Official F1/Motorsport thread

[Kieran76]

Fantastic Qualifying session, there can't be many true fans of F1 who wouldn't be delighted to see Webber go all the way tomorrow.

[NW2013]

Yeah, I like Webber.

The McLaren did seem genuinely quite fast, would be good to see Hamilton fighting again. The Renault also looked quite handy.

[Bort]

[B]Pos  Driver                             Weight (kg)[/B]
 1.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault       661.0
 2.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes         647.0
 3.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes         644.0
 4.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault       661.0
 5.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes       654.5
 6.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes       664.0
 7.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes   678.5
 8.  Massa        Ferrari                673.5
 9.  Raikkonen    Ferrari                674.0
10.  Piquet       Renault                676.0
11.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber             681.0*
12.  Alonso       Renault                668.2*
13.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota        683.6*
14.  Trulli       Toyota                 683.7*
15.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota        689.6*
16.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber             673.5*
17.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari     674.5*
18.  Fisichella   Force India-Mercedes   662.5*
19.  Glock        Toyota                 662.3*
20.  Bourdais     Toro Rosso-Ferrari     689.5*

Stolen from Autosport.

[NW2013]

Bloody hell, Sutil did a good job!

[Bort]

Yep, shows his class in wet/drying conditions. Almost out shines Webber's quality lap.

[Flabio]

Webber running a good few laps longer than the Brawns then. If he gets off the line well and keeps out of trouble it should be his to lose.

Sutil, along with Barrichello, managed to time their runs in Q2 to perfection, pretty much the only drivers to get a proper 'dry' lap in that session. Still kudos to him for finishing Q3 in 7th though, clearly the man has skills and just needs a better car.

[Kieran76]

He good with some good luck as well couldn't he? When he is doing well I am always expecting something to go wrong at any second.

[Senna]

Rubbish decision from the stewards. What Webber did was aggressive, but it was nothing more than Hamilton and Schumacher used to do, and did they ever get penalties?

Oh, and KERS, what a joke. It is such an advantage that it spoils the races as well. The start of the race was like one side (Ferraris and McLarens) versus the rest.

We have a chain of cars behind Kovalainen and all largely because of this stupid system.

[Senna]

They also have to get rid of the overtaking problem once and for all next season.

Can you imagine next year with no re-fuelling? There will be much fewer changes in position. I'm no great fan of pit stops (I see Grand Prix racing as pacing your car expertly over the course of an hour and a half, Prost-style genius of tyre conservation) but unless they change the rules it's going to be a huge borefest.

This year the new rules were supposed to be revolutionary and improve overtaking, and I've yet to see evidence of this.

I'm no technician, and no aerodynamics expert, but there must surely be something that can be done. Webber and Button are in much faster cars and they can't get past Kubica who is in a much slower car.

With FOTA supposedly on the side of the fans (hmm) this should be their number one priority. Steel brakes, manual gears, remove wheel covers, vastly reduced airflow efficiency, these are all options to improve the show.

I hate being negative (and the above I agree is) but I love F1 and it just really frustrates me for it not to be as good as it can be.

[Senna]

Well done to Webber - thoroughly well deserved.

And has anyone caught Barrichello's comments to Lee Mackenzie of the BBC? Ouch.

Looks like he won't be with Brawn GP next year.

[On The Edge of Insanity]

Switched off just after the podium so didn't see that; what did he say?

[Senna]

He said it was the 'best example of how to lose a race' from a team.

He was really upset, said he just wanted to fly home to Brazil immediately and preferred not to speak to anyone in the team because all he would hear was 'blah, blah, blah, blah'.

I've never heard him speak like that before. He's obviously still upset after Barcelona, and this race has brought the issues to the boil again.

Edit: here's a snippet from BBC website.

Rubens Barrichello on what went wrong: "I guess the strategy... it was a good show from the team on how to lose a race today. I'm terribly upset with the way things went. I did all I had to do. I went first on the first corner and then they made me lose the race. If it is really what's going on, we're going to end up losing both championships. I feel sorry for myself, the team. To be very honest, I wish I could get on the plane and go home. I don't want to talk to anyone in the team. It will be all 'bla bla bla' and I don't want to hear that."

[Flabio]

To be fair to Webber, he didn't dispute the penalty in the post race interview. He said he 'lost sight' of Rubens and turned in on him, effectively admitting it was his fault. One thing you can say about Webber is he's a fair and honest man. They didn't vote him head of the F1 drivers association for nothing.

On the overtaking issues, the aero changes were meant to help this season, but apparently the split diffuser wasn't something they'd expected and it undoes most of the work. In free practice they mentioned the steel brakes option, and apparently some teams have ran with them in testing and found it makes almost no difference, the aero grip is so good.

To be honest, the only way to do it is to lose the front and rear wings, and that's not going to happen.

[On The Edge of Insanity]

I did find Brawn's insistence on a three-stop strategy strange until I saw how much their tyres went off even in the short little stint at the end of the race. Getting stuck behind Massa was where Barrichello's race went wrong. The team could hardly be blamed for the fuel hose malfunction.

[Flabio]

On a cold track the Brawn just chews the tires because they can't get the heat in them. They'll run better at Hungary, lots of slow corners and sideways G, so they shouldn't have as many heat problems. Likewise Valencia, but Spa could be anyones.