2012 British GP - Race Thread

**Bonjers** · 9th July 2012, 16:33

That Alonso Hamilton video is brilliant. The cheers last about a second before he's back past him again and they all go quiet. Just like last year.

**Suzie** · 9th July 2012, 16:44

Originally Posted by Bonjers

That Alonso Hamilton video is brilliant. The cheers last about a second before he's back past him again and they all go quiet. Just like last year.

Yep! But I'm sure the Macca fans all enjoyed such a staggering display of mediocrity from their team this weekend

**Bonjers** · 9th July 2012, 16:52

Originally Posted by Suzie

Yep! But I'm sure the Macca fans all enjoyed such a staggering display of mediocrity from their team this weekend

Just like last year....hahahahaha

**Tifosi** · 9th July 2012, 18:31

Originally Posted by Red passion

I would love to see the episode where they explain to kids that stealing Ferrari documents to cheat in racing is a good thing.

Personally I thought it was BANG on the money. JB all smiley and chilled and Lewis moaning about his car, sulking, breaking the rules and ruining other people's races. Totally BANG on the money

**sorcereur** · 9th July 2012, 19:34

Might have been said already, and if so i'm sorry for repeating. But, this race wasn't lost by poor race strategy at all. It was lost purely due to the unnecessary fight with Hamilton; Well, somewhat unnecessary. Alonso had to get past Hamilton because he was losing quite a lot of time behind him. But that battle forced him to use up more of his tires, and most importantly speed.. This effectively cost him time, which would've been beneficial to extend his gap to Weber ever so slightly. Additionally, it would've allowed him to probably extend that stint by another lap or 2. Which would've been enough to win the race, albeit a close win.
With that said, Ferrari in my opinion made the absolute right call by anticipating for rain, and also by looking Massa's pace on the softs on heavy fuel.
Either way, i'm very encouraged by this because I don't believe Mark will be that consistent throughout the season. He and Vettel will take points off each other in the long run, so it will benefit Fernando/Ferrari. Massa's current trend will hopefully continue and allow him to take points off the rest, and help cover Fernando.

**Paulo Goncalves** · 9th July 2012, 20:31

Finished now see the race and defenitly was tyres strategy, even Nando make good effort with soft, so to coroborate that we must see the Felipe´s strategy S-H-H, probably we had win with 8 or 9 sec ahead. One thing, we have good cars now.

**watto2** · 9th July 2012, 20:31

McLaren animated cartoon Faaaaantaaaaastiiiiic (sorry Murray!) really loved the facsimile of Boy Blunder (Lewis), got him to a tee. More of the same PLEASE?

**Jose Lorca** · 10th July 2012, 18:39

**Nova** · 10th July 2012, 19:10

Im watching this on Speed right now..I may turn it off for the last 5 laps

**RockyRaccoon** · 10th July 2012, 22:56

Originally Posted by Suzie

Yep! But I'm sure the Macca fans all enjoyed such a staggering display of mediocrity from their team this weekend

Was funny watching them all become Webber fans about 7 laps from the end!!!

**Greig** · 10th July 2012, 23:29

Instead of McLaren hats they should just wear "Anyone but Ferrari" hats.

**Red passion** · 10th July 2012, 23:58

red bull are reigned world champions not us if anything the Mclaren fans should be for us, to prize the title off vettel

**Tifoso** · 11th July 2012, 00:03

Originally Posted by Red passion

red bull are reigned world champions not us if anything the Mclaren fans should be for us, to prize the title off vettel

Doubtful. In the long run, there will still be Ferrari. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Red Bull is gone in 10 years (or less).

**Red passion** · 11th July 2012, 00:16

Originally Posted by Tifoso

Wouldn't surprise me at all if Red Bull is gone in 10 years (or less).

True, good riddance to them.

**Hornet** · 11th July 2012, 05:40

Originally Posted by Greig

Instead of McLaren hats they should just wear "Anyone but Ferrari" hats.

