Formula 1 - 2013 Discussion

So come on, what are people’s opinions on the Vettel defiance of team orders? I thought it was interesting that Mercedes had the same situation but both drivers followed orders.

Personally, I would prefer there aren’t team orders, but as there are, I feel Vettel should have followed them.

Also, how funny was this -

I didn’t watch it but team orders are what got me bored with watching F1… I want to watch a race, best man/car/bike wins. I want the rider/ driver to make the call as to whether he stays back for safety or dares to make the pass…

I think Vettel has that racing to win thing in him and I think it’s what has made him a world champion and a winner so many times… Of course I would have preferred if he came out and said: “I race to win, I heard the order but ignored it” :slight_smile:

It’s a difficult one, I think everyone should race to win, that makes for sport and exciting racing. I can see where the management are coming from though. If both their cars take eachother out then that’s a disaster. I also think having a defiant driver makes the series more intersting.

I’m not sure where Red Bull as sponsors would stand on this either. They are all over the press because of this incident and are getting much more coverage than Mercedes who played ball with their team orders. Everyone is talking about Red Bull which has to be a good thing I think.

There does seem to be an awful amount of faf in F1 lately though with DRS and Kers and infinite debates about saving tyres (incase they delaminate), saving fuel and pit stop strategies. In the 90s it seemed that they would just go out and hammer it.

I thought what Seb did team wise was insanity but it was amazing to watch and shows that he’s out to win which will shake things up.

I think the Vettel pass on the inside on the approach to turn 1 was marginal at best, especially against a team mate and he’s lucky that he didn’t take them both out. he’s also lucky that with all that ‘racing’ he didn’t cook the medium compound tyres that they were both on and lose the podium for them both, but hey, he didn’t and they both finished.

I think that Mark Webber deserves to be as pissed as he is, as he said on the podium during an interview, team orders don’t matter when Vettel will do what he wants and always be protected, lucky for us viewers now though is that there will likely be fireworks between these 2 for a few races to come and it could get quite interesting.

The Mercedes scenario was classic Brawn, this is what I want and this is what you will do. and the drivers towed the line. I think Hamilton was lucky, and he said as much afterwards. unfortunately the team orders are going to be a theme of this year as the tyre situation is so ridiculous that it’s more a race of tyre and fuel strategy than it is of driver and car now, which is disappointing as it means that the engineers are winning the races not the cars. the team that will win the constructors championship this year will be the one with the engineer who can best predict what the impact of each track on the tyres will be and come up with the best pit stop strategy, the drivers and the cars will be secondary to that.

What this does mean is that teams on the ascendancy can continue that rise, to see Mercedes and Lotus do well is great, but what about Force India? the pecking order at the top may be opening up a bit and we may even have 6 teams fighting for the constructors title if things continue the way they are.

Yeah for me F1 is now more about engineering than about drivers and that’s quite boring to watch, I used to love the old F1 where it was more natural racing

Interesting race. Lewis’s mess up was ace!!!

Vettel was wrong, plain and simple. At least he admitted it. No love lost between the drivers but there needs to be respect and understanding that both will do as they are instructed. School boy error really and the atmosphere after the race was not great du to what he Vettel did.

What I do find interesting is that everyone i had talked to before this season had written of Lewis and Merc (including me) but it looks like he might actually be able to challange for the title while Button is left with a car that has taken the team backwards in terms of reliability and pace…unpredicatble and interesting to watch unfold.

Alos great to se Kimmi performing. Opens the championship up a bit.

IMHO it is the same like with every social contract. You agree you are part of the team, you have to play team game. Imagine one of mechanics decided to have a break during the tyre change, or he will do something different than all team agreed to do. Let’s face it with all regulations, “safety issues” earlier mentioned tyres degradation etc all this comes up that driver is 25%-30% of success of the team. Yes it is important 30% but without good car or good race strategy the driver is nothing more than a bit more experienced and talented guy.

Team orders are bad for sport/fans but they are good for hundreds of people behind the scenes. We can talk all day long, what IF, but this what IF is important bit. The coverage is brilliant, we can compare this to coverage of Tiger Woods story, was high as well. But coverage is one and fans booing driver is I believe more important for Red Bull. I don’t think that they want to be recognized as people who support win at all cost without looking at team and partners.

