Formula 1 2013

Which driver would you want to win the WDC?

  • Sebastian Vettel

    Votes: 8 33.3%
  • Fernando Alonso

    Votes: 6 25.0%
  • Kimi Raikkonen

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • Other

    Votes: 7 29.2%

  • Total voters
    24
Still another 2 weeks before the Chinese Grand Prix... anyways to keep this thread alive for the time-being what do you guys think about the prospects of a female F1 driver on the grid? Danica Patrick shows no interest despite offers from Bernie Eccelstone - and to be honest even if she did I doubt she would be very successful - and Susie Wolff has yet to even attain a superlicense whereas Maria de Villota got herself involved in a Kubica-esque accident while testing for Marussia and will probably never race again :/ The prospects are pretty bleak as of now. Assuming Susie Wolff attains her superlicense though, maybe she might just have a chance of participating if Maldonado goes berserk, crashes himself along with a few other innocent victims out of the race and gets banned :P

EDIT: Oh and come to think of it... didn't Webber ignore a team order from Red Bull in 2011 Silverstone? (http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/93033) While I do not condone what Vettel did, who is he to criticize Vettel for disobeying team orders since he is pretty much no better, only difference is that Vettel was able to defend his position but that does not change the fact that he himself does not obey team orders. I sense some hypocrisy here, and maybe even an inferiority complex to Vettel after losing to him for 4 years in succession? I just hope that their obvious rivalry with each other won't escalate to the point of Prost-Senna in the late 80s and early 90s... at least in the case of the latter it was not a lopsided rivalry :P
 
Free Practice 1 for the Chinese Grand Prix has ended and it looks like Mercedes could repeat what they did in 2012... Rosberg will want to add more wins to his name and so far this looks like his best chance to show that Hamilton will not be the #1 driver in Mercedes.
 
Shame the soft tires are just shredding themselves to pieces... Did you see Jensons earlier? It had delaminated a huge chunk of tyre on a flat spot... Also i wasn't happy to read Red Bull/Vettel almost take back the apology he gave to Mark Webber... Pretty disgusting to be honest.

I should be up for Quali in the morning :3 Should be good, McLarens aren't looking so abysmal in China. Can't wait to get to Spain and see the cars with all the new upgrades.
 
Also i wasn't happy to read Red Bull/Vettel almost take back the apology he gave to Mark Webber... Pretty disgusting to be honest.

I do not condone what Vettel did, but what right does Webber have to bitch and moan about getting 'cheated' of a win? The last time I checked he is no better at obeying team orders than Vettel, take a look at Silverstone 2011; the only difference was that Vettel was able to successfully defend his position. Or better yet, Interlagos 2012 where he had the nerve to defend his position from Vettel despite being out of contention for the WDC -.- People say he will no longer support Vettel, but it's not like he ever did in the first place. Of course, Vettel has his share of controversial incidents with Webber (Most notably 2010 Istabul and recently 2013 Sepang) but it's not like Webber is exactly innocent here.

To put things into perspective, let's reverse the roles and assume that Webber was the one who disobeyed team orders AND successfully overtook Vettel for the lead, would people actually make an uproar? I doubt it, he may have more of a spine than Massa or Fisichella did with Alonso but he's still the de facto #2 driver on the basis of their results (Beaten by Vettel for 4 consecutive years) and as such I'm quite sure it won't only be the Vettel haters/Alonso fans who will rejoice, it's more likely that even those who don't particularly dislike Vettel will be like "Hah take that 3-time WDC taken down a notch or two" if you see my point -.-
 
Free Practice 3 is over and the biggest anomaly here should be Grosjean; exactly how did he end up all the way down in 18th place? If I remember correctly he was using the Option tyres, or am I mistaken? If I am then it still appears to be quite lacking. Most impressive here IMO is Sutil who managed to post a time faster than a Lotus-wielding Raikkonen using identical tyre compounds and placed almost a full second ahead of Di Resta... was there traffic impeding him? Nonetheless it was pretty good. Chilton appears to have no credibility whatsoever, so far he is thoroughly (And I mean thoroughly) beaten by Bianchi, he has not placed ahead of him in any aspect of the race. IMO Marussia should have fielded Petrov instead, apart from the obvious Russian driver in a Russian team reason I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have been whipped this badly, even if his driving skills are rather meh.
 