LOL, true. Saw them cheering when Lewis pass Alonso, and also cheer when Webber wins. They are just cheering as long as Ferrari got beaten regardless of how crappy McLaren did

**Giallo 550** · 11th July 2012, 05:54

Originally Posted by Hornet

LOL, true. Saw them cheering when Lewis pass Alonso, and also cheer when Webber wins. They are just cheering as long as Ferrari got beaten regardless of how crappy McLaren did

I was laughing my ass off when Hamilton was dueling it out with Alonso. It was such a futile and irrelevant effort since he was about to fall back about 7 places when he pitted.

MJ · 11th July 2012, 07:39

Originally Posted by Giallo 550

I was laughing my ass off when Hamilton was dueling it out with Alonso. It was such a futile and irrelevant effort since he was about to fall back about 7 places when he pitted.

what intrigues me is why does hamilton keeps on fighting when he know he'll lose that fight regardless? he's not even fighting for position since he's still going to pit. it's a futile effort and a waste of his energy. unless he just really wants to screw fernando..

look what happened with that fight with maldonado in valencia.. it's maybe maldo's fault for being so impatient, but hams tires are falling off so why not give in and at least save some position..

i know he's a racer and all but it is wise to give it up sometimes when there's not much to gain really..

**sav_pap** · 11th July 2012, 09:31

Originally Posted by MJ

what intrigues me is why does hamilton keeps on fighting when he know he'll lose that fight regardless? ..

Should Nando quit from battling with Webber for 1st ??
It was obvious that Webber was going to pass.
I don't want to defend Rmilton's attitude but their are all racers, they can't just give up...

MJ · 11th July 2012, 10:01

yep.. as i've said i know they are racers, and it's in their nature.. but the situation where hamilton was in (still needs to pit vs. alonso; shot tires vs. maldonado) was different to the battle of position between alonso and webber..

when webber passed alonso, i would say it wasn't easy but for sure alonso knew that fighting for it may be hopeless since he's at the mercy of his tires.. better some points than none at all..

**scuderiafan** · 11th July 2012, 10:34

Originally Posted by Hornet

LOL, true. Saw them cheering when Lewis pass Alonso, and also cheer when Webber wins. They are just cheering as long as Ferrari got beaten regardless of how crappy McLaren did

Small team mentality

**Red passion** · 11th July 2012, 11:01

McLaren should save their cheers for when they do a pit stop correctly

**DIEK** · 11th July 2012, 20:33

**Dino** · 12th July 2012, 22:54

F1 Pulse
Alonso’s British GP loss not down to strategy© Ubaid Parkar, 10 July 2012
© Ferrari

Fernando Alonso would have been a sitting duck against the Red Bull no matter what strategy he would have opted for at the British Grand Prix on Sunday.
The Ferrari driver, who started from pole position, lost the lead of the race at Silverstone four laps from the end to Mark Webber, who went on to win the race from the Spaniard.
The double world champion had opted to start the race on the hard tyres, with his next stint raced on prime again and finally ended on the soft compound after his second pit stop, a tactic Ferrari was relatively certain would work.

“I was confident in the tyres, to be honest, because Felipe (Massa) used the soft tyre in the first stint and I think he did 14 laps, so 14 laps with maybe a heavy car in the first stint and we were 15 laps to the end with a light car,” Alonso went on to explain.

“So we were quite convinced the softs were OK but they were a little bit slower, obviously a little bit too much understeer, so the balanced changed and killed the performance of the car a little bit and we were a bit too slow.

“We knew, more or less, that the soft was a little bit slower, so we needed to open up a gap in the first two stints when we were on different tyres to Mark and we knew that that gap was for sure getting closer and closer at the end when we put on the softs, and what we opened up at the beginning was not enough,” he pointed out.

Alonso pitted on lap 15 for the primes and on lap 37 for the options which suggested perhaps he could have gone longer on the hard tyres he started with.

The choice of tyre strategy was admittedly determined by the pace in the final practice session on Saturday - where Ferrari concluded it was more confident with the hard tyre – in what was the only dry running the teams were able to get ahead of the largely wet weekend.

