Formula 1 Season 2012

EarlyPrototype wrote:

Vibe wrote:Massa finally Hopefully he'll show up for the quali and race as well...

Vibe watches F1.

Massa your fav?

No,Alonso Best driver in F1 IMO...

Kingofeverythingclassy wrote:What a crap season this is becoming. 5 different winners from 5 teams so realistically 5 other guys can win. Add 2 Lotus guys and Sauber who were probably the quickest in Malayasia.

So 14 guys can win races??? This is getting stupid. Its all rubbish Tyre lottery. Pirelli is trash. My favourite was obviously Michellin followed by Bridgestones.

Now they talk of Qualifying tyres to take the focus from rubbish tyres and marbles all over the place.

Ohh and this is the ATLEAST the second straight season where Mercedes have a DUD exhaust. If they cant even copy Mclaren's they will never have any similar amount of downforce.

Looking forward to Spa & Monza,my two favourite races.

Competition doesn't hurt. Last time Vettel was expected to finish first like every time. Got a bit annoying. Currently you never know what is going to happen.

Also those tyres are meant to be softer with more grip. But I don't think these much hyped tyres are actually an improvement over last years.

Vibe I will be cheering for Hamilton.

Alonso is a Madridista so I will be hoping he does well too.

Force India......:vagi:

And Jesp team owner's name is Vijay *Mallya* not Malla.

He also owns the club cricket franchise i support.

Am a Ferarri fan as well though.But i'm not watching F1 that much these days.

EarlyPrototype wrote:

Kingofeverythingclassy wrote:What a crap season this is becoming. 5 different winners from 5 teams so realistically 5 other guys can win. Add 2 Lotus guys and Sauber who were probably the quickest in Malayasia.

So 14 guys can win races??? This is getting stupid. Its all rubbish Tyre lottery. Pirelli is trash. My favourite was obviously Michellin followed by Bridgestones.

Now they talk of Qualifying tyres to take the focus from rubbish tyres and marbles all over the place.

Ohh and this is the ATLEAST the second straight season where Mercedes have a DUD exhaust. If they cant even copy Mclaren's they will never have any similar amount of downforce.

Looking forward to Spa & Monza,my two favourite races.

Competition doesn't hurt. Last time Vettel was expected to finish first like every time. Got a bit annoying. Currently you never know what is going to happen.

Also those tyres are meant to be softer with more grip. But I don't think these much hyped tyres are actually an improvement over last years.

Vibe I will be cheering for Hamilton.

Alonso is a Madridista so I will be hoping he does well too.

Competition is 1 Thing & a stupid no brained lottery is another thing. This is making Formula 1 a joke. And I hope it does not rain in Monaco. As it is the race is a borefest bar the glamour & heritage,a wet Monaco with possible crashes & 30 Lap Safety Car period to recover those bits in crashed would be pathetic.

Its not about grip or softness. Its they react weirdly at different time. At 20 degress they suit car A,and 30 Degress they completely change & suit Car B.

Its just stupid,the whole grip & setup & temperature window that's all. In Season Development is virtually being cancelled because people cant understand how these tyres behave.

What a load of crap from Pirelli.

first of all i m so sorry guys for not updating the championship points. felt like there arent many f1 fans here so i just felt lonely to discuss anything about f1 hahaha.

i will do that. and thanks, surag, i will edit Mr. Vijay name.

Kingofeverythingclassy wrote:

EarlyPrototype wrote:

Kingofeverythingclassy wrote:What a crap season this is becoming. 5 different winners from 5 teams so realistically 5 other guys can win. Add 2 Lotus guys and Sauber who were probably the quickest in Malayasia.

So 14 guys can win races??? This is getting stupid. Its all rubbish Tyre lottery. Pirelli is trash. My favourite was obviously Michellin followed by Bridgestones.

Now they talk of Qualifying tyres to take the focus from rubbish tyres and marbles all over the place.

Ohh and this is the ATLEAST the second straight season where Mercedes have a DUD exhaust. If they cant even copy Mclaren's they will never have any similar amount of downforce.

Looking forward to Spa & Monza,my two favourite races.

Competition doesn't hurt. Last time Vettel was expected to finish first like every time. Got a bit annoying. Currently you never know what is going to happen.

Also those tyres are meant to be softer with more grip. But I don't think these much hyped tyres are actually an improvement over last years.

Vibe I will be cheering for Hamilton.

Alonso is a Madridista so I will be hoping he does well too.

