[dzrebellz]

Originally Posted by gtonsing

Alonso's last few laps was seat gripping stuff! Too good.

Would it too much to wish for all the 52 laps to be like the last 6 were yesterday?

[deetjohn]

To me, Lewis was The Driver at Silverstone.

He got pole, pulled a good gap in the initial stages, had a delamination and went really backwards, did an amazing 28 laps on the Hard tyres and got 4th place. A few more laps and he would have been on podium.

Mercedes is now rather strong. Lets see how the tyre story evolves.

[redrage]

Great race for viewers , mighty challenging for the drivers considering bits of tires flying into cockpits and all. Alonso must be thanking his stars the red-bull retired. Ferrari seriously need to find performance especially traction off the corners.The new upgrades to the Ferrari aint helping on the performance, One minute they are challenging, throw in a set of curves and they fall back even to the likes of SFI and Torro Rosso's. One more lap and Hamilton would have shot past him.

[Drivethru]

Slightly OT but Mark Webber has made an exit from F1. I felt it was due to the ugly face off with vettel and his unhappiness with the RBR's inability to rein in Vettel. This is another in the series of driver 1 and driver 2 of a team not able to get along. Schumacer in his dream run found Barrichello who would just listen to team orders and not resist scumi's domination.

Who will vettel be paired with in the 2014 season. any guesses?

[tharian]

I was actually half asleep half hour before when Vettel's gearbox failed. In that half consciousness, I heard Vettel was out and I was fully awake since then and what a super race it was without him and thanks to him.

This race was good in a way that Vettel dropped out because of which atleast the next few races will be interesting in regards to the Championship. Half way through the season, it looks like Alonso is doing the same what he was doing last year, which is push a slower car only becuase of his talent and skills to catch up with the faster cars.

Regards

[Maky]

Originally Posted by mayankk

Could it be because the front was just rolling over the kerb , while the rear was pushing against it under power???

Unless I've mistaken what you've said, Isn't that what happens on all the tracks mayank? i.e. cutting the kerb a bit for taking the most effective raceline and then onto the power for exit? Shouldn't be the reason in my opinion.
Also, kerbs haven't changed as far as I know on Silverstone since last year or the year before. I think the blame lies fully with the tyre not the kerbs.

[anachronix]

There are tweets from reliable sources (JoseLuisF1) that Mclaren & Sauber found Kevlar material in the busted tyres from the British GP.

How is that possible?

[Maky]

Originally Posted by anachronix

There are tweets from reliable sources (JoseLuisF1) that Mclaren & Sauber found Kevlar material in the busted tyres from the British GP.

How is that possible?

This is interesting now.
If your source is accurate it contradicts earlier reports(sky) that the tyres were bursting because a cheaper material, apparently steel is cheaper, was being used instead of Kevlar which is supposed to be more robust but also expensive. If Kevlar is not the suspect then what could it be : 0.
Rest assured we have a very interesting next few days to look forward to, not to mention the next race in only a weeks time!

[D33-PAC]

Originally Posted by gtonsing

I fail to understand SFI just not able to keep up with the rest of the cars - Sutil just kept losing pace - was it car? Engine? Tires? Skill?

Why they did not do as good as they could have:
Sutil would have bagged 3rd or 4th in this race if it wasn't for Webber and Alonso capitalizing on the safety car. Sutil and Raikkonen lost out to that, as they did not pit.

Tires:
So yes tires were a problem here, but generally speaking, the car is the best friend for the Pirellis on any given track. No other car seems to be friendly to the Pirellis but the Force Indias seem to be perfectly good with the Pirellis.

Car:
The VJM06 is a damn good car, it's the best car Force India has ever made. It has been better than the Ferrari as we have seen in some tracks. It is a solid car in dry conditions, but just above decent in the aero side. You can also see that it is a damn quick car, it's actually faster than the Red Bulls, but this is obviously due to lesser drag (which is why the cars are not as strong in high speed corners).

engine:
There's nothing wrong with the Benz engine either, in fact I attribute their success so far partially due to the reliable Mercedes engine.

