[mayankk]

Was it just me or did this race feature some of the most shoddy camera work in the history of camera work?
Shaky, off track, see here look there.

[Hatari]

What a great race! To begin with Williams need to have a chat with Massa, I agree with Martin Brundle..that was a silly move to expect KMag to just disappear or give him red carpet treatment. 15 points on a platter lost.

Hamilton needs to thank his lucky stars.. pushing and shoving his way through.. he was lucky that all he got was some nose damage. He was just braking late (or last!) and hoping for the best, both fronts locked up with cars around more than once. Great fight between Alonso and the Bulls. Alonso was driving the entire last lap on 8th gear to save fuel he said. Great driving from Bottas and Ricciardo, maturity beyond their years.

Originally Posted by zenren

I'm not saying it as post mortem. Even before the Q1 started, I didn't expect Kimi to out-qualify Mercs, Williams or RBR. Then there is Alonso as well. So we were already looking at 7 cars that were faster than Kimi and that meant P8 would have been treated as a good performance, while P9-10 would have been average performance. This was my expectation before the start of qualifying. He is not so off from there after Q. To his advantage, he gets a fresh set of super softs and can probably make up the couple of places he lost with a good strategy.

However, both McLarens and both Force Indias also outpaced him, which in retrospect means even Alonso might have been lucky Button got eliminated in Q2. Else even Button might have managed to put something together worth a P7. The track clearly favours the Merc engine as is evident in the grid order. Button in P11 is the lowest grid position for a Mercedes engine excluding Lewis.

If you are saying P7 was best case scenario, P8 is then average for a WDC.. certainly not good, and P9 and below is worst case scenario, is it not? P12 is therefore disaster.

The race was a great example and proves my point exactly. The slight wing clipping didnt help, but thats another 10 points lost out to Alonso on account of being caught up with slower cars with higher top speed. When you are 6-7 tenths behind where you ought to be, you can get a good start and get lucky. But most of the time, you will end up paying heavily with little or no points.

[polopm]

Originally Posted by Hatari

What a great race! To begin with Williams need to have a chat with Massa, I agree with Martin Brundle..that was a silly move to expect KMag to just disappear or give him red carpet treatment. 15 points on a platter lost.
.....But most of the time, you will end up paying heavily with little or no points.

Williams knew well when they signed up Massa. It's always the other person's fault with him.
The race was amazing, one of the reasons why the old classic tracks are always better. The width is narrow which means you overtake with lot of guts and bravado, you don't have wide runoff area or astro-turfs. The Ferraris - Vettel overtake and Lewis on the Ferrari and RBR were sights to behold. Who says F1 is boring these days.

Bottas is only going to get better, I just hope he beats Rosberg not Lewis. Poor Lewis needs a bit of luck.

[Cyborg]

Great race and super overtaking in this one!

Hockenheim Ring race track, german manufacturer aiming for victory, german driver in Nico Rosberg - did anybody not find it strange when Adrian Sutil stalled his car on the straight and there was no safety car? Any other track and I am sure there would have been a safety car for this sort of an incident.
The organizers did not want to throw a victory into question by bringing out the safety car at this late stage due to the reasons mentioned above.

Nico Rosberg has himself stated he was worried about a safety car in the closing stages. Imagine, Valteri Bottas and Hamilton within shouting distance because of the safety car. The end could have been different perhaps?

Let me know what you guys think.

Cheers

[polopm]

Originally Posted by Cyborg

Great race and super overtaking in this one!

Hockenheim Ring race track, german manufacturer aiming for victory, german driver in Nico Rosberg - did anybody not find it strange when Adrian Sutil stalled his car on the straight and there was no safety car? Any other track and I am sure there would have been a safety car for this sort of an incident.
The organizers did not want to throw a victory into question by bringing out the safety car at this late stage due to the reasons mentioned above.

Nico Rosberg has himself stated he was worried about a safety car in the closing stages. Imagine, Valteri Bottas and Hamilton within shouting distance because of the safety car. The end could have been different perhaps?

Let me know what you guys think.

Cheers

The reason for not having a safety car is frankly baffling considering what happened at Silverstone.Half the track width is not available at this place (exiting the turn) due to Sutil's spin and if you had noticed, nobody did anything for almost few minutes (except waving the double yellow).
Crazy stewardship. The last time Charlie Whiting berated Niki Lauda asking him if he knew about safety (Lauda asked why an broken side barrier was leading a long safety car). He better eat his words back considering what happened on Sunday.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by Cyborg

Hockenheim Ring race track, german manufacturer aiming for victory, german driver in Nico Rosberg - did anybody not find it strange when Adrian Sutil stalled his car on the straight and there was no safety car? Any other track and I am sure there would have been a safety car for this sort of an incident.
The organizers did not want to throw a victory into question by bringing out the safety car at this late stage due to the reasons mentioned above.

I do agree that there were enough chances for a safety car - Sutil's Sauber parked in the track, burning Toro Rosso in the run off area and so on. However, none of them impacted the racing line thanks to Sutil reversing out of it before stalling and Kvyat driving off the track in a burning car and bring it to a halt out of the track. Moreover, I don't think any of these incidents caused the yellow flags to stay for more than a reasonable time. That is why we have yellow flags. If something can be managed with just yellow flags, that is how it should be done. I don't think we need to come up with a conspiracy theory just because it was winning driver's home race.