Competition is 1 Thing & a stupid no brained lottery is another thing. This is making Formula 1 a joke. And I hope it does not rain in Monaco. As it is the race is a borefest bar the glamour & heritage,a wet Monaco with possible crashes & 30 Lap Safety Car period to recover those bits in crashed would be pathetic.

Its not about grip or softness. Its they react weirdly at different time. At 20 degress they suit car A,and 30 Degress they completely change & suit Car B.

Its just stupid,the whole grip & setup & temperature window that's all. In Season Development is virtually being cancelled because people cant understand how these tyres behave.

What a load of crap from Pirelli.

that is true, i posted another post in another f1 thread about how this season the weather is playing huge role in influencing who is going to be a loser and a winner. weather is playing massive role this year, and different range of track temperature seems to change the way tyres behaves and suit different car. like KIngofeverythingclassy said... btw dude, u gotta change ur name its way too long... hahaha

i will find that post...

the best car, or the best driver, or aerodynamics and car development has completely become secondary thing. lot has to do with the race track temp ... so weather plays big part in tyres!! then car setup, well teams will do that based on what they learn in previous day in practice but next day temp is different and then car behaves different.

the compound pirelli has introduced is so over sensitive that their characteristics is really strange in a way that operating window of tyres is so narrow and teams have to pray for the weather because even the slightest ups and down ... we are talkin about a degree or two up or down will draw a line between winner and looser. it seems even the worst car can or will win the race. lets be honest ferrari for example is nowhere at their best, they arent even in top 4, but thanks to alonso, thanks to their race engineers doing their homework how to setup cars, tyres management calculations, degradation studies, largely helped by mr. hamashima san ... he is a tyre engineer of formerly bridgestone ... who had produced so consistent tyres, so actually ferrari has benefitted a lot from these guys.

for example, qualy is done in later afternoon when temp will fall down gradually, or even 1 or 2 degrees down will favor cars whose tyres will work perfect in cold temp. then come race day when it is at 2:00 afternoon normally and is scorching hot, some teams setup their car on what they have learnt the day before the race. then its completely different car next day in race.that happened in spanish gp where some teams like mercedes for example thought come sunday the weather was forecast to be cloudy or even rain, normally their tyres work best on cold temp. as proven in china race but it was actually scortching hot in race day and effectively ending their chance

this is bit boring, i have no problems with pirelli tyres level of degradation and all, but the tyres which is super sensitive to weather is kind of rubbish. team have to just pray for the weather or temperature that suits their style.

and lets be honest temp. doesnt remain constant all day.

only team that has been constantly making their car or tyres work is lotus f1.

the rest is having a lottery race. i was thinking that mclaren or red bull will run off from the rest of the field because red bull cars are aerodymanically superior to anyone still, their car suit high speed corner circuits like barcelona, but lol, they were quite slow in barcelona...well lot had to do with their front wing problems in race day but still when they had changed the front wing ... , mclaren had strange day where surprisingly lewis 2 stop strategy with one tyres lasting more than 24 laps i think, was so good and even was able to keep up with the likes of rosberg. started right off from the back!! lewis wasnt fighting off car and protecting tyres so he saved the best of tyres in the very end of the race

meanwhile button who had like 2 fresh set of hard compound which was clearly the best choice than soft, he was suffering so bad, sauber easily past him, i thought jenson would take handful of points.

i think this year team who understand the tires and how to use tires based on track temp. range and based on how they set up their car on tyres working window will win, who scores consistent points will win, and not necessarily team who win win races.

another thing is that we simply dont know who have the best car, lets say technically because none of the team wants to push absolutely to the maximum potential of the car during the race day, because the more hard u go on tyres the more quickly they degrade... they dont want to do that, another thing is, if fast car is stuck with another slow car for couple of laps then its not good because the car feeding with dirty turbulent air coming off from the front of the car will affect the downforce , and this year quite is quite significant because dirty air disturbs the aerodynamics of car hence affecting the handling of car, and tyres.

what is boring for me is that, as a fan of watching f1 for nearly 14-15 years now we will never get to see this season how good technically car is, or who has the best car. its all about tyres and weather.... frankly this sucks a bit..

meanwhile on news,


Mercedes confirms Bigois' departure from the team...Brawn said: "Loic has been a really important member of the team for a number of years but we have had an internal reorganisation.

"Perhaps, with some of the restructuring we have done, it didn't fit in with what he was hoping to do, so he asked to be released from his contract and we released him. He is going somewhere else at the end of the year."