Skill:

Sutil and DiResta are not Alonso/Hamilton/Raikkonen/Vettel league drivers, but I am not sure it is even fair to compare. If you put a guy like Raikkonen in the VJM06 I am not sure he can do any better. Maybe in the rain, but I think Sutil and Diresta are doing great with the equipment they have.

So I don't think you'd see a change. But obviously it would not hurt to have a Raikkonen level driver, because they have driven better cars and they can tell the team exactly what they want and how the dynamics of a better car should be. Sutil and DiResta have driven nothing better than a VJM06, so this could be a handicap.


What pisses me off about this team is they have a golden opportunity this year but they manage to F it up due to sheer human error. Williams, McLaren, and Sauber would murder to be where they are, but SFI seems to have a couple of guys not taking the opportunity so seriously.

The podium will come this season, but they have to get their stuff together to maximize potential.

As Mallya has said, SFI is leading McLaren by 22 points, and one race win for McLaren means the deficit is wiped out.

Originally Posted by mayankk

Could it be because the front was just rolling over the kerb , while the rear was pushing against it under power???

Could very well be, I would imagine most of the weight is on the rear tire, maybe 65 %? Add to that the friction from power and the damage is compounded.

What I have noticed is that the rear tires seem to become very elastic-ky and they expand and bulge a lot in the corners, which may lead to a decrease in tire thickness, hence making it easy for objects to penetrate the tire.

This is just a guess though, our expert member here Godspd probably has better insight.

[polopm]

Merc conducts tyre tests secretly oops privately for Pirelli.
All the teams raise hell. IT reprimands Merc and accepts a voluntary sentence from Merc to exclude itself from YDT. Silverstone happens, all hell (aka tyres) break loose. YDT is now scheduled to happen with the real drivers to check if the new tyres are OK. Merc will rue this situation.

Hell freezes over.

[Fullrevs]

That was a brilliant GP. I agree that there was a serious safety issue but just as a plain viewer. It sort of made the whole thing exciting as well.

Im not sure if I agree that Mercedes now has the fastest car. The situation in the race was such that with Webbers poor start and Alonso's poor qualifying position, there was no real threat to them.

Whilst Hamilton was in the lead, he pulled out a gap in the first 10-15 laps but it stagnated after that and Vettel was on par. If anything, I would think that Vettel was being smart and saving his tyres a bit more and not too concerned of the gap that Lewis had built up. Hamilton, Vettel and Rosberg were doing their own race and Massa was bottled up behind Sutil for quite a few laps.

Kudos to FI and STR to qualify so well but they did bottle up the grid. If the ferrari's can find decent pace on saturday, I think they will be a solid threat to RBR and Mercedes. Lotus are also quite quick and had they allowed to Kimi to pit in the final SC period, he would have held on to second or third.

The FIA have now allowed the Young Drivers Test at silverstone to be scrapped and the regular racing drivers are now allowed to run to evaluate the tyre issue. The FIA have further said that the regular racing drivers will not be allowed to test new components and are restricted to only doing tyre evaluation runs. Yeah right!!!

[Turbo_Charger]

Originally Posted by godspd

It can be a problem with preco or they did not get their word to the team in a commanding way.

Yep, you are correct. Even after the tyre bursts, Pirelli only recommended the teams to increase the pressure by 2 psi instead of warning them. Even after all this happened, they still left it at the teams' discretion instead of putting their foot down.

PS : When Massa came in after his tyre burst, the look on Ferrari's Pirelli Engineer/Representative was priceless

[sgiitk]

My heart goes out for Massa. A fantastic start, and then the blow out. He was finally recovering from his trauma of the Button debris. I hope he is not psychologically damaged!

[deetjohn]

Narrowly missed out on the goodies in the F1Fanatic British GP Predictions Championship.

f1fanatic-british-grand-prix-predictions-championship-results/