But BBC F1’s technical analyst Gary Anderson, a former technical director of Jordan, Stewart and Jaguar, believes that if Alonso would have gone longer on the first set of primes, Webber would have taken the lead after the first round of pit stops.

“They did it because Webber was starting to catch them at about half a second a lap and they wanted to ensure Alonso came out of the pits still comfortably ahead,” Anderson wrote in his column on the BBC website.

“But Webber was closing so fast because he was on new tyres at the time. That edge would have gone away pretty quickly,” he reasoned.

However, Webber was willing to take no chances although the team was certain that Alonso was starting to struggle.

“Fernando was not quite out of touch and after the last stop, my engineer Ciaron (Pilbeam) came on the radio saying that Fernando was not doing much on the option tyres,” Webber said. “But I know Fernando is a wily old fox, I thought he was looking after the tyres and just waiting to pull the pin and go a little bit. But when I got within two seconds I thought maybe he’s in a little bit of trouble and it was real.

“That’s when you’ve got to smell the blood and you’ve got to go for it,” he added putting his faith in the pit wall

**sav_pap** · 13th July 2012, 10:13

Originally Posted by Dino

F1 Pulse
Alonso’s British GP loss not down to strategy© Ubaid Parkar, 10 July 2012
© Ferrari

Fernando Alonso would have been a sitting duck against the Red Bull no matter what strategy he would have opted for at the British Grand Prix on Sunday.
The Ferrari driver, who started from pole position, lost the lead of the race at Silverstone four laps from the end to Mark Webber, who went on to win the race from the Spaniard.
The double world champion had opted to start the race on the hard tyres, with his next stint raced on prime again and finally ended on the soft compound after his second pit stop, a tactic Ferrari was relatively certain would work.

“I was confident in the tyres, to be honest, because Felipe (Massa) used the soft tyre in the first stint and I think he did 14 laps, so 14 laps with maybe a heavy car in the first stint and we were 15 laps to the end with a light car,” Alonso went on to explain.

“So we were quite convinced the softs were OK but they were a little bit slower, obviously a little bit too much understeer, so the balanced changed and killed the performance of the car a little bit and we were a bit too slow.

“We knew, more or less, that the soft was a little bit slower, so we needed to open up a gap in the first two stints when we were on different tyres to Mark and we knew that that gap was for sure getting closer and closer at the end when we put on the softs, and what we opened up at the beginning was not enough,” he pointed out.

Alonso pitted on lap 15 for the primes and on lap 37 for the options which suggested perhaps he could have gone longer on the hard tyres he started with.

The choice of tyre strategy was admittedly determined by the pace in the final practice session on Saturday - where Ferrari concluded it was more confident with the hard tyre – in what was the only dry running the teams were able to get ahead of the largely wet weekend.

But BBC F1’s technical analyst Gary Anderson, a former technical director of Jordan, Stewart and Jaguar, believes that if Alonso would have gone longer on the first set of primes, Webber would have taken the lead after the first round of pit stops.

“They did it because Webber was starting to catch them at about half a second a lap and they wanted to ensure Alonso came out of the pits still comfortably ahead,” Anderson wrote in his column on the BBC website.

“But Webber was closing so fast because he was on new tyres at the time. That edge would have gone away pretty quickly,” he reasoned.

However, Webber was willing to take no chances although the team was certain that Alonso was starting to struggle.

“Fernando was not quite out of touch and after the last stop, my engineer Ciaron (Pilbeam) came on the radio saying that Fernando was not doing much on the option tyres,” Webber said. “But I know Fernando is a wily old fox, I thought he was looking after the tyres and just waiting to pull the pin and go a little bit. But when I got within two seconds I thought maybe he’s in a little bit of trouble and it was real.

“That’s when you’ve got to smell the blood and you’ve got to go for it,” he added putting his faith in the pit wall

Having in mind our car's better behaviour with heavy fuel load perhaps starting with the hards wasn't so good idea.
Wearing the same tyres with Webber in the start and relying on our better performance on heavy car then maybe things could turn around...