F1 World Championship 2013 Thread

[Noir Angel]

McLaren should have reverted to the 2012 car whilst they still had the chance, this car seems like it's actually slower than last year's. They're too far out of contention now and the chance has passed them by IMO

[simonlang]

:D

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

[MightyJordan]

...well, safe to say it's been a disaster for both Williams and McLaren. :/

Probably gonna be another Vettel win tomorrow, and I won't be surprised if we see an incident between Rosberg and Hamilton.

[simonlang]

fernando alonso, only delivering on twitter :rofl:

[123456789A]

fernando alonso, only delivering on twitter :rofl:

And you, only delivering hate toward Alonso on an internet forum.

[simonlang]

And you, only delivering hate toward Alonso on an internet forum.

no hate, more of a frustration thing. i am sitting here with my ferrari shirt on, quite happy about massas pace, but again get the feeling that ferrari was - again - only working for good friday results and a good show. then, when everything counts, others deliver and ferrari falling back. now alonso in the interview, already being defensive, hoping for a good start from the clean side and a good strategy. i wonder how they will make the strategy to work if they already screwed one set of hard tire in q1 while redbull did not.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Spanish GP: Felipe Massa and Esteban Gutierrez get grid penalties

Felipe Massa will receive a three-place grid penalty for the Spanish Grand Prix for impeding Mark Webber in Q2.

Esteban Gutierrez gets the same punishment for blocking Kimi Raikkonen earlier in the session.

Ferrari driver Massa had qualified alongside team-mate Fernando Alonso in sixth place.

He had been on a slow lap in Q2 when Webber came up behind him in the final sector.

Massa felt he had done enough to stay out of the way by clinging to the inside line.

"I was pushing on the inside of the corner and trying not to create a battle with him," he said.

Webber had suspected that Massa had not been informed of his presence.

"It's disappointing. Felipe doesn't do that on purpose, maybe the radio communication wasn't good for his car," said Webber.

"It is a frustrating thing for any of us top guys because we're always generally very good with each other."

The Red Bull driver was only eighth fastest in Q3, saying his rear tyres were worn out before the end of his flying lap.

"I lost the rears, had no rear tyre left. We didn't expect that to happen, but it did," Webber said.

"I bled a lot of lap time from Turn 9 to the start/finish, and then you're losing rows on the grid unfortunately as it's that type of qualifying."

The Gutierrez/Raikkonen incident occurred in the final corners during Q2.

Gutierrez had originally been 16th on the grid.

Source: Autosport

[MightyJordan]

Hmm, so Maldonado got away with (allegedly) blocking Button.

[TheLegendOfMart]

To be fair it wasn't as cut and dry as Massa and Gutierrez, Maldonado was already turning in the corner, its a tiny bit of track the only other option he had was running off the track to let Button pass.

[simonlang]

face it, button was just plain slow today.

[Noir Angel]

Barcelona was the real litmus test and McLaren have failed it. The fact of the matter is that the car is just slow and seems to remain slow regardless of what parts they throw at it. Neither Button nor Perez are at fault, they simply don't have the car under them to deliver and in reality McLaren just never seem to have been quite quick enough since the new regulations at times when it's really mattered the most. Very disappointing as a lifelong fan.

Still, Merc on the front row but even if their tyres go off they will be hard to pass which could make the race very interesting indeed. The big question, again will be if they can maintain their form on long runs. I think they might, due to the nature of the circuit spring a surprise here and pull a win off, as historically winning at Barcelona from off the front row is hard.

Also, Ferrari have some head scratching to do. Where did their Friday pace go?

[MightyJordan]

Javascript is not enabled or refresh the page to view.

Click here to view the Tweet

[Noir Angel]

Not funny for their shareholders though :p

Not great for Jenson either. Instead of being the defacto team leader and pushing the team to success he's rattling around with a car that's struggling to make the top 10. Ferrari and McLaren are both shadows of the teams they once were IMO.

[Chasethebase Veteran]

This happened during qualifying as well. :p

[MightyJordan]

This happened during qualifying as well. :p

Haha, that's the second one of the season (thank you WTF1)! :laugh:

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Not long to go until the race. My podium prediction: Alonso - Hamilton - R?ikk?nen

[simonlang]

i am very very very nervous - much more than usual, which is a bad sign, but nevertheless i predict:

1. vettel

2. raikkonen

3. rosberg

[philcruicks]

My prediction:

Vet

Rai

Alo or Ham (not quite sure here, really depends if the mercs can get any sort of race pace)

[MightyJordan]

I'll go with Vettel <-- Raikkonen <-- Hamilton.

[KiHu]

Alonso - Hamilton- Rosberg

[123456789A]

Go go Alonso!

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Man of the race: Fernando Alonso

Reject of the race: whoever is responsible for the Mercedes GP setup.

[Chasethebase Veteran]

I think Massa did a fantastic job this race, from 9th to 3rd.

[TheLegendOfMart]

Good race what I caught of it, Alonso was flying at start. Can't wait to see what mclaren2 says.