"Surprise German pole for Kimi"

thats the headline, about bloody time kimi pulled through! gonna be an awesome race

Yeah... now for the race.

McLaren, in this their 'other' home GP, always do their best to at least get at the front of the grid...

Rob W

Not a bad effort at all by Kimi last night, especially after his first pitstop going wrong again.

Quite an entertaining race last night.

Worrying lack of pace from the Renaults.

And are the Ferraris THAT fast, or is this a result of the tyres, as all the Bridgestone runners seem to be improving a helluva lot, and Renault even put their rear tyres out on show to demonstrate how bad-a-condition they were in after their stint.

Renault were without their engine mapping system.. Supposedly worth 10km/h extra on the straights... I'm not sure what was the problem but their system is under scrutiny for something.

Bridgestone have got their tyres sorted for sure. Germany shows up differences more than many tracks though.

Rob W

Actually, from reading about the damper system Renault was using (on www.f1technical.net) it seems like yet another situation where one team has mastered a device, others (i.e. Ferrari) copy them but can't get them right and then complain that somehow they are cheating.

So, in the interim, Renault have to stop using them, thus screwing the whole car set-up, balance, handling, tyre use they have gotten use to.

Bernie and Max once again screwing with F1 basically to the sole benefit of Ferrari.

Rob W

Let's sum it with a picture...



Rob W

Unfortunately couldn't have said it better than that myself.

Just like 2003 with the Michelin tyre walls amongst many other examples.

It seems Renault opted to take them out to prevent any legal challenge from another team later on. FIA have said they're fine with them and Renault thinks it'll be sorted by the next GP in Hungary..

This track I think might suit Renault a bit more.. no-one has really raced there much.. (they're only in their 2nd year).

We'll see.. Alonso will win another GP this year for sure. I just can't see Ferrari owning it all without a glitch at least once.

Rob W

Good to see the prancing horse winning again!!!!

As for helping out Ferrari good on old Bernie!!!!

Although sounds more like sour grapes.

Are you thinking of Turkey?

As far as I can remember Hungary is still the Hungaroring (sp?) isn't it?

Yeah.. as soon as I clicked "submit"... but I can't go back and edit my posts :p

It IS good to see a bit of variation in the races though.. that much is good to see. And I'm well sotked about Williams' engine supply announcement. This will surely help them get back into the top four.

I'm not sure that the Michelin lack of performance mightn't be because they know they're out of F1 at the end of the year and, in reality, have little to gain by spending on developments on the tyres now. maybe they've sort-of given up.

re: the damper system thing going on... from one of F1s foremost technical experts: "there is a pattern of this kind of arbitrary enforcement of the rules; the pattern is that it systematically benefits Ferrari. It is even more the absurd since, for the first time in almost two years, for whatever reason, Ferrari don't need this kind of extra advantage to win races...."

On another note, if you're a big F1 fan go and check out www.f1technical.net and have a read of some articles. There is some interesting stuff there about all aspects of the cars.

Rob W

Thanks for that site.

I wonder how Toyota will act if Williams beat them with their engine, something tells me Japanese culture will find this somewhat unacceptable.

Webber may be signed next year on a smaller retainer than he is currently on. They are looking to let his contract expire without taking the option of the next 3 years, and then resigning him on a lower amount than the original contract.

This has got to be the longest silly season in memory. Alonso's move announced last year and the bulk of the market undecided due to Michael not making his mind up.

before renault worry about dampers, they should worry about learning to use rattle guns

lol

Shades of Nigel Mansell in that.