lol at Vettel doing the yabba-dabba-doo and then the Crazy Frog on the radio
I am secretly hoping that Vettel winning doesn't become part of the routine, though.
Good race, one of the best in this season. Amazing start from Alonso. Good racing Vettel with Hamilton. I am happy that Vettel win. Ringdingdingdingding!!
Shouldn't this race again raise the question of DRS? Hamilton was really close to overtaking Vettel about 7 - 6 laps before finish and he most certainly wouldn't have been if it wasn't for that thing. It almost looked like the "catch up" mode in NFS series.
If anything, at least it showed that Vettel is not just a guy in the fastest car. The way he managed to keep Hamilton behind him with no KERS and in quite heavy traffic was pretty impressive. Well done Seb, keep it up!
Yes, it is laughable to see the protest coming from HRT. Yes, Koles is being a bloody hypocrite here. But Williams and Sauber(aswell as Virgin I belive) are in the same situation and are said to be willing to protest it too. And I would quite understand them if they would protest something on the edge of legality, instead of putting valuable money in it. It is part of the game somehow.
Not the first or the last time F1 faces this kind of technical controversy anyway, similar stuff happens like 4 times a year. Get over it.
I think it actually refers to a period of time when it would be ok to pit for new tyres before Ferrari's planned pitstop if a safety car came out.
Before the window is open, the drivers would be wasting some laps worth of grip on their existing tyres if they came in during safety car period, but during the window, there's enough leeway to pit for new tyres and likely still have enough grip in your other sets of tyres to get thru the rest of the race.
A team may plan 1st normal pitstop to be on lap 15. Pit on lap 9 and you've not only wasted 6 laps of decent grip, but subsequent pitstops may be 2 or 3 laps longer than the optimum. Pit anytime from lap 12, and you may only be looking at doing an extra lap between stops.
So if safety car came out before you think you could manage any deficit in tyre life, you follow the safety car. Get to the safety car window, and if safety car is out, you come in. If no safety car, you come in on planned lap.
Better to get the strategy sorted out beforehand, just in case of radio failure or some other event stops you being able to communicate.
On the HRT thing, they actually have a version of the off-throttle blown diffuser ready to go on the car, they just don't want to develop it if they can't use it next season, the FIA needs to be clear about what will happen in the future. Personally I want it to stay, just because I love the noisey Renault.
I do not know if you are aware, but blown diffuser is not only used by top teams, but by 2/3 of the field.
If HRT decides to protest it, it would probably to get closer to Lotus(and perhaps also get more comfortable with the 107% cut in Q1).
If Williams/Sauber decides to protest it, it would be to get the edge over Force India and Toro Rosso(which I belive are both blown diffuser teams), and maybe Renault. The field is very close in midfield, meaning that each tenth of a second gained over the rest of the field is extremely important. Remember that at the end of the year every teams' championship place is worth millions.
Increasingly puzzled by the strategies. Webber and Alonso seemed so obsessed with getting the undercut they had 3 stops in the bag by around lap 30. It's short term advantage because the the shorter you go then you just end up getting hung out to dry at the end of the race.
Tyres seem to be the factor for overtaking, not DRS. Button waltzed past Alonso as he had fresher tyres and could get through the last turns quicker, whereas Webber's tyres were about the same as Alonso's and he had nothing for him.
Red bull screwed Webbers strategy, what they should of done was gave him hards on the 2nd last pit stop when Alonso came in as well, meaning at worst they would be in a significantly better situation then if they don't get ahead of Alonso in the pits with the softs, which would of easily gave him 3rd.
Btw, Kobayashi gets a punchure on lap 2, pits and rejoins 25 plus seconds behind a virgin in last, yet manages to work hes way up to points position and 4 seconds off hes team mate.
Also imagin if his Q2 wasn't wrecked by the Force India on the hard tyres... But well one make their own luck.
Without that puncture perhaps he would have been right up the Merc's bottoms, or even finish ahead of them.
And on the topic of Merc, if Schumacher let Rosberg through easily, Rosberg might be able to give Alonso a really hard time! But hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I don't expect Michael to give away position easily, especially to his teammate.
Also on the topic of Red Bulls screwing Webber's strategy, that also screwed Alonso's up as well.