position of relative ignorance, since he thought everyone behind him was also pitting. Had they just told him what was up he wouldn’t have come in. It’s the team’s fault, IMO, because Lewis was clearly explaining his rational for wanting to come in. If he had said, “I want to come in” without explaining why, I’d be more deferential to the team here. But he was saying, “I want to come in because I want to do what everyone else is doing,” and nobody picked up on that to correct him. That’s a basic failure of communication.
That was maybe an average race in terms of interesting things that happened, maybe slightly below average. I’ve only been watching F1 for about 3 years now, but already it’s apparent just how fickle F1 fans are. People will complain about lack of passing, and when they get passing they claim that it’s artificial, and when it’s not artificial they’ll complain that drivers aren’t putting up enough of a fight. The sport is held to an impossible ideal.
Much of the passing you saw – I won’t go so far as to call it “artificial” because I don’t really know what that means (other than team orders), but it’s a foregone conclusion. Driver X is coming up on driver Y on faster tires in a faster car (say, immediately after a pit stop), and everyone knows he’s going to get by, especially with DRS. In most cases driver Y won’t put up a fight because doing so will shorten the life of his own tires and he’s destined to lose the fight anyway. He may make a token gesture of blocking but it’s not that exciting, and then driver X gets by, and the camera finds something else.
That bothers a lot of people, but the alternative is faster cars getting stuck behind slower cars for multiple laps until they can find a way past. In Canada, Vettel would have been stuck further down the field rather than fighting with the cars further up the field towards the end that were probably going to be a better show anyway.
I’ve tried watching MotoGP and IndyCar, both of which have loads of passing, and I find that too much passing makes it uninteresting. It’s hard to follow and I don’t care about 90% of the race because the order doesn’t matter until the very end. However, what that means is you can watch an IndyCar race without knowing anything about the teams or drivers, pick a favorite early in the race and witness a lot of excitement as your driver moves up and down the pack.
In F1, to get full enjoyment you really need to follow what’s going on all weekend and even during the week and the off season as well. At one point in Canada Vettel had to pass Alonso (McLaren) and Massa (Williams). Alonso put up a pretty entertaining defense in a much slower car, as Alonso is known to do, but what makes that more interesting is that Alonso drove for Ferrari last year but left because they couldn’t build a decent car, but this year their car is pretty good. So Alonso is getting passed by his old car. And Massa was Alonso’s teammate at Ferrari for years until he was fired after the 2013 season, so here are 3 drivers all dicing it out in the back of the pack who all have a long history together.
It’s like a big soap opera that happens to involved the most sophisticated race cars on the planet. Some people like that; I certainly do. But if you just want to watch racing it can get tedious.
After the 2010 Canadian grand prix, which saw tires falling apart and lots of on-track action owing to the resulting frequent pit stops, Formula 1 requested that their sole tire provider, Pirelli, make “designed to degrade” tires. From 2011 on, F1 tires are designed to work for X number of laps, and then they basically fall apart, forcing drivers to pit. So yes, part of it is that they plan on sacrificing a 25 second pit stop in order to go 1.5 seconds per lap faster for then next 17 laps, but part of it is that if they don’t pit at a certain point then the tires will go off and they’ll start losing 2, 3, 5 seconds per lap as the tires turn to rock.
Also, Pirelli picks 2 tire compounds for each race, and teams are required to run both compounds at least once, meaning that 1 pit stop is required at a minimum (unless it rains, in which case all bets are off). Much of the passing you saw on Sunday was the result of this concept; cars pit prematurely due to fear of tire destruction, come out on track behind slower cars on old tires, and then have to make frequent passes to get back up to their “rightful” position. Again, many people feel that this makes the racing feel artificial, but it’s certainly succeeded at it’s goal.
Martin Brundle covers the races as part of the Sky F1 team. They’re the best. NBC is horrid, BBC is barely passable. I’m not sure what you have access to. I have to find Sky F1 torrents because I refuse to watch any other coverage anymore.
Most tracks have 2 DRS zones, it’s always 1 second and the leading car doesn’t get DRS unless they’re also within 1 second of a car in front of them. DRS is more effective on some tracks than others. It exists because F1 cars produce a lot of dirty air. When a driver gets within 1 second of another car, he loses a good chunk of downforce and the car won’t turn anymore. The result is that fast cars can get stuck behind slow cars for entire races. DRS is designed to mitigate that.
Again, many F1 fans absolutely hate DRS. Me, I don’t mind it.
Even the announcers get confused sometimes. Obviously this gets easier the more you watch, but it’s one of the many reasons I prefer Sky’s coverage. NBC never seems to know who they’re looking at on screen.
Lewis Hamilton just release a hip hop album. That’s probably all you need to know about him. He likes the Monaco lifestyle, he mopes about his girlfriends a lot, he’s very emotional. He seems like a nice enough guy but I probably wouldn’t want to be friends with him.
Vettel, Raikonnen, Ricciardo, Bottas, Button – all very down to earth guys who are easy to root for. When Vettel seem unstoppable it was easy to hate him, but now that he’s been humbled a bit by the slower Ferrari he’s much more likable.
Even then, Canada was a great example of how that 5 second gap is misleading. Rosberg’s engineers kept psyching him up for a big push, but naturally any time he got within 2 seconds of Hamilton, Hamilton just turned it up a little and made the gap bigger. I’m sure Mercedes are running with their engines just above what they need to keep ahead of Ferrari. It’s amazing how much more reliable they are this year over all the other engine suppliers.
Jules Bianchi finally succumbed to the injury from last season. 
Poor guy. Never had a chance.
High value in the “Death Pool” if anybody had him. Would have been a gimme if I bothered to play.
Ferrari back on the top step. That was satisfying. Would have liked to see Rosberg get more points.
That was an awesome race. Bad luck for Kimi and a poor showing for the Williams team but it was entertaining.
Nice tribute to Bianchi, when the drivers did the thing with their helmets I thought I was gonna cry. I did have him in my Death Pool, the fruit was too low-hanging to pass up.