Horrible luck for Webber, getting eliminated in Q2 with a fuel pressure problem... but arguably it may be a good thing because the team will then be able to rectify the issue before the race, better for things to go awry now than in the race itself. I'm slightly annoyed that Rosberg ran wide at the last corner, he rarely makes mistakes and were it not for that uncharacteristic error he could have taken pole instead of Hamilton and thus prevent Hamilton from establishing himself as the #1 driver. Ricciardo was also pretty good, he destroyed Vergne for this round and hopefully he won't make a horrendous start like he did in the other time he made it to Q3 in 2012. Also, Massa will have to content himself by tying with Trulli when he raced for Renault in 2004 and Hamilton when he raced for McLaren in 2007 as one of few teammates of Alonso who could outqualify him for 4 consecutive occasions... I really hoped that Massa could have broken the record, it's unlikely that it will happen again unless Alonso shows a dip in form.
 
You just have a vendetta against British Drivers... Chilton was still ahead of the Caterham's and only about half a sec off Bianchi.

Seems the grid might be a bit interesting with all the strategies. Button doing a slow lap and then Vettel not doing anything at all just so he could stay on the harder tyres.
 
Is the Chinese GP the 3rd or 4th race?

Can't remember, and i want to make sure i don't miss any of them this year.
 
You just have a vendetta against British Drivers... Chilton was still ahead of the Caterham's and only about half a sec off Bianchi.

Seems the grid might be a bit interesting with all the strategies. Button doing a slow lap and then Vettel not doing anything at all just so he could stay on the harder tyres.

Vendetta? Not quite, It just so happens that I find Chilton to have been most unimpressive, and for the record I'm quite alright with Hamilton and Button, I merely don't want the former to start outshining Rosberg after years of being overlooked and underrated. Bianchi is really just that good, or Chilton is just underwhelming, or both. I'll be blunt and say it's not 'just' half a second, half a second can and usually will mean you dropping 3-4 places as seen from what happened to Rosberg. Oh and the gap was actually more than half a second, Bianchi's time was 1:38.780 whereas Chilton's was 1:39.537... that is a substantial gap of 0.757 seconds and the Caterhams were not really that far off Chilton with timings of 1:39.614 and 1:39.660, which is about a tenth of a second. While Bianchi can challenge the Williams pair of Bottas and Maldonado in the first two races Chilton has to make do with scrapping for position at the back of the field with the Caterhams... at the very least he did manage to challenge Marussia's main rivals, so I'll concede what I posted may be a little too harsh, but he definitely needs to do better to leave an impression, like Bianchi. Nothing personal but are you British by any chance and as such, have a natural tendency to support British drivers? :/ With that being said, some of the more evenly matched teammates will have to be Di Resta - Sutil and Alonso - Massa as of now... we'll see how the statistics add up by the end of the season.

I wonder why Button chose to complete the lap though, shouldn't he have just aborted it so that he has more tyre options available...?

@BigZac: The 3rd race :) You can just check Wikipedia or the Formula 1 homepage.
 
Button did that so he'd start ahead of Vettel. Red Bulls are the dark horses for tomorrow imo. Lotus has been shown to be very kind to its tyres so far, might hold them in good stead against the Mercs and Ferraris.
 
Button did that so he'd start ahead of Vettel. Red Bulls are the dark horses for tomorrow imo. Lotus has been shown to be very kind to its tyres so far, might hold them in good stead against the Mercs and Ferraris.

With Vettel in 9th and Webber in 14th it appears that this season will be topsy-turvy considering they occupied the front row for the first race... why would Button want to start ahead of Vettel though, I believe even numbered qualifying positions are on the 'dirty' side of the track with less traction and whatnot? That's how Kubica lost 2nd place to Vettel at the start of Monaco 2010 despite doing an excellent job in splitting the Red Bulls.

EDIT: Scratch that, Webber will be starting from last place... at least he won't have to worry about making bad starts, which I believe is a recurring trend for him and it's his Achilles Heel? If he can end up on the podium tomorrow despite this handicap I'll be impressed.
 
Alonso wins the Chinese Grand Prix... great drive from him there. Sutil and Rosberg are the unluckiest drivers so far, the former got hit by Gutierrez and was clearly blameless whereas the latter had yet another mechanical failure. I wonder why did Sutil force Di Resta onto the grass earlier on in the race, was that an accident or what? Hilarious moment of this race was probably Webber's wheel rolling onto the track, imagine if someone drove into it :P Vettel's slight mistake at the end of the last lap costed him a podium, luckily for Hamilton it was the last lap; one more lap and surely 3rd would have gone to Vettel. Underperforming drivers here would be Grosjean, what happened to the Grosjean who had ridiculous pace (Albeit crash-prone) and scored 3 podiums last year? If Raikkonen could get wins and podiums he should not be merely scrapping minor point finishes.
 