He added: "We wanted to move forward in the way we organised the aero group and Geoff Willis is in charge of that group now. We wanted to do things differently, and Lois did not want to do the new role that we proposed for him, so it was by mutual agreement."

Despite speculation that Bigois is to take a role in the wind tunnel department at Ferrari, the Maranello-based team has insisted that no deal is in place with the Frenchman.

lol... good riddance, never been convinced of him as a fan, during brawn championship winning days .. the only advantage of team was that they had head start with their innovative DD, which was later ruled legal by FIA hence rest of the team bar, williams and toyota f1 had to completely redesign car that took months.

his input on MGP W01, W02 were also simply poor, and in season development of mercedes were so poor, and well below mercedes standard. even the front wing development took years until bob bell and willis came to the team they had come up with new front wing this year actually.

lol actually ferrari fans better pray he wont come to ur team lol.... from my point of view he has never been that good aero guy, and never convinced by his track record .... otherwise frank williams wont let him go that easy.

actually staff updates...

mercedes gp the team i support since it was like early BAR Racing days, um... Bob Bell joins from Renault GP which is now Lotus in early March-April of 2011, W03 has been developed under his leadership, Geoff Willis joined the team in i think Oct?? 2011, which is like home return for him as he had previously worked for this team under the reign of David Richards of BAR racing. he is pretty good aerodynamicist, having designed podium winning cars under low budget with BAR and also main guy involved in major new windtunnel upgrade in the team in around 2005, Willis is pretty respected aerodynamcist in f1 i heard something like he was also one of those people who first introduced CFD techs in f1. also has experience working with Adrian Newey, in early days, and most recently in Red Bull.
Aldo Costa, was released by Ferrari, a big mistake from my point of view from ferrari, has joined his colleague ross brawn and schumacher in their dominating years of ferrari.

so Aldo Costa joined in late december has no input in early design of current W03 but i believe definitely has lot of input in in season development, he will be working as Engineering Director, overseeing Chassis Design and Mechanical side of things and also helping in nurturing young engineers in the team.

Geoff Willis is technology director of the Merc team, recent release of Loic Bigois who was head of aero department means i believe Geoff Willis will be responsible as head of aero areas. and all the work from aero and mech will be reported to Bob Bell who is technical director.

i believe this year for mercedes is to stack up consistent points, few podiums race wins. next year i fully believe mercedes will be amazing team now that there the team has gone some major changes, and i cant wait for W04 design and input of Bob Bell Geoff Willis and aldo costa. its really awesome combination of good people and this team deserves this. and my immense respect to CEO of Daimler AG Dr. Zetche because even though team was not yielding results and was poor for mercedes sstandard he has put immense faith in team and patience, and certainly him and the board of Diamler hasnt interfered when it comes to politics, and let the tech guys and mostly ross work in peace. i believe this will pay off big time for mercedes in future. the happiest news atm for me is that mercedes should have got rid of Loic Biogis long time ago... he was the major problem in the team i believe, mercedes was simply poor in aero department and now Geoff and Bell and costa coming and it hasnt even been half the season, team has improved masssively. that W03 is really good car but obviously tires is not letting to really show the true potential of the car

Ferrari changes, aldo costa released to mercedes in mid season, and joined mercedes in december 2011, pat fry promoted to Technical director, Nicolas Tombazis has more major role in this year car design than previous years having work under aldo costa.
steve Clark joins from mercedes as head of race engineering having previously worked with Fry at Mclaren
ferrari also recruited tyre specialist Hirohide Hamashima from bridgestone this year

Mclaren Mercedes... no major changes except, Sam Michael who was released from Williams f1 joins the team forseeing race operations.

Williams F1, released Sam Micahel as TD recruited Mike Coughlan, and Ed wood released and recruited jason sommerville as head of aero department. Coughlan having worked with ferrari was caught and charged with spygate scandal where he was charged along with mclaren team having possessed important ferrari documents: mclaren was fined 100 million and disqualified from construction championship points and Coughlan was banned from sport, later sentence reduced, is back in f1 with williams this year for the first time since the ban in 2007. James sommerville has experience previously working in Williams F1, Toyota F1, most recently in Renault F1 now Lotus F1, who was one of the instrumental personnel in development of lotus R31 and their innovative front exhaust.


Sauber f1 has released james key from the team after their team transition is complete since BMW pulled out of the sport, key is reported to have joined british f1 team.

meanwhile, Monisha Kaltenborn CEO of Sauber f1, has been awarded third of the stake in the Sauber Group by Peter Sauber. India-born Kaltenborn, 41, was appointed CEO of the Swiss squad in 2010, following BMW's exit from Formula 1.

