2012 Spanish Grand Prix Discussion Thread

Pointrox · Post by **Pointrox** » 13 May 2012, 20:29

Thankfully no one is seriously hurt but still - what a strike of bad luck after such a successful weekend

Let's hope it will not affect them and they will appear in Monaco as strong as they were today.

Barbazza · Post by **Barbazza** » 13 May 2012, 20:30

Pedestrian wrote:
Barbazza wrote:Don't be ridiculous! It was a honest mistake. McLaren didn't need to cheat. Do you seriously hink that Hamilton was half a second faster just from having a tiny bit less fuel in his car?

Not cheating through that no, but attempting to get around the rules by parking the car and then making excuses in trying to avoid the rules. Which seems to happen a fair bit, maybe that's why it was demotion to 24th rather than the fairer 10th perhaps?

Klon · Post by **Klon** » 13 May 2012, 20:32

Nuppiz wrote:Included a bit of footage showing the small chaos which ensued at the moment of the fire, and also pointed out that Maldonado took part in the rescue himself by carrying out a kid from the box on his shoulders.

Wow, winning his first F1 race and later rescuing a child? I for my part would consider myself a Maldonado fan now. :lol:

pasta_maldonado · Post by **pasta_maldonado** » 13 May 2012, 20:36

Klon wrote:
Nuppiz wrote:Included a bit of footage showing the small chaos which ensued at the moment of the fire, and also pointed out that Maldonado took part in the rescue himself by carrying out a kid from the box on his shoulders.

Wow, winning his first F1 race and later rescuing a child? I for my part would consider myself a Maldonado fan now.

Am i the only one who was a Maldonado fan before all this?

Klon · Post by **Klon** » 13 May 2012, 20:37

pasta_maldonado wrote:Am i the only one who was a Maldonado fan before all this?

Do you count Venezuelan fans as legit? If so, no. If not, yes. :lol:

14 Hundred Hours · Post by **14 Hundred Hours** » 13 May 2012, 20:39

pasta_maldonado wrote:Am i the only one who was a Maldonado fan before all this?

Fan? No. Strangely attracted to his sinister grin? Yes.

Barbazza · Post by **Barbazza** » 13 May 2012, 20:44

Wow, what a strange day of sport and no mistake. Glad I'm not actually a fan of one of the title-chasing Premiership teams today, or I probably wouldn't be breathing right now. Ironic really that I decided to watch the Monaco GP from 96 yesterday (Schumacher made a complete balls up of that race as well, though admittedly we didn't see someone reversing round a blind corner today like Eddie 'genius' Irvine did in that one)

I was so happy for Pastor, I never thought I would see another Williams win. I had a few tears on that last lap, I don't mind admitting that. The pit fire was a real shock, and I hope that everyone is OK and that there wasn't too much damage, although it doesn't look good on the latter score at least. I saw some of the footage on Sky Sports News and you could clearly see Caterham and Marussia mechanics helping to get the fire down. And the obligatory dick with a pit pass getting loads of lovely pictures on his mobile.

I'm not sure what happened with Red Bull and McLaren, though Vettel did the best of a bad job. I was pretty impressed with Lewis until the post-race interview where the total lack of humility showed up yet again when he started referring to the race as proof that he can look after tyres just as well as his 'team mate' can. Yeah, he's got a name Lewis. and he's a bigger man than you'll ever be. At this rate he'll kick off Prost vs Senna Mark 2, though he'd probably like that.

Post by **mario** » 13 May 2012, 20:51

Nuppiz wrote:The pitlane fire was on MTV3's Sports News on the telly moments ago. Included a bit of footage showing the small chaos which ensued at the moment of the fire, and also pointed out that Maldonado took part in the rescue himself by carrying out a kid from the box on his shoulders.

Nine people were sent to medical checkups, with five still in the hospital.

There is a slight caveat there - those nine people were the mechanics from various teams, and it appears that other bystanders were caught up in the fire. The FIA has now confirmed that 31 people in total have received medical attention from the circuit medical centre, although only seven individuals have had to be transferred to local hospitals for further medical attention (the remainder having been discharged).
http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1 ... day-5.aspx
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/99605
Either way, it now looks like there will be a formal investigation into the accident by the Spanish emergency services to determine what exactly happened, so hopefully we should have a clearer picture of what went wrong soon.

In the meantime, I'd like to return to another thing that confused me during the race, which was what was going on over at Red Bull with their front wings (it was a pretty unexpected problem for both drivers - neither Webber nor Vettel seemed to realise that they had damaged wings, although they both appear to have had damaged cascade elements). http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/99596
Now, in the case of Vettel it seems that the cascade elements on one side of his wing had partially collapsed (visible here http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/u ... 012-10.jpg ), and there are some wondering how exactly that wing broke given that there were no obvious signs of contact during the race involving Vettel. Moreover, there are some wondering if Webber had the same problem too, because that might point to a manufacturing error (there do not appear to be any signs of impact damage on his wing - no obvious marks or scratches - which does seem to rule that out).

Frentzen127 · Post by **Frentzen127** » 13 May 2012, 21:00

I'm just speculating here, but it could have been the debris from the Schumacher/Senna incident.

TomWazzleshaw · Post by **TomWazzleshaw** » 13 May 2012, 21:29

Frentzen127 wrote:I'm just speculating here, but it could have been the debris from the Schumacher/Senna incident.

You could be right but, even so, the damage only became obvious 20 laps later.

Post by **Ataxia** » 13 May 2012, 21:33

Klon wrote:
Nuppiz wrote:Included a bit of footage showing the small chaos which ensued at the moment of the fire, and also pointed out that Maldonado took part in the rescue himself by carrying out a kid