Good news for those of you who miss Kovalainen, he's back with Caterham... somewhat: http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2013/4/14466.html

Why would he waste his time though? A driver of his caliber clearly deserves better; while Petrov did turn the tables on him and outclassed him for the last 7 races of 2012 one must not forget his impressive performances, such as dragging Caterham to Q2 on 3 occasions and moving up to 12-13th place on merit on a number of occasions on a car that's supposed to be 18-20th. Then again, like Fisichella he seems to be an excellent driver of poor cars and a poor driver of excellent cars; we all saw those 2 disappointing seasons with McLaren, particularly 2008 where he costed them the WCC.
 
I read an interesting fact yesterday that Nico Hulkenberg has led more laps than anyone else in the last 4 races (Brazil, Australia, Malaysia and China).

Not bothered about Kovvy, imo he never deserved the seat at McLaren regardless. 1 Victory whilst your team mate was fighting/winning the title? Pathetic. Nice to know Tooned is coming back though, I thought some of them were very funny last year.

Chinese GP just sort of went the way I expected... Hamilton was never going to challenge for the win and the Ferrari race pace was way better then Mercedes'. Nice to see all the different strategies play out to some sort of sensibility at the end. Soft tyres were very interesting at the end, even with all the rubber down they only sort of lasted 6 laps...

EDIT: Yes I am English... But I don't rubbish drivers from other nationalities unless they actually suck... Like Trulli or Kovalainen...
 
I read an interesting fact yesterday that Nico Hulkenberg has led more laps than anyone else in the last 4 races (Brazil, Australia, Malaysia and China).

Not bothered about Kovvy, imo he never deserved the seat at McLaren regardless. 1 Victory whilst your team mate was fighting/winning the title? Pathetic. Nice to know Tooned is coming back though, I thought some of them were very funny last year.

Chinese GP just sort of went the way I expected... Hamilton was never going to challenge for the win and the Ferrari race pace was way better then Mercedes'. Nice to see all the different strategies play out to some sort of sensibility at the end. Soft tyres were very interesting at the end, even with all the rubber down they only sort of lasted 6 laps...

EDIT: Yes I am English... But I don't rubbish drivers from other nationalities unless they actually suck... Like Trulli or Kovalainen...

Well Fisichella had an almost identical situation with Alonso at Renault... the irony of is that both Fisi and Kovvy do pretty well in underperforming cars so I'm puzzled as to why they can't do the same with championship-winning cars. Trulli never used to suck, he gave Alonso of all people a huge challenge in 2004 with Renault until he knew that he was going to get sacked... wrong time to shine Trulli, had he waited one more year he could have been WDC but then again who could have foreseen that Renault would be so formidable in 2005-2006. Of course, when he drove for Lotus/Caterham that is when he was terrible, especially in 2011 but he had his moment of glory that should not be ignored.

About Hulkenburg, he should seriously be racing for a top team. Challenging and overtaking the superior McLarens last year, holding off Raikkonen for several laps at Sepang among other impressive driving should already warrant him a place at a team of Red Bull's caliber. McLaren should have totally given him the seat instead of Perez. Don't get me wrong, Perez is very solid, especially for a pay-driver but Hulkenburg is just better.

P.S: Well for the record I have no bias against any particular nationality, it's a mere coincidence that the drivers I don't really like (Di Resta) or find unimpressive (Chilton) happen to be British. If Chilton can pull a Petrov and turn the tables on Bianchi then I'll eat my words.
 
I have the same as that except all the drivers I like the most happen to be German. Schumacher, Heidfeld and now Hulkenberg.
 
IMO Caterham should seriously be ashamed of themselves. Petrov's crucial pass on Pic for 11th at Interlagos last year earned them the required financial benefits associated with 10th place but despite single-handedly rescuing them from the clutches of Marussia, they chose to sack him. Unbelievable, especially since he is the pay-driver of the team and not the driver paid a handsome paycheck (Kovalainen) for their driving abilities. Worse still, despite Marussia being handicapped by what Petrov did they now find themselves ahead of Caterham. If for whatever reason Toyota or Honda decide to come back to F1 I hope they'll fold like HRT; it's just disgraceful really.
 