The all F1 experience last few years is almost at the edge of acceptable level. Few reasons are, car development, some 2 years ago car advantage in first part of the season make it boring and predictable. Pirelli playing with tyres should be banned. I don’t believe I’ll be happy to get tyres which have such a small margin of work, set of rubber should be much more reliable to let people race. This sport is constantly limited by more and more h&s rules which just taking all the fun of it. I appreciate an it makes me sad how many lives has been lost, but I believe that was part of the job of F1 high life in the flesh.

So cut it short, lack of respect from Vettel to Webber pretty much sums up who have bigger friend in the team and as Mark pointed out, is not first time it happened and Seb will get cover of Austrian friends within team.

Regarding Mercedes and similar story that is showing how big balls Nico have, and how well and mature the team relations are.

To remind you last season, end of it, Massa was a towing person for Alonso at many qualifications and would do anything for the team, it shows many times that is better to have partner rather than enemy in the team (regardless that end of the season as well as start of current one Massa is slighly quicker than Alonso.

Hope this make sense.
R

I think if you put a driver in a race and they’re at that level, it’s daft to tell them not to pass someone.

Webber did the same to Vettel either last year or the year before…so now they are even. FFS bring back the day’s when Senna was racing. Now that WAS racing.

Small point, but Webber was on Hard tyres at the end. I think Vettel fealt he was still owed the quicker laps his strategy had allowed to take place at the end by him being on medium.

I have never seen 3 winners so disappointed in winning an F1 race ever.

I thought it was hilarious that Lewis pulled into his old team.

How about telling them to go slower? If Mercedes didn’t tell Hamilton to go slower and he ran out of juice, surely that would be pretty stupid?

Strange, I remember Senna era don’t remember Webber taking the piss…

Yes, the era of Senna, Prost etc was much more entertaining, but as was pointed out that was 30% engineering 70% racing now is all the way around… Look at Button, or Alonso/Massa or some young talented ones like DiResta… **** car and whatever they do it will always end in tears.

R

Andy you have 100% right, that was team decision to feel up less as well as give hard compound tyres to Mark, because of their data etc… and then as well as Lewis, Mark had to safe something.
I believe in race pace both have much more to show and it wouldn’t be 1 or half second per lap to catch them by their team partners.

To give another example Kimi was same IceMan from week before, car on the other hand not. So how much is worth even best driver without his team/car you can clearly see.

We have to remember we hear only small percentage of conversations, the most hilarious ones or most entertaining ones.

R

I remember when Senna ran Prost off the road when they were both at Mclaren. I remember thinking he was an idiot as I liked Prost. Made for memorable racing though. I think I was 8 at the time.

I have no issues with team orders that benefit the team as they did yesterday, I do have a problem when they have no bearing on team results (i.e “Alonso is faster than you”). The team orders yesterday were to predict the team’s results, not to favour one driver over another.

For me what Vettel did was not only disrespectful to Webber, but also to the team and to the fans. His apology frankly made it worse, I mean come one how do you accidently overtake someone?
It did make me question Horner’s authority over the drivers when you compare it to the Brawn messages, Brawn was much firmer with his messages compared to Horner’s “c’mon Seb this is silly”.

But he is youngster and is treated like one. If not some baby sitting within the team with his attitude after fist championship he would end up like Lindsey Lohan :wink:

R

When the flag drops the bullshit stops

Flag to flag racing it should be

Imagine paying ya 300 quid to watch it at Silverstone which you saved ages for, 13 laps to go ooh play follow my leader n bollox to the fans. . . . . . . . .yeah right

It is a kind of modern circus…

I might be interested in watching if the cars were narrow enough to pass each-other on the ‘track’ and managed more than 3.8 mpg in the process.

I think team orders exist in many sports. Orders such as “protect Johnny Wilkinson”, or “do what you have to do - get a red card if needed”. So team orders exist in F1 racing too and as in any team sport they need to follow the frickin orders. Vettel drove like he was Maverick in the first half of Top Gun - unacceptable.

I also found it ironic that the podium finishers were all pissed off for one reason or another…