"When BMW pulled out of Formula 1 in 2009, Monisha was instrumental in the team's survival and since then she has been doing outstanding work in her capacity as CEO," said Sauber. "Transferring one third of the stake to her represents an important step for me in providing continuity.

"My desire is to ensure that the company continues to be led as I would want over the long term. Monisha Kaltenborn and my son Alex, who joined the company as Marketing Director in 2010 and has since also been a member of the Board of Management, both embrace this aim. It means we can offer our employees a positive outlook for the future."

Kaltenborn added: "For me this step is a mark of the greatest possible trust, which I will do everything in my power to justify."

... well done to her, all these years having watched f1, never seen as polite hardworking and softspoken person like her. well she deserved it, and she really deserves respect for saving the team future and hundreds of jobs.
also she was instrumental in signing a commercial partnership with Chelsea FC.

F1 : Sauber slams Red Bull Racing opposition to Formula 1 cost cutting measures


Sauber has hit out at Red Bull over cost cutting in Formula One.

It is believed that every team in pit lane except Red Bull, and satellite Toro Rosso, is keen for the FIA to intervene, enshrining cost cutting and policing in the official regulations in one form or another.

But Red Bull's Christian Horner claims to have not even read a recent letter to FIA president Jean Todt that was signed by ten of the twelve teams.

"In this sport, foresight is important whenever it is possible," Peter Sauber is quoted by Germany's Sport1.

"One should always think outside the box, or should I say outside the drinks can?" said the Swiss, in an obvious dig at energy drink maker Red Bull.

"In some cases, people don't care whether Formula One is even here in ten years," the 68 year old charged.

Monisha Kaltenborn, Sauber's Chief Executive and one third owner, agrees with her boss that the most financially powerful teams need to be responsible.

"Formula one is not just four teams," she insisted. "For us it is not just the core business, it is the only business, we are not here to sell another product."

1 hour 45 minutes

Raining like hell in Serbia,wonder what the weather is there...

Vibe wrote:1 hour 45 minutes

Raining like hell in Serbia,wonder what the weather is there...

hoping it doesnt rain lol

cmon mercedes !! cmon nico and michael... i hope things havent changed with their car suiting more cold temp. but if it rains they are not good in rain. ferrari and sauber are really good in rain.

its going to be awesome race, and hope it remains a dry race

provisional grid....

2 Mark Webber Red Bull Racing-Renault 1
8 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 2
4 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 3
10 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 4
5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 5
7 Michael Schumacher Mercedes 6
6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 7
9 Kimi Räikkönen Lotus-Renault 8
1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing-Renault 9
12 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 10
14 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 11
3 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 12
19 Bruno Senna Williams-Renault 13
11 Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 14
16 Daniel Ricciardo STR-Ferrari 15
17 Jean-Eric Vergne STR-Ferrari 16
20 Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 17
21 Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 18
24 Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 19
22 Pedro de la Rosa HRT-Cosworth 20
25 Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 21
23 Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 22
18 Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 23
15 Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari

schumacher qualified 1st however serves grid penalty, pastor maldonaldo is penalized grid position due to collision with perez during free practice 3, further faces penalty for changing gearbox after he heavily damaged rear suspension and gearbox.
sergio perez didnt complete his first outlap in q1 session due to crash so starts from last ...

michael fassbender liam cunningham in mercedes garage....



fassbender, cunningham talking to mercedes AMG f1 team CEO nick fry

and in last spanish gp...

cesc fabregas joined the garage....

gareth bale in Red Bull Energy Station....

schumacher in qualy session, saturday monaco gp 2012...





nico rosberg, saturday qualy ...



hamilton

jennifer lawrence with nick hoult... right click view for full image...

looking forward to seeing Charlotte Casiraghi...she is the most beautiful woman, had crush on her lol since watching monaco gp 2009.... incredibly beautiful... cant wait lol

Red bull winning last 3 Monaco GPs.................

And what shitty luck for Michael. I dont think I have ever seen someone continually being affected like this. Crashes maybe part blame is his.

But Gearbox,DRS,Wheel Nut & now what Fuel Pump Problem & Engine issues.

What is left??? KERS??

Monaco is just there for the heritage. Qualifying is very VERY fun but the races are hugely boring. 0 overtaking.