Originally Posted by polopm

The reason for not having a safety car is frankly baffling considering what happened at Silverstone.Half the track width is not available at this place (exiting the turn) due to Sutil's spin and if you had noticed, nobody did anything for almost few minutes (except waving the double yellow).
Crazy stewardship. The last time Charlie Whiting berated Niki Lauda asking him if he knew about safety (Lauda asked why an broken side barrier was leading a long safety car). He better eat his words back considering what happened on Sunday.

Double yellow is enough to prevent overtaking attempts and if there is no chance of overtaking, the drivers would be sticking to the racing line. Moreover, there were no debris on the track this time unlike Silverstone.

[Cyborg]

Originally Posted by zenren

I do agree that there were enough chances for a safety car - Sutil's Sauber parked in the track, burning Toro Rosso in the run off area and so on. However, none of them impacted the racing line thanks to Sutil reversing out of it before stalling and Kvyat driving off the track in a burning car and bring it to a halt out of the track.
Double yellow is enough to prevent overtaking attempts and if there is no chance of overtaking, the drivers would be sticking to the racing line. Moreover, there were no debris on the track this time unlike Silverstone.

The Toro Rosso of Kvyat was off the track completely. In Sutil"s case the car though off the racing line was in a position to cause harm. As Polopm has mentioned there was nothing happening for awhile while Sutil's car was parked on the track. Martin Brundle also mentioned this is almost certainly a safety car issue. The marshals were also confused as I feel they also believed there would be a safety car. It seemed they must have got a radio message which is when they started to do something.

Do you not think its funny - even after a big crash when there is debris on the track (on or off the line) there is a safety car while the debris is being cleared. In this case a car is parked on the track and there are only waved yellow's.
I believe on any other track/another time with a car parked on the straight there will be a safety car. Let's see, there are plenty of races to check my theory.

Cheers

[Octane_Power]

Was there a 'hidden' purpose behind not bringing in a safety car, I don't know.

But I was happy with the decision of not calling the SC and handling the situation with yellow flags.

Somethings should be left upto the drivers and they should be expected to handle such situations safely; it shouldn't be that every time a shard or bolt falls on the track, all go into panic mode and safety car is called in, only to spoil the race.

During Silverstone, even I personally felt that calling off the race for such a long duration was uncalled for. They should have gone ahead with a temporary solution like covering up the broken part with a tyre wall, or some other thing which would have been temporary, but would have served the purpose.

I know safety is foremost in any sport and drivers' lives should be protected at any cost; but as Niki Lauda said even I think, being so fastidious that it takes away the fun of the race is not needed.

Good decision this Sunday by not getting the SC during Kvyat's and Sutil's incidence.

-Bhargav

[gtonsing]

Great race!! I think Bottas would have challenged Nico if there were more laps to go.
That the race was not "safety car'd" during/after Sutils spin was strange to me too. I was hoping there would be a safety car and then my underdogs (Force India) would then have a chance at something. Alas! it was not to be.

Some nice fights throughout the race. I am liking it.

[deetjohn]

Was a very intense race. Nico couldn't have asked for a better weekend. If Lewis had a bit more patience, he could have ended up in second. Don't think he would have challenged Nico even if there was a Safety Car.

I am getting super impressed by Ricciardo and Bottas. The former is clearly reveling his new role and bringing home the points. The fight with Alonso was amazing. Hulkenberg too, he is doing a stellar job out there. Alonso played with fire on the last lap and Ricciardo almost got him. Think the Ferrari went into massive fuel save mode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysC0ry9wF3s

[polopm]

Now Alonso's having a go at Seb thru his comments on Ricciardo:

"I think he's doing unbelievable," the Ferrari driver said. "I think he's 7-3 in races in the first ten races with Sebastian [Vettel] so it's something that probably not one of us expected. He is doing a very good job, he's driving fantastically and today he was battling very smart. He was always taking the slipstream of me after I passed him and then braking very late, attacking very late and never missed the corner so he was very, very smart. Very respectful of the rules etcetera. It was a great fight."
Read more at http://en.espnf1.com/germany/motorsp...04cPlKlgKBE.99

Imagine this guy in a Merc, with a bad Ferrari he performs like this..

[zenren]

Originally Posted by polopm

Now Alonso's having a go at Seb thru his comments on Ricciardo:

Ricciardo and Bottas are definitely showing enough potential to be future champions. I just hope they would be in the right team at the right time of their career.

[Fullrevs]

Ricciardo and Bottas have been outperforming their more experienced team mates. Ricciardo's battle with Nando was great to watch. Reason for Alonso going slower was that on the last stint he used to scrubbed option tyres. They gave up after 4-5 laps of aggressive driving.

Alonso is quite right in his comments about Ricciardo. He is a great prospect. During the course of last weekends race, he even stood up to Hamilton and gave him quite a tough time as well. Hamilton went bonzai on the hairpin curve on Kimi and Ricciardo. Seemed like Ricciardo was a bit blocked out by Hulkenberg at the time since he chose the outside line. Alonso and Ricciardo would make a great pairing.

[zenren]

There is a review of 2014 German Grandprix being shown in SS4 now (Inside Line). They're showing Hamilton's 2013 car clippings whenever they mention Hamilton. Pure incompetence and editing!