[Mnjdnght]

Originally Posted by khoj

Ross brown's comments on the team radio were again cool calm and class apart. What a beautiful job of handling both of his drivers who are as ambitious as the next F1 driver.

Asking Nico to back off the podium when he could've taken it without any daring overtake early in the season was not fair. The team would've gained the same points irrespective of who was on podium. Have they made any commitment on race position to Lewis in their contract with him?

Originally Posted by khoj

MW was upset about Vettel not going with a set procedure which he himself has complied with on more than one occasions. In the podium interview MW clearly said that he had turned his engine power down once the code was relayed and was taken by surprise to see Vettel attacking him in the fashion that he did.

The race was on the moment Webber exited the pits. Vettel was screaming down the straight and would've taken the position if Webber hadn't done some heavy defending. MW couldn't have been down on engine power at that time. After this the pressure from SV was just not off and there was no reasonable gap for them to fall into set positions and to step down engines to conserve fuel/ tyres. There has to be more context to this issue off the track than is apparent to us. SV overtaking MW was quite exciting (would've been a different story if they made contact and dumped the race).

[neel385]

I think that this Team Vs Driver thing is bad for the game in general. While it is understood that the team has huge investments in the car and everything associated with it, if the guys on the racetrack should race, then well, they should just be allowed to do that. We had Ferrari in a similar incident a few years back and now we have both the Red Bulls and the Mercs involved in similar stuff. Like one commentator put it, it is good for the team, but bad for the followers of the sport who want to see clean racing!

[Derezzed]

Reminds me of the Schumacher - Barrichelo team orders incident in the 2002 Austrian GP. It must have felt like a punch on Barrichelo's face when he was ordered to let Schumi through in the last lap.

Vettel, I think, owes today's trophy to Webber. Team orders during race should be monitored and any deliberate attempt to change the race positions should attract a huge penalty.

[mayankk]

Newey did not like either the friction or the disobedience, it was quite apparent.
And the radio comm,"congratulations, but there's some explaining to do"....
Hilarious!! Chided like a child, and looking pouty like one, too, on the podium.

Good run by the Mercedes,but these two have a much better connect, so I think team orders will be shelved easy enough, and you could see Hamiltons discomfort having it enforced.

No words for, nor understanding of what ferrari /Alonso were trying.

McLaren. Oh McLaren, where art thou??? Only solace is they pulled 60 races with points. I hope the gap sees some major development.

[asr245]

Wow! First time I such displeased faces on the podium.
For me, the team comes first. If something was agreed to by the drivers in the RBR garage, then Vettel behaved badly. It's not racing when one guy is in "cruise to the flag mode" and the other is charging, in spite of pre-race agreement. And who ever said, RBR is no. 1 because of Vettel - what a load of bull!! Vettel can be replaced by at least 3 other guys on the grid - Alonso, Hamilton and Kimi. But it's Newey who's replacement would be very difficult to find.

Not sure, why Merc kept Nico behind!

[SilentEngine]

Can't say I enjoyed the race, partly because of Kimi's poor race and then because of the situation with RBR and Mercedes drivers. Vettel is really pushing the limit by defying per race agreement. His initial reaction on the podium was to defend/justify what he did only to later come up with a PR scripted apology. Hamilton was at least humble enough to say that Rosberg deserved to be on the podium.

Originally Posted by Derezzed

Reminds me of the Schumacher - Barrichelo team orders incident in the 2002 Austrian GP. It must have felt like a punch on Barrichelo's face when he was ordered to let Schumi through in the last lap.

Vettel, I think, owes today's trophy to Webber. Team orders during race should be monitored and any deliberate attempt to change the race positions should attract a huge penalty.

You are contradicting yourself here. It was not team order that made Vettel win today, but his decision to not follow it.

Originally Posted by asr245

Not sure, why Merc kept Nico behind!

It was unnecessary to keep him behind. He even stopped using DRS to avoid getting too close. Poor call by Ross Brawn.

[anachronix]

Originally Posted by Derezzed

Team orders during race should be monitored and any deliberate attempt to change the race positions should attract a huge penalty.

Team orders in F1 is legal, there is nothing to be done with team orders!

A silly race for me, from the moment Ferrari decided not to pit Alonso by the end of Lap1. A very silly call from Ferrrai!

5 Pitstops by RB and Mercedes to finish the race, they had a good weekend with none of the strong drivers to give them a threat. Kimi was busy fighting back markers and Alonso was out by start of Lap2. The result might have been different otherwise! Vettel has showed his nasty face again, poor Webbo!

[sameerg001]

Note from the Team-BHP Support: There are several spelling & grammatical errors in your posts. This negatively affects the board experience for other readers. Kindly ensure that you proof-read your posts prior to submission.

