Kimi's cool, therefore it is Perez's fault.

If a Merc gets pole then you could literally have the top 12 running nose to tail as Hamilton tries to get the tyres to last. Will lead to some interesting calls on the pitwall as it will be quite similar to pitting behind the safety car.

Quote from tristancliffe :

My rules would be thus:

Type manufacturer brings two compounds to a race. An option and a prime.
The harder tyre can last all race pushing hard, but is a slower harder tyre overall.
The softer tyre can accept being punished, but has a life (either wear or degradation, I don't mind which at this stage) that means two or three pitstops will be required.

Drivers are required to use either hard or soft but not both compounds. Not sure if they should be forced to qualify on the race tyre or a free choice. Probably free.

The compounds are carefully selected so that the overall race time of either tyre is roughly the same. As such, some will go for the qualifying laps on soft tyres all race, and others will go for a non-stop hard. Different strategies then result, which might lead to passing without being too contrived or required an artificially 'poor' tyre.

But I haven't really thought it through.

Bit like the 1980s then. A B C and D compounds. D were like Pirellis now but A and B could do the whole race depending on the track. Mansell changed his tyres and got Piquet at Silverstone in 86 or 87 but he did the same thing at Jerez and didn't get Senna by the width of his foreskin. Senna and Piquet didn't stop in those races.

Oh dear, this is usually a good track for Mark. Going to have to start thinking about I'll be transferring my allegiences to in 2014. Leaning to Alonso.

Quote from Mustangman759 :

You left out spurs. Spurs is a club that could very well win the title next year.

Remove Bale and they are seriously short of firepower. No team relies on a single player like Spurs do (except perhaps Liverpool) and until they address that then you can't consider them to be contenders. One injury would be a major problem

I've heard some good things about this guy:

http://bundesligafootball.co.u ... at-now-for-thomas-tuchel/

He would be a much more hopeful appointment for Everton than the likes of Hughes or O'Neill!

You certainly wouldn't want to be the person to follow Fergie; you would want to be the person to follow the person who followed Fergie.

I think he could do the job, no question, but it would still be a risk. Man Utd don't need to take risks - they can take someone who is proven.

If it's true, maybe Fergie sees him as someone he can mentor into the job and mould?

As for Souness - a class 1 loon, no question, but didn't Dalglish leave him a declining squad?

Quote from CSF :

I don't think United can pick any manager they like. In an ideal world I think they'd go for Klopp, but Klopp is likely to stick about and try and re-build for at least one more season. It's sometimes easy to forget what a mess Everton were when Moyes went there. It will be tough for them to replace him.

All too painful remembering what state we were in when Moyes turned up! It's just that improving a crisis club to being one punching above their weight in the top 6, improving players whose careers have stalled (Pienaar, Arteta) or picking potential from the lower leagues (Cahill, Jagielka) isn't the skill set required at Man Utd.

I hope he doesn't go, but he would leave not owing Everton a thing.

Quote from CSF :

Not entirely unsurprising. Moyes in it seems.

Not surprising, but apparent choice of successor is however. And that's coming from an Everton fan. It's not that I don't rate Moyes as I think he's done the best he can with the transfer and wage pot available to him (although a bit more acceptance to wheel and deal might have generated more transfer cash), but Man Utd can pick any manager they like.

Quote from J@tko :

So tyres [sic? ] don't become ice cubes in caution periods. Same reason why R3s are banned on ovals

No, not sic .

That makes sense. I used to have a couple of R4/R3 FO8 sets which were nicely balanced and used for sneaky no stop strategies. It would be a nightmare after a caution though!

Why are R4 tyres banned for road courses?

Don't blame Evra for that. Liverpool, with their T-shirts and that odious Dalglish person, smeared him whilst painting Suarez as the victim in 2012.

Liverpool has become a club deeply associated with lowering the ethical bar. Look at today's developments. They have fined him (wow!) and then debased Hillsborough by bringing the Support Group up as being the recipients of the money, to deflect some of the criticism.

Shameful.

Yeah, it's quite a quick corner there too. Will see more passing there due to tyre wear as drivers struggle in the traction zone at the start of the straight.

Fair penalty for Webber. It can be easy to get sucked in looking at a driver taking a wide entry and it turned out looking like a half arsed attempt. Shame because he was bringing himself back into play, although he would have run longer on each set of mediums than the others.

Alonso was terrific. Showed up the difference between him and Massa. Felipe is quick and was showing his nose early on, but he drifted back from mid race whilst Alonso drove to the potential of the car and tyres lap after lap.

Will be a different order next week I think. Bahrain is rear limited so it will be much more a test of traction which could help Lotus, but the temperature will be another new factor.

Webber sent to the back of the grid for only having 150ml of fuel in the car when it stopped, not enough to take a sample.

I guess they'll take a bit of wing off lengthen 7th gear and start from pitlane, but can't see him making the same impression as 2011. Even if he is flying then the marbles are going to cause problems for overtaking. Same applies to the Mercs when they pit on lap 4.

Oh good. Pages of tedious predictions to be replaced by pages of tedious conspiracy theories.

Anyway, going to be an interesting race. Can't see the top guys lasting too many laps but will they get enough of a gap to clear the midfield medium runners? Could be a Button / Vettel / Webber podium. Going by Melbourne, then you could make an argument for Kimi two stopping here, but Lotus will have last year in mind no doubt.

I would like to see a proper frontrunner take the plunge and stick the primes on for Q3. It would be fascinating to see how a car would fare on say the third row with those tyres on.

Ferrari looked good on soft tyres. Seems like this is a Merc track. Red Bull will be there or thereabouts.

Quote from Lotesdelere :

Sebastian Vettel: I may disobey Red Bull orders again

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/22106490

Webber will run him off the road next time.

Then get sacked.

1) which team will score most points? Don't care, would rather discuss the race rather than make guesses that no one will care about next week
2) will pole sitter win the race? See above
3) who wins the race? See above
4) number of cars finish? See above
5) will williams score points? See above
6) who gets the fastest lap? See above
Bonus) first driver to finish lap down? See above

I see the Vettel row rumbles on. No surprise there. I'm interested to see Mark's on track reaction as he can do quite well driving angry - "not bad for a number 2 driver" and all that.

Massa is on for outqualifying Alonso for the 5th race in a row. He's driving quite well this year, which could cause problems for Ferrari later on. If Alonso fails to finish a couple more races and he's behind on points in the later stages how would Ferrari cope with it?

Quote from Intrepid :

May I remind you bunch of numpties that F1 teams with their gigantic resources and massive brains still struggle massively getting a barely accurate tyre model sorted for their simulations.

trying to create an accurate tyre model takes years to get right. deal with it

That's a good point about the F1 teams. Given that, and the time it has taken to get who knows where with the LFS tyre modelling, it does make me wonder whether it was the right decision to approach the physics in the was LFS has. Is it too much to produce an accurate model that works in all situations and then try to boil it down into something that can work in real time on a moderately powerful PC?

Ultimately, Mateschitz is in charge and he seems to be close to Webber, although I'm sure he's not against Vettel after what they have acheived together. If the man writing all the cheques says something needs to happen though then you never know how things will turn out.

Can't be any clearer than that, col.

If the speed limit is 30mph, but there is no fine or penalty points if you exceed it then the limit is ignored - why would you stick to it?

The only thing that happens to Seb now is he gets criticised in the media. Like he cares.