Formula 1 2012

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Apparently they have changed to having the wheel nuts in the wheel, not in the wheel gun, like ferrari and red bull do. Maybe this will change their pitstop success rate.

[Sackman]

Apparently they have changed to having the wheel nuts in the wheel, not in the wheel gun, like ferrari and red bull do. Maybe this will change their pitstop success rate.

It's going to be interesting to see, UL start for Grosjean and Maldonado, they seem to be full of bad luck this season lol.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Will it rain, will it not...will it rain, will it not.

[Sackman]

Looks like they pitting no matter what, I just wonder whether vettel is gonna slow everyone down for webber.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Looks like the other way round, webber holding up 3-6 so that Vettel can jump them in 10-15 laps time.

[Sackman]

Yeah, tactical team play, and it has worked, I gotta say though, watching on BBC, getting bored of slowmo's on the chicane lmao

[MerinPally]

Yeah, tactical team play, and it has worked, I gotta say though, watching on BBC, getting bored of slowmo's on the chicane lmao

They just don't end. They go onnnn and onnnn and onnnn and onn! (resists urge to break out into song).

Also, how much would you give to be one of the stewards who gets to stand about 1 meter away from those cars, inside that tunnel. I want that job for a day.

[Coffer]

So far this has been the most boring race of the last year and a half. Easily.

And ANOTHER problem for Schumacher...I doubt he's going to finish the race. Vergne's already past...

[Deleted]

This race might have been quite interesting if the predicted rain actually arrived, but as it is there's been almost no action at all. Overtaking is completely impossible.

[Sackman]

Well there it is, another straight forward monaco lol :> Grats to the winners

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Monaco: overtaking by pit strategy and hoping for a couple of drops of rain to make it interesting.

For the drivers it is the best race of the year, for the spectators the worst.

[Coffer]

Shame that the rain didn't come. It would've made for a splendid finale.

Once again, Monaco proves to be a boring race. No third consecutive good race for you, Monte Carlo! Seriously, it needs to be dropped from the calendar. I don't give a rat's ass about the tradition - this circuit does not suit F1 in its current conditions.

My ratings, copy-pasted from F1Rejects:

Vettel - Qualifying: 5. Race: 8.5. Overall: 6.75 -> 7.
The strategy didn't work this time, Seb.

Webber - Qualifying: 9.5. Race: 9. Overall: 9.25 -> 9.
Lucked out at the end, both because of the nature of Monabore and because of the extended yellow flags, but still, great drive. And he had a great start and restart for once!

Button - Qualifying: 3. Race: 1. Overall: 2.
Mystifying. Where is the Jenson Button of last year?

Hamilton - Qualifying: 8. Race: 8.5. Overall: 8.25 -> 8.
McLaren are dropping back. That much is clear. I don't feel that the rating I gave him is specifically because of himself, but more because of the car and the fact that he had to save tyres. He did very well to distance himself from Massa at the end and deserves praise for that. I feel sorry for him, especially considering he's completely trashing Button now.

Alonso - Qualifying: 8.5. Race: 9.5. Overall: 9.
Strong all throughout, and did extremely well against Vettel. Nice, Ferrari. Nice.

Massa - Qualifying: 10. Race: 8.5. Overall: 9.25 -> 9.
BEAUTIFUL. Q3 traffic (Alonso had none!) and Alonso himself in the first stint (Massa was faster!) were the only thing that stopped him from reaching the podium. Saved the SS tyres well. This is the Massa that I love. THIS is the Massa that I missed. It's been a long time coming. Loses points for dropping back at the end.

Schumacher - Qualifying: 10. Race: 4. Overall: 7.
Grossly held up by Raikkonen, but he wouldn't have matched Rosberg anyway. Mystifyingly unfortunate.

Rosberg - Qualifying: 9. Race: 7.5. Overall: 8.25 -> 8.
Barely kept up with Webber. And not even a combination of the DDRS and the tyres could help him perform an overtake at Monabore.

