F1 Brazil

yellowperil · 11-27-2011, 11:58 AM

Does anyone think todays winner was handed a gift. Something seemed fishy to me.

DaveE · 11-27-2011, 12:23 PM

It's the only way he could finish second in the championship. They might have played games with Vettel's gearbox "woes". Who knows, who cares?

Noah930 · Noah930's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by yellowperil

Does anyone think todays winner was handed a gift. Something seemed fishy to me.

I wondered the same thing. Payback to Webber for being a good #2? Only the Red Bull engineers know for sure if there was anything wrong with Vettel's gearbox.

chapo · 11-27-2011, 04:26 PM

Weber didn't finish second in the championship, Button did.

herr_oberst · 11-27-2011, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chapo

Weber didn't finish second in the championship, Button did.

• But the only way Webber could finish second in the championship was to win this race; (and Button had to finish 8th or worse)

• I'm glad to see him win a race, even if it was gifted to him. I'm equally happy Lou-Lou didn't win this race, or even finish.

• I'm a Schumacher fan, but I saw that run-in with Senna a lot differently than the stewards did. . .

FastCarFan · FastCarFan's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by yellowperil

Does anyone think todays winner was handed a gift. Something seemed fishy to me.

I wondered the same thing - did Red Bull create a (fake) gearbox problem to let Webber get a win this season? We will likely never know, but if I was Webber that would not be the way I would want to win a race.

Zeke · 11-27-2011, 05:18 PM

And Webber didn't like the way he won the race. RB didn't have a transmission problem all season that I can remember. How are we skeptics supposed to find on this one? If Vettle was lying in the interview then he's just a tool.

He mentioned Senna with the same problem. Would Senna have lied?

Noah930 · Noah930's Garage

He would have run into you, at the very least.

Or maybe passed you when you had an "agreement" re: team orders.

Noah930 · Noah930's Garage

Even had the race been "gifted" to Webber, there's been a time in the past where he had to do the opposite. At least there's a bit of even-steven to it all.

emcon5 · emcon5's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeke

And Webber didn't like the way he won the race. RB didn't have a transmission problem all season that I can remember. How are we skeptics supposed to find on this one? If Vettle was lying in the interview then he's just a tool.

From the post race press conference:

Quote:

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Livio Oricchio - O Estado de Sao Paulo) Mark and Sebastian: we also heard that Sebastian had gear problems and suddenly, very hard gear problems. Then we started following your lap times. We should expect you to lose time in sector two maybe, when you used the low gears which your mechanics suggested you use. But you didn’t lose time there and you could maintain the pace with Mark and you also finished very close to him. We had the impression at some times, I’m sorry to say, that it might not be true.

SV: I can tell you that I had a gearbox problem and I was forced to… I didn’t like the message but I had no choice. Either you finish the race or you don’t. As I said, I turned down the engine, I felt happy in the car and I felt more and more able to understand the tyres after the first stint and keep the pace reasonably well, so I tried to stay as close as I could with Mark and then push where I was allowed to which was in the corners, not so much as soon as I started feeling the throttle, because I was forced to use high gears and upshift earlier. At the beginning, I think I was able to keep reasonably close, especially in the second sector. Of course, I lost - not traction - but then acceleration but then the straights are relatively short in the second sector. But then if you compare the last sector, for instance, which has only one corner, and then it’s killing uphill when you have to upshift early. At some stage I got the message ‘we need to save the gearbox and slow down’ but I told them that I’m aware and I wasn’t pushing hard. Yeah, I think we had good pace in the car and we were quite quick on the soft tyres at the end. Obviously it was more about getting the car to the chequered flag, but you can believe me, if I had the choice, I would have gone for the racing option.

MW: Well, I didn’t drive Seb’s car. All I can do is what I can do. When I first got past Seb, obviously, I realised that the race was not over for him, but I thought, OK, I’m maybe managing the race with the other guys, because problems normally only get worse. So my rhythm wasn’t only judging myself against Seb at that point. If I pushed, obviously, most of the time it was half a second per lap or four tenths, and then some laps it would the same, mainly because I was not completely disciplined myself because I knew I could give the tyre a bit of a chance to breathe a bit more and make the stints a bit longer, and keep the gap at whatever it was. Some laps I could push, obviously, and give the tyres a bit more of a chance when I had less fuel and stuff like that. I’ve agreed with you many times this year, but not this time.

JB: Viewing this from the outside, I can say whatever I wanted, but as a driver you learn to adapt to a situation. If you’re told to save fuel, if you’re told to save brakes, you learn to adapt and you drive in a different manner. Many times this year we’ve saved fuel and you can pretty much match a lap time after five or six laps, because you adapt to it and you drive in a different way. That’s what we’re paid to do.

tevake · 11-27-2011, 10:17 PM

Come on guys leave me some of my naivety, I don't think Vetel would have sounded that way if it had been staged.
But this win and that of Hamilton's in the last race were by default any way. Vetel in the R B were just untouchable this year.

Cheers Richard

livi · 11-27-2011, 10:24 PM

It was great to see Webber win. He seems to be such a nice guy.

yellowperil · 11-28-2011, 06:18 AM

I agree with FastCarFan, I wanted Weber to win, not Vettel but I felt we were a bit cheated by all this. I know it's big business and team comes first and all that, but I still think passes at or towards the front should be earned. Most fans I think are fans of drivers and not fans of teams. I watch hoping different individuals do well as I really like Weber and am a bit tired of "that's what I'm talkin about" Vettel. Just my opinion.

This was a pretty good year for racing, but hope next year somebody else gets a shot at it.

FLYGEEZER · 11-28-2011, 06:25 AM

Nothings on the level, including F1. You guys gotta remember that.

5String43 · 11-28-2011, 06:48 AM

Don't forget that team orders are legal this year, which it seemed to me the Speed announce team forgot.

The RB team is saying that the trans in Seb's car was losing oil and wasn't expected to make it past halfway. They're also saying that by race-end, they pretty much figured it has lost all its lubricant, hence the decision to let Webber around Seb.

OK, so far, so good.

But if this was the case, and if Seb was short-shifting, how was he able to manage a fastest lap?

I adore F1, but I'm really sick of the domination we've seen this season. I felt the same way when Schumacher was winning, only even worse because he's such a dirty driver.

I can only hope that the other teams are much more competitive next year.