[deetjohn]

F1 is going this weekend to a Germany basking in the World Cup glory. In 1954, Germany won the Football World Cup and Mercedes won the F1 championship. So, anything less than a 1,2 won't do this weekend. And since national pride is at its highest this week, expect to see a lot of German colours. This year, its Hockenheimring, which alternates as host of the race with the Nurburgring.

Its a different 'Ring' this year.


Last race at Hockenheim was won by Alonso in 2012


The great man was racing there last time


Circuit Layout
The shorter Hockenheim track was inaugurated in 2002, but this is only the second time that Pirelli has raced on the circuit. The last time the race was held there, it was a two-stop strategy that won, but the tyres are very different and more robust today.

Against that, the likely removal of the Front-Rear interconnected suspension systems (FRIC), due to a mandate from the governing body the FIA, is likely to impact on the strategy with more stops likely as the tyre wear will be less consistent across the four corners of the car. This could force an extra stop. It is one of a number of big question marks hanging over the F1 teams as they embark on this important race. Here is a lap of Hockenheim with Mark Webber on the RedBull simulator. The old engine noise is the added bonus.

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

Weather Forecast
The German Grand Prix at Hockenheim is often held in warm conditions, although there have been some wet races too. This year’s forecast is for very warm weather, in the high 20s and low 30s

Likely tyre performance and other considerations
Pirelli tyre choice for Hockenheim: Soft (yellow markings) and supersoft (red markings). With high temperatures forecast this weekend we are likely to see some thermal degradation, which means that the tyres overheat and suffer a sudden drop off in performance beyond a certain point, usually when they are around 70% worn.

This effect will be exacerbated by the removal of the FRIC suspension systems. Friday practice will be more essential than ever for the teams to do their homework and establish the fastest tyre strategy combination for Sunday’s race. Hockenheim has several slow corners and the acceleration out of these causes longitudinal sliding, while some of the medium and higher speed corners put a lot of energy into the tyres and increase the degradation.

Race Strategy Briefing



Courtesy: JA on F1

[Aditya]

Thanks for starting this thread deetjohn.

I'm expecting one cracker of a race. Hamilton is just 4 points behind Rosberg now. That will have charged him up. At the same time Rosberg seems to be in great spirits too. He got married recently and Germany won the world cup last weekend. He's looking to bring even more cheer to his people by winning his home race. He has prepared a special helmet for Hockenheim.



Dark horses for the race will be Ricciardo and Bottas. Vettel will also look to turn his fortunes around.

I don't expect much from either McLaren or Ferrari. At the moment, they are just not on the same page as Mercedes or even Willams and Red Bull.

Image source: Twitter

[shashi63]

Originally Posted by Aditya

Thanks for starting this thread deetjohn.

I'm expecting one cracker of a race. Hamilton is just 4 points behind Rosberg now. That will have charged him up. At the same time Rosberg seems to be in great spirits too. He got married recently and Germany won the world cup last weekend. He's looking to bring even more cheer to his people by winning his home race. He has prepared a special helmet for Hockenheim.

I believe FIFA put a spanner on Rosberg's helmet design and there will be some change in it.

I do believe that with FRIC removed we may see some interesting developments. RED BULL and Mercedes may have some problems.

[deetjohn]

Originally Posted by shashi63

I believe FIFA put a spanner on Rosberg's helmet design and there will be some change in it.

Yeah, that was FIFA' IP and he was stopped from using it. His new helmet will now feature four gold stars marking each of Germany’s football successes.


Also, two DRS zones will be used at the Hockenheimring for the first time this weekend.


And thunderstorms are expected on Sunday. So, we could get mixed track conditions.

Courtesy: f1fanatic.co.uk

[Nitrous Power]

Hamilton is out of qualifying due to his crash to barriers during Q1 just now. What appears to be the cause of accident is Front Right Brake failure. I think Mercedes is still struggling with brakes reliability.

[zenren]

With Hamilton crashing out in Q3, I expected it to be a walk in the park for Rosberg but Bottas put up a good fight. Good job from Magnussen and Kvyat too, considering where their more experienced ended up on the grid.

Williams seems to be pretty strong for tomorrow, since they have a good starting position and they have the pace to keep others behind in the DRS zones. Pretty ordinary performances from ALO, HUL, PER, BUT and RAI though this is one solid midfield that could prevent Hamilton from moving up so easily. It might be difficult for HAM to get past Bottas. Massa might force himself into an error while trying to defend the position and let HAM pass.

Expecting Hamilton to catch up on the field ahead and eventually finish P2 or P3 - P1 for HAM seems unlikely unless there are issues for Rosberg.

[Hatari]

Another gift for Nico from Mercedes! Williams were right on the pace again.. they are looking good to finish in P2 in the constructors since it highly unlikely that Ferrari or Red Bull will challenge them at Spa/Monza/Austin.

Quali was disaster for Button and Kimi.. this is getting embarrassing for Kimi now.. the commentators too dont even talk about Alonso beating him again.. its run of the mill now..what doesnt help is him talk about retirement. Ferrari are losing vital points in Constructors.

Mclaren are in a tricky situation with Button.. clearly hes not fast enough as they would want and yet for 2015 with Honda coming in they need a high profile driver. I feel they will end up retaining him for the lack of a replacement.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by Hatari

Quali was disaster for Button and Kimi.. this is getting embarrassing for Kimi now..

I don't think the Qualifiers were really a disaster for either of them. Not making it into Q3 would be a disaster only if the driver had a good shot at anything better than P6 or so. Even if they qualified into Q3, they were unlikely to do better than P8. Considering they are P11-P12, they are just a couple of positions off.