Raikkonen - Qualifying: 5. Race: 3.5. Overall: 4.25 -> 4.
Nowhere. Yes, he had no FP1 mileage. No, it's not an excuse.

Grosjean - Qualifying: 7.5. Race: 0. Overall: 0 (or 3.75 -> 4 if you consider the average).
Go home, Romain Grosjean. Doesn't even deserve to be called a reject. "Retard" would be a more appropriate title.

Di Resta - Qualifying: 6. Race: 8. Overall: 7.
Steady.

Hulkenberg - Qualifying: 7. Race: 7. Overall: 7.
Steady, but outperformed in the race by Paul.

Kobayashi - Qualifying: 6.5. Race: N/A (taken out). Overall: 6.5 -> 7.
I don't know...

Perez - Qualifying: N/A. Race: 7. Overall: 7.
Can't rate his qualifying performance as his car was heavily damaged by Maldonado in FP3. As for the race, it's like the spirit of Kobayashi was inside of him in that race. Some good attacks, but FAR too aggressive.

Ricciardo - Qualifying: 7. Race: 3. Overall: 5.
What the plug. Frighteningly bad.

Vergne - Qualifying: 6.5. Race: 8. Overall: 7.25 -> 7.
Initially I was extremely disappointed with him and Toro Rosso for throwing away a P7 finish, but near the end of the race he was, similar to Raikkonen in China, dropping off by over 7 seconds a lap. He had no choice but to pit.

Maldonado - Qualifying: 5. Race: 0. Overall: 0 (or 2.5 -> 3 if you consider the average).
Knew that was coming. Loses tons of points both during qualifying and the race for his actions.

Senna - Qualifying: 6. Race: 7.5. Overall: 6.75 -> 7.
In retrospect, maybe he wasn't as poor as I thought, but he was still lucky to finish in the points.

Kovalainen - Qualifying: 8. Race: 8.5. Overall: 8.25 -> 8.
Lucked out and his moves at the end were appalling, but even so, he looked strong. Was hilarious to see him hold up Button though, but let's be honest, the only reason he even managed to defend was because of Monabore.

Petrov - Qualifying: 7. Race: 5.5. Overall: 6.25 -> 6.
No KERS in qualifying, was unlucky in the race.

De la Rosa - Qualifying: 6. Race: N/A. Overall: 7.
He outqualified Pic! Maldonado ruined his race so I can't say anything else.

Karthikeyan - Qualifying: 4. Race: 4. Overall: 4.
Really doesn't belong in F1. That slide in the hairpin made me laugh.

Glock - Qualifying: 5. Race: 5. Overall: 5.
He was in the race?

Pic - Qualifying:3. Race: 3. Overall: 3.
Poor.

Best driver: Felipe Massa
Worst driver: Pastor Maldonado

Post your ratings, people.

Also, once again, the BBC feed was splendid, despite how aggravatingly and annoyingly biased and downright wrong EJ is. Loved the segment with BUT&HAM.

[Austilias]

I must admit this is not my favourite sport in the world, but there are moments which make it downright hilarious.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Also, once again, the BBC feed was splendid, despite how aggravatingly and annoyingly biased and downright wrong EJ is. Loved the segment with BUT&HAM.

Loved Hamilton messing with EJ's mike at the end of that. Maybe they should do that in the main coverage, you know, shut him up for a bit?

[Deleted]

I was hoping for Jenson to have another great season, with the starting win in Australia but it isn't looking very good now

Rosberg's having a nice season though.

[Deleted]

Post your ratings, people.

There's not much to add, it was a very dull and clear-cut race. No real drama to speak of.

I don't think Massa deserves a 10 though. His performance was good, but it wasn't exactly spectacular. As always he's just taking it steady and guarding the rear for Alonso.

I'm not a die-hard Hamilton fan but I did feel very sorry for him this race. While I believe a win was always unlikely, he lost out on what should have been a fairly comfortable podium. I have no idea whether you can blame him, the car or the team though. His pace wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't slow at all either.