Looks like Pic may have the pace this weekend, though that was only FP2. He was faster than both Marussias. Also, I have read that this is a combination of Caterham's 2012 and 2013 spec cars. We should see their 2013 spec car in Spain.
 
Looks like Pic may have the pace this weekend, though that was only FP2. He was faster than both Marussias. Also, I have read that this is a combination of Caterham's 2012 and 2013 spec cars. We should see their 2013 spec car in Spain.

He seems decent enough, unlike Di Grassi or D'Ambrosio he was able to hold his own against Glock very respectably, though dragging Caterham up the field is probably too much to ask for. One must wonder how much of a fight did he put up when he saw Petrov closing in through his mirrors, knowing that his future team will benefit greatly from 10th place. I doubt he would just let Petrov through, but he probably didn't try his hardest to defend his position either. That move has sadly costed Glock his F1 career, but on the bright side it has allowed Bianchi to show what he's capable of.
 
Rosberg storms to pole position in Bahrain, now who saw that coming? He will really want to convert this pole position to a win tomorrow but with tyre management playing such a crucial role he will have Vettel and Alonso hounding on him. Di Resta really impressed me in Q1 and Q2, though in Q3 Sutil was only a hundredth of a second behind him... Force India has the most evenly matched intra-team battle so far, and they are the main beneficiaries of the penalties imposed on Webber and Hamilton, meaning they will start from 5th and 6th... looks really good for them, hopefully they won't have wheelnut failures or in the case of Sutil, get hit in the rear by someone who missed his braking point.

EDIT: On an unrelated note, here is my personal opinion on some of the driver abilities. Unless the year is stated, it means a holistic ranking of all their racing years combined.

A+: Alonso (2005-2006, 2012), Kubica (2008, 2010), Vettel (2011)
A*: Button (2009), Alonso, Hulkenburg (2012)
A: Vettel, Hamilton, Raikkonen, Heidfeld (2007), Rosberg (2010)
A-: Massa (2008), Webber (2010)
B+: Button, Webber, Kovalainen (2010-2011), Grosjean (First half of 2012)
B*: Rosberg, Perez, Di Resta, Sutil, Petrov (Last 1/3 of 2012)
B: Kobayashi, Glock, Heidfeld (2008), Massa (Second half of 2012)
B-: Kovalainen (2012), de la Rosa
C+: Petrov (2011-First 2/3 of 2012), Heidfeld (2011)
C*: Maldonado, Vergne, Ricciardo
C: Grosjean (Second half of 2012), Kovalainen (2008-2009)
C-: Petrov (2010), Senna
D: Yamamoto, Di Grassi
F: Karthikeyan, Ide, Massa (First half of 2012)
 
Nobody saw that coming wow! Also, Pic has upgrades this weekend, which have put him well ahead of Bianchi. Massa coming from the second row on hard tyres will be very, very interesting. Could see another double pointscoring effort from the FI's, the only threatening car outside the 10 is Grosjean, if he gets his act together. Apparently, the Lotus has very good pace in the long runs, and the Merc has pretty crap pace. Will be interesting, to say the least, come tomorrow :)
 
A rotten race for Adrian Sutil, whose first lap clash with Felipe Massa left him in last place after a 30+ second pitstop, and I thought he might console himself by setting the fastest lap of the race but Vettel took it from him by a tenth of a second. Still, recovering from last to 13th is not too bad given that Force India is a rather average car, but he really needs to make cleaner starts; the previous race it was with Di Resta who fortunately escaped unscathed. Speaking of him, dang losing 3rd place to Grosjean with 5 laps to go must sting given that Force India's last podium was from Fisi in 2009 Spa. Sutil could have been fighting for the podium but that first lap clash meant that his race was ruined. What's up with Mercedes anyways, after qualifying 1st Rosberg found himself falling all the way down to 9th. The race battles were most entertaining though, with Perez/Alonso and Hamilton/Webber coming down to the wire; pity not all races have such battles.
 
I can't believe Alonso's back luck, seriously. Nice race with very nice battles, I'm impressed with Force India despite Sutil's end. Lotus is showing a lot of strength too, Raikkonen might have a winning chance this season!
 
I can't believe Alonso's back luck, seriously. Nice race with very nice battles, I'm impressed with Force India despite Sutil's end. Lotus is showing a lot of strength too, Raikkonen might have a winning chance this season!

I doubt he could have challenged Vettel for the win even if his DRS wasn't malfunctioning, but moving to 8th place despite that handicap is commendable.
 
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