[Hatari]

Originally Posted by zenren

I don't think the Qualifiers were really a disaster for either of them. Not making it into Q3 would be a disaster only if the driver had a good shot at anything better than P6 or so. Even if they qualified into Q3, they were unlikely to do better than P8. Considering they are P11-P12, they are just a couple of positions off.

Being 9 tenths and 6 tenths off their respective team mates is disaster if you look at it in the context of the season.
Going into how many places etc is post mortem and trying to cover their mistakes. The only reason it is not getting highlighted more is because neither team is fighting for the WDC/Pole.

Kimi has probably had the worst season to anyone, apart from Maldonado. He's miles off Alonso, I would have accepted 2-3 tenths as Alonso is by far the better driver. 19 points to Alonso's 87 and to be an avg of 7 tenths behind Alonso in Quali (if im not mistaken having read somewhere). He hasnt been sacked just because he is Kimi and probably because he's already been sacked before by Ferrari. 10 races into the season to be this far behind (cumulatively) and not being able to drive a car your teammate is excelling in, is a major embarrassment to his driving skills. I think he knows, and thus is encouraging this retirement talk.

[sourav9385]

Great!
Another 5 place grid penalty for Lewis, for a gearbox change owing to the accident damage incurred yesterday.
I think Lewis is becoming the Bad Luck Brian in F1. Really really sad. Don't see how he can salvage anything from 21st position on the grid.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by sourav9385

Great!
Another 5 place grid penalty for Lewis, for a gearbox change owing to the accident damage incurred yesterday.
I think Lewis is becoming the Bad Luck Brian in F1. Really really sad. Don't see how he can salvage anything from 21st position on the grid.

I think they were thinking of starting from the pit lane with switching the brake discs to the one Rosberg is using to be on the safe side. I wouldn't call him unlucky yet, since there are no points for Saturday and the same issue could have come up in the first few laps of the race leading to another retirement. Currently, he is still looking at P2 even after such a shunt and a possible pit lane start - thanks to the dominance of Mercedes.

Originally Posted by Hatari

Going into how many places etc is post mortem and trying to cover their mistakes.

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.

[treadmark]

End of the race it goes to Nico a German driver in a German car with a German engine by a German team at Germany.
Also I liked the calmness and excellent placement of car an all turns during the last few laps by Bottas to defend Lewis. Looks like Bottas is a new aspiring world champion, watch out big teams.
Outstanding effort by Lewis from 20th to 3rd.
Another treat for Ferrari and Redbull fans, a clean and interesting wheel to wheel battle couple of times between Alonso and Vettel then later with Ricardo.
I couldn't say who is on mistake for poor Massa's flip on the first corner.

Cheers!

[zenren]

What a race!

Awesome performance from Bottas - he managed to keep a Mercedes behind him this season speaks about his skill - that too on a set of prime tyres that were more than 40 laps old with Mercedes on option tyres. Amazing comeback from Lewis too, though the jump up till around P6 was pretty easy due to dominance of the car.

Good race from Vettel, Ricciardo and Alonso as well to bring home valuable points.

Massa's crash and Kvyat's fire were really scary though. Both had the potential for much more serious injuries. This is the second time this season that a car has flipped, something I've not seen for a long time. Not sure if 2014 car design are more prone to flipping.

BTW, what was it with F1 champions and Kimi's front wing? All of them seems to have collected a piece of Kimi's front wing as a souvenir when they overtook him - first Hamilton, then Vettel and Alonso.

[Octane_Power]

Feel very sad for Massa, out in the 1st lap for two races in a row for no mistake of his. He must be an extremely frustrated man right now!

Mercedes' cars are just too fast. Hamilton doing 345kmph on the straight..

Originally Posted by Hatari

Mclaren are in a tricky situation with Button.. clearly hes not fast enough as they would want and yet for 2015 with Honda coming in they need a high profile driver. I feel they will end up retaining him for the lack of a replacement.

McLaren will have to keep him out of choice. He is showing signs of age, and it will be better if he retires in a season or two.

Same for Kimi, good that he is retiring. I am a great fan of the Finn but he is done now, and it will be best to call it a day.

Originally Posted by zenren

BTW, what was it with F1 champions and Kimi's front wing? All of them seems to have collected a piece of Kimi's front wing as a souvenir when they overtook him - first Hamilton, then Vettel and Alonso.

I saw Hamilton and Vettel clip his front wing, but I didn't see Alonso touching him. Are you sure Alonso clipped him too? I might have missed it because of the guests at my place.

-Bhargav

[shashi63]

Originally Posted by zenren

What a race!

Awesome performance from Bottas - he managed to keep a Mercedes behind him this season speaks about his skill - that too on a set of prime tyres that were more than 40 laps old with Mercedes on option tyres. Amazing comeback from Lewis too, though the jump up till around P6 was pretty easy due to dominance of the car.

I think the miscalculation of Lewis due to which he made contact Jenson cost him a place. He would have been P2 had that not occurred. Anyways I think Vettel had a great race and showed good pace too just unfortunate he had coast and save fuel or he could have been up a place if not 2. Great race by Alonso as usual this guy never gives up and he had atough time getting past Riccardo. I must say my admiration for Riccardo is growing race by race, the way he defended against Alonso was awesome and showed he has some outstanding skills. In my opinion the future drivers are going to be Bottas and Riccardo!

I think Massa is showing signs of strain and stress and is trying too hard. For a guy who has done 200 races that accident was kind of self imposed though scary when i saw him flying upside down. The fire in Toro Rosso car was more scary!

Enjoyed watching the race. It's going to be difficult for Lewis to catch up to Nico now unless Nico does not complete a couple of races.