Congrats Massa btw,finally did something meaningful

Kingofeverythingclassy wrote:And what shitty luck for Michael. I dont think I have ever seen someone continually being affected like this. Crashes maybe part blame is his.

But Gearbox,DRS,Wheel Nut & now what Fuel Pump Problem & Engine issues.

What is left??? KERS??

Monaco is just there for the heritage. Qualifying is very VERY fun but the races are hugely boring. 0 overtaking.

Congrats Massa btw,finally did something meaningful

yeah there has been lot of misfortunes for him isnt it?? sometimes pit crew mistake, like the one u mentioned, but actually mercedes have one of the most efficient pit crew and lot of teams inherited their pioneered idea of nut in the wheel system, which mercedes first used in DTM racing then brought that to F1 in 2010 where they recorded fastest pit stops consistently. red bull did that last year and many teams followed the suit. anyway i thought that was just one of those days where mounted pressure let to mistake.

as for gearbox problem in aus, DRS problem in qualy in bahrain and yesterday's fuel pressure problem, well thats reliability problem the reliability and mechanical sides of things are actually is mercedes biggest strength and im actually surprised they have repeated more often this year. im convinced they will improve that because ross brawn is known to be very serious person when it comes to reliability, even during his ferrari days.

in race ... it was pretty straightforward nothing that drastic, except weather rain possibility spiced up decision making a bit, looked like mark webber would stay long in the option (supersoft) tyres for long period before first pit, team thinking that it might rain so instead of coming and putting prime tyres then again coming to change for intermediates if it rained and having lost awful lot of time with pit stop.

but nico first pit stop made mark webber react to that, otherwise had team thought of rain and stayed longer, rosberg would have won surely... it was strategy that won mark and red bull the race.

meanwhile vettel had choice to start from preferred prime tyres (soft) so he did longer stint with that, and quick pit stop allowed him to jump massa and hamilton.

alonso meanwhile ... amazing start though he was stuck in between cars of grosjean, might have almost damaged his rear but anyway he got good start and think he took 2 positions up by then, good pit stop and also pretty straightforward race for him.

most disappointing race was for hamilton and schumi. for hamilton, i mean i m shocked mclaren keep on making mistakes. he said he couldnt make good start and even risked loosing position because during formation lap he was asked by engineers to change clutch settings which didnt work for him. and also he was pissed in team radio because team didnt update him on vettel longer stint and how much he needed to push to put some gap, so eventually hamilton lost position to both alonso and vettel on pit stop. actually pit stop is one of the slowest of top teams compared to others.

and during sky sports ted notebook segment never seen martin witmarsh so gloomy and pissed lol...

im not going to make conspiracy that sam michaels is letting the team down but he is the head of operations now at mclaren and he is responsible for lot of race operations in weekend so now mclaren has this consective pit crew mistakes ... i wont be surprised if he gets a sack...

meanwhile for schumacher, 5 grid penalty for schumi so started 6 ... looked liked he might gain few position in start, but got grosjean on his way with lotus car heavy contact on michaels front right suspension, during the middle stint of race he radioed his race engineer whether things are ok with front, and he was answered it was not in critical stage.
fuel pressure eventually made his car DNF..

monaco is supposed to be good race always but as u know this year tyre management is everything so teams couldnt push to maximum to mount pressure on rivals... i mean we heard in team radio with both alonso and rosberg saying i could go faster.... but team asked them to manage tyres.


so red bull won the race and 4 th for vettel with strategy alonso leads championship with good consistent points, actually 2 consecutive podiums and car improving every race.

in canada i suspect lotus mercedes mclaren to be strong. mercedes do like long straights with low speed corners so, Montreal Canada GP is ideal for their car. plus nick fry told sky sports f1 that there will be more to come in canada gp, and they will look to improve their car for the track requiring high downforce level.

so im excited for mercedes... canada will suit them, come european races it will be a bit difficult for mercedes in germany, valencia, maybe they could do well in silverstone, spa will be great for mercedes, and especially in italy.

khedira, ozil gomez and rest of the german national team with mercedes amg f1




schweinsteiger lahm with Nobert Haug of Mercedes AMG f1


oliver bierhoff former milan and german national team player, mezut ozil

nico rosberg twitted during Champions league live, showing his support for bayern...

meanwhile,




abramovich with peter sauber, owner/team principal of sauber f1



there was small gossip that abramovich may invest heavily in sauber in future... atm now they are commercial partners

godolski and godmacher





bastian and nico...



low, nobert haug, schumacher, rosberg