Driver of the race: Round 2 - Malaysian Grand Prix

frostie500

Who was your driver of the day?

RayM

Lewis Hamilton

I'm tempted to say Petrov, for that jump.

Webber recovered nicely. It's just a shame he didn't make the podium.

amacachi

Guess it has to be Vettel, no other big stand-out drives. Webber did well to recover but I was watching the live timing and he was very inconsistent even when he wasn't in traffic. Nice drive from Button too, ahead of Hamilton in the championship now. :pac:

frostie500

Lewis Hamilton

Lots of candidates for this today. Vettel was flawless at the front of the field, Heidfeld bounced back from his Australian disaster, Koybayashi had some great fights, di Resta gets his first points "finish" if you know what I mean but I'm voting for Webber. THought that when all things are considered though that Webber was my man for Malaysia. To finish fourth after having no KERS and falling to tenth at the start through little fault of his own was very impressive

amacachi

frostie500 wrote: »

Lots of candidates for this today. Vettel was flawless at the front of the field, Heidfeld bounced back from his Australian disaster, Koybayashi had some great fights, di Resta gets his first points "finish" if you know what I mean but I'm voting for Webber. THought that when all things are considered though that Webber was my man for Malaysia. To finish fourth after having no KERS and falling to tenth at the start through little fault of his own was very impressive

Were you watching the live timing? Some very patchy driving from him.
Also I got the impression it was his own fcuk up at the start, we shall see though.

frostie500

Lewis Hamilton

amacachi wrote: »

Were you watching the live timing? Some very patchy driving from him.
Also I got the impression it was his own fcuk up at the start, we shall see though.

Couldnt use the live timing, was on a laptop without Java installed so cant really comment on his inconsistency. Definitely thought that his poor start was down to not having KERS

recyclebin

Mark Webber

Driver of the day: vettel. Pilot of the day: petrov. That was some take off

Ghost Train

Vitaly Petrov

Heidfeld I think, considering only his second race with the team a solid race, great start too

amacachi

frostie500 wrote: »

Definitely thought that his poor start was down to not having KERS

So they're saying but I don't remember KERS being THAT important a couple of years ago.

frostie500

Lewis Hamilton

amacachi wrote: »

So they're saying but I don't remember KERS being THAT important a couple of years ago.

You have to remember that only a handful of cars had KERS in 2009, now pretty much the entire field has it. You could see in Melbourne the difference it made, Hamilton made a poor start and Webber a perfect start but once the McLaren was not traction limited and used the KERS Hamilton blasted past Webber. That was on a short run to the opening corner so on the longer straight in Malaysia it proved even more beneficial to have KERS

IM0

Vitaly Petrov

I was tempted to say Petrov, to think he actually launched his car like that unlike Kubica in canada a few years ago who had it launched it for him :pac:

amacachi

frostie500 wrote: »

You have to remember that only a handful of cars had KERS in 2009, now pretty much the entire field has it. You could see in Melbourne the difference it made, Hamilton made a poor start and Webber a perfect start but once the McLaren was not traction limited and used the KERS Hamilton blasted past Webber. That was on a short run to the opening corner so on the longer straight in Malaysia it proved even more beneficial to have KERS

Yeah but never mind the number of cars that passed him, look at the distance. I don't remember Brawn having such a problem when McLaren were 8 places behind them at any track last year.

frostie500

Lewis Hamilton

amacachi wrote: »

Yeah but never mind the number of cars that passed him, look at the distance. I don't remember Brawn having such a problem when McLaren were 8 places behind them at any track last year.

Well look at it this way, in how many races in the last 20 years have we seen a driver start with slightly low revs and make a poor start. Most of the time they can get some momentum and defend from rivals and only lose two places, this year with everyone around you having the availability of a free 80 bhp it means that if you cant use KERS you are effectively defenceless to their attack.

I'm not saying that not having KERS was the sole reason that Webber lost places, he clearly did not make a perfect start but by not having KERS his error was compounded to a huge degree and there was little he could do to stop the advances of everyone past him

amacachi

frostie500 wrote: »

Well look at it this way, in how many races in the last 20 years have we seen a driver start with slightly low revs and make a poor start. Most of the time they can get some momentum and defend from rivals and only lose two places, this year with everyone around you having the availability of a free 80 bhp it means that if you cant use KERS you are effectively defenceless to their attack.

I'm not saying that not having KERS was the sole reason that Webber lost places, he clearly did not make a perfect start but by not having KERS his error was compounded to a huge degree and there was little he could do to stop the advances of everyone past him

Yeah I still don't think it explains how awful the start was, think we'll just have to let this one go. :pac:

tonedef

Lewis Hamilton

Close call between Heinfeld and Webber but went for Webber in the end. Four stops and no KERS all race yet only finished one place lower than where he started, not a bad day in the office in my eyes

frostie500

Lewis Hamilton

amacachi wrote: »

Yeah I still don't think it explains how awful the start was, think we'll just have to let this one go. :pac:

Think so otherwise we'll be going round in circles until China!