Button did terribly. The circuit did lead to him getting held up more than normal, but I can't absolve him of all the blame. He wasn't quick and his collision towards the end was just stupid.

[Deleted]

Dull dull dull race. I really don't understand why Monaco is still in the line-up when there are much more interesting tracks to choose. Drivers constantly complain at how traffic ruins the race, yet they LOVE a track that is 95% traffic and 5% overtakes via pit-stops.

Button was stuck behind a car much slower than him, for the majority of the race. One of the few times he was able to try for the overtake it ended up with him getting into an incident and spinning his car.

None of the top 7 cars overtook a car without the use of pit stops.
Boring, boring, boring.

[Coffer]

I need not remind you of your request.

There's not much to add, it was a very dull and clear-cut race. No real drama to speak of.

Agreed. The overall rating is the lowest I've given the drivers so far this season.

I don't think Massa deserves a 10 though. His performance was good, but it wasn't exactly spectacular. As always he's just taking it steady and guarding the rear for Alonso.

I tend to take qualifying into consideration as well when making my F1Rejects ratings. Apologies for the confusion.

Massa - 10 qualifying (would have been on the front two rows had he not been in traffic in Q3), 9 race (I know this is Monaco, but he should've overtaken Alonso at the start. He had better pace on supersofts.) - 9.5 total, but I rounded it up to the higher value so as to respect the rules of F1Rejects (no .5s).
Alonso - 8 qualifying (was thoroughly destroyed by Massa in both race pace and qualifying pace in FP2, FP3, Q1 and Q2, and only managed .1s more than his teammate in Q3 despite having no traffic. Even then, he had a worse time than Massa's Q2 time), 9.5 race - 8.75 total, rounded up to 9.

And by all means, by Massa's standards this is his best race since Hockenheim 2010.

I'm not a die-hard Hamilton fan but I did feel very sorry for him this race. While I believe a win was always unlikely, he lost out on what should have been a fairly comfortable podium. I have no idea whether you can blame him, the car or the team though. His pace wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't slow at all either.

I can't blame him at all in this race. Apparently there was something constantly hitting his head at some point, which annoyed him all the way to the end. Not to mention the engineer's call to save tyres.

And yes, I felt horribly sorry for Hamilton in this race. That sigh said it all - he deserved better. Not just today, either.

Button did terribly. The circuit did lead to him getting held up more than normal, but I can't absolve him of all the blame. He wasn't quick and his collision towards the end was just stupid.

I'd sooner blame Kovalainen than him for that, but even if you take that into account there were clear signs that Button was losing his mind and trying all sorts of desperate moves just to get past Heikki. Doesn't help that Perez eventually got tangled up as well.

Dull dull dull race. I really don't understand why Monaco is still in the line-up when there are much more interesting tracks to choose. Drivers constantly complain at how traffic ruins the race, yet they LOVE a track that is 95% traffic and 5% overtakes via pit-stops.

The fanbase has (d)evolved. That's the only explanation I can give as to why people still want to see Monaco on the calendar.

And as for the drivers loving it, I raise Singapore as a counterargument. It's a much better race and the drivers still love it.



Also, considering the kostas-esque criticism that I seem to be getting from the British forumers of F1Rejects, I may redo my ratings later today.

[Deleted]

The Monaco Grand Prix is so well known that it's difficult to remove it from the calendar. It's a hugely popular event, and very well-funded. "Watching" the race from the harbour in particular is very popular with the wealthier viewers. The race itself is really more of an excuse for the surrounding festivities.

[Coffer]

Redid my ratings after re-analyzing qualifying and the race. I need to pay more attention.

As for Monaco itself, someone on F1Fanatic said it well - you don't watch this for the racing. It's an F1 event, but it's still different from the others.

Bring on Canada.

---------- Post added 2012-05-27 at 07:36 PM ----------

Also, thoughts on the first lap incident?



Looks 100% like Grosjean's fault to me. Slammed into Alonso, seemed to have a temporary, Schumacher-esque mind lapse...which he then used to slam into Schumacher.