[shibujp]

Why Sebastian Vettel did what he did may remain a mystery - but it did give a nice view of wheel to wheel racing to us racing fans.

Nico Rosberg and Ross Brawn gave a great exhibition of the sense of fairness, professionalism and man management. I appreciated the way Ross Brawn took over from Nico's engineer to explain why he could not overtake Hamilton as Hamilton was taking one for the team. Nicely done.

2 races two winners, competitive team mates in RBR and Mercedes, a resurgent Ferrari, a Mclaren that is doing what Ferrari did last year, Kimi and Lotus as the underdogs - this season promises to be a nail biter similar to last year.

Drive on,
Shibu.

[pganapathy]

This whole thing of team orders is a major problem. No doubt it is good for the team and does not matter from a team perspective of points who comes first and who second, but it can affect the individual drivers points standing. Thus there is always a need to balance them both. What any team wants is for one of their drivers to win the drivers championship and them to win the constructors championship.

Unfortunately a drivers viewpoint is kinda the opposite. He wants and need to win the drivers championship first and the constructors championship comes second. I cannot blame vettel in going for the extra seven points. I would have done exactly the same.

[mgh]

It is impossible for any team engineers to predict exactly how long the fuel will last or the tyres will last. So, if their driver/s have secured their current race positions (are sufficiently ahead of the drivers chasing them) and have not much chance of getting better position, the engineers tell them to take it easy for making sure of their points. It so happened that at that point of time when the engineers wanted to play safe, Webber was ahead.

All drivers are supposed to obey such instructions in the interest of the team. What Vettel did, was gross indiscipline. It would be interesting to see what action Red Bull takes in private, and whether he will be sufficiently chastened not to do it in future. The best punishment for him would be to be forced to let Webber pass him in a couple of races.

As far as Force India are concerned, the wheel nut strikes again. Don't know what is so special about the wheel nut that so many teams have had trouble with it at pit stops over the years.

As far as I know, such problems can occur only if the bolt is not of high temperature resistant material, the head of the bolt is not sufficiently hard, high temperature lube is not used on the threads, and the torque wrench they use is not set correctly. Also, with their budgets, using a new bolt every time as a further safety measure, should not be too difficult.

[khoj]

As per the TV commentators it does seem so since they mentioned that, even going on to comment that Niko would have to learn to adjust to the new team order now that Lewis was there. This after Niko repeatedly asked the team to let him go after the two RBs and was told not to do so.

Originally Posted by Mnjdnght

Have they made any commitment on race position to Lewis in their contract with him?

MW is on record in the post podium ceremony interview, that the hold position order was conveyed to both drivers and he had his engine power turned down accordingly and was therefore shocked to see Vettel doing what he did.

The team in the last radio communication clearly tells SV that they will be seeking an explanation for his antics. There is no hidden behind the scene power play here. SV is the star driver and everyone knows it but at the end of the day no management will take a rebuttal of its orders lying down, whether in an office or in a professional race team.

Originally Posted by Mnjdnght

MW couldn't have been down on engine power at that time.

[anachronix]

Webbo reacting during yesterday's race

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykG06ixh92c

[deetjohn]

With Alonso out and Kimi stuck, it turned out to be a very boring race for me. And others were left with more than enough time and space to fight all the internal battles.

Webber took one for the team again. And he talked really well on that very grumpy podium yesterday. For all the noise that Horner is making now, why couldn't he urge Vettel to give the place back if they thought what Vettel did was very wrong?

I think it was the first time Perez hauled some points home after being announced a McLaren driver last season. He even set the fastest lap of the race.

Wonder why Massa was so quiet yesterday. He had a poor start, but I thought Ferrari had a very good car for the race. He is constantly beating Alonso in Q, but the race craft is still not up there to the 2008 standards.

[ritheshpaul]

Even though I am fan of Ferrari, who I think, though are one of the forerunners when it comes to team orders :( , I really respect the McLaren Mercedes team when it comes to their attitude on this issue. They never indulge in team orders, and all they really ask of their drivers is that they race fair and not trip over each other. This was demonstrated most clearly in the 2007 season with Hamilton, Alonso and Kimi all in the title fight. McLaren could have backed one of their drivers and won both the constructor's and driver's championships that year, if they wanted to, but they elected to let their drivers race, with the result that Kimi won the WDC. Kudos on the fair play!
Coming to the race itself, poor stuff from Vettel to elbow his way into the lead when both drivers were instructed to turn their engines down.
An interesting fact. Even in this race, the Lotus cars managed to complete the race with one fewer pitstop than the leaders.