Autosport

Fernando Alonso

I voted for Button

weekaizer

Sergio Perez

3rd Heidfeld, 2nd Webber, 1st Kobayashi! think Schumacher deserves a mention for a great start, tyres kept fading on him which meant he kept gettin overtaken on his inlaps, finished well ahead of rosberg and got himself and mercedes of the mark.. Hopefully we will see better from Schu in China...

amacachi

LIGHTNING wrote: »

All Schumacher can do is to keep trying to beat his teammate, I dont think the Merc is up to much at the moment.

Think Malaysia showed that they both did a good job in Australia with a car that as you said isn't up to much. I saw little of Rosberg in qualifying but as we were saying the Merc just sounded terrible and Sepang seems to be a track where the driver can't make a difference if the car is poor.

Vegeta

Lewis Hamilton

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Your making the assumption that dumping the clutch from high revs is the correct starting procedure for Marks car. You dont know what setup he had or what problems he had.

We do know he had a problem, which made a bad start into a terrible one.

Vegeta

Lewis Hamilton

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Again your assuming that the bad start was his fault.

I did a race last year and half way around the warm up lap my clutch started acting up. I had to start with low revs and take off alot more gently than I would have liked. To an observer it may have looked like I fluffed the start but it was the best I could do.

Well in the pre-race build up DC said KERS was worth over a car length off the start to the first corner. Webber lost a lot more than that and the only problem reported was a lack of KERS.

So either he had more problems which were not reported OR he had a less than perfect start which was compounded by lack of KERS. If he had more problems than a lack of KERS his race pace certainly didn't show them.

So I guess I am assuming he had a less than perfect start himself (I am a Webber fan btw and voted him best driver)

frostie500

Lewis Hamilton

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Your making the assumption that dumping the clutch from high revs is the correct starting procedure for Marks car. You dont know what setup he had or what problems he had.

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Again your assuming that the bad start was his fault.

I did a race last year and half way around the warm up lap my clutch started acting up. I had to start with low revs and take off alot more gently than I would have liked. To an observer it may have looked like I fluffed the start but it was the best I could do.

Obviously you know far than more than me on the ins and outs of driving a race car but the point I was trying to get across was that, for whatever reason, Webber did not make the perfect getaway and without KERS he was effectively unable to hold off the tide of drivers attacking him.

You're obviously perfectly right to say that maybe Red Bull have a different starting procedure but you can see from the footage that Mark made a very poor initial getaway so there was clearly some sort of issue, either driver or mechanical.

It could be, as you say, a mechanical issue but, as Vegeta wrote, we havent been informed of any issues other than his KERS failure and when he made his pitstops he had no issue pulling away from a standing start so I would view it unlikely that he had a clutch problem or some other mechanical issue, it was just one of those slightly sluggish starts that can happen from time to time.

frostie500

Lewis Hamilton

LIGHTNING wrote: »

PS I voted Webber as my driver of the day btw:)

So did I! I thought that he had a great race and in no way did I punish for making a poor start, as I said there clearly some issue, whether it was driver or mechancial, and it was clear that something was amiss for him. His race was a perfect illustration of keeping your head down and overcoming a lot of problems to get the absolute maximum out of a bad situation.

ratedR

Vitaly Petrov

Nick Heidfeld, without a shadow of a doubt. 6th to 2nd on the first lap. Slow pitstops dropped him back, but he hung on and got lucky towards the end to get a podium. Great weekend for him. Very limited testing too if you watched pratice, and apart from the Red Bulls, the Renaults completed the least laps in Qualy, keeping more sets of fresh tyres for the race.
Well done Nick.

Vettel is now boring the arse off me. Yes he can drive the hole off the car and stick it on pole almost anywhere. But then he's off out in the distance while the racing is going on behind him. Just stinks a little of MS in the Ferrari days, or Mika Hakkinnen in the McLaren of the late 90's. I really hope it's not one of those seasons.

weekaizer

Sergio Perez

ratedR wrote: »

Vettel is now boring the arse off me. Yes he can drive the hole off the car and stick it on pole almost anywhere. But then he's off out in the distance while the racing is going on behind him. Just stinks a little of MS in the Ferrari days, or Mika Hakkinnen in the McLaren of the late 90's. I really hope it's not one of those seasons.

thats exactly what i think is going to happen.. Vettel has got by far the quickest car, Webber just doesnt seem to have the same killer instinct as his teammate. I think Hamilton will mount some sort of challenge but its hard to see Ferrari, Renault or especially Mercedes making any serious challenges in the near future. Maybe Red bulls reliability woes could come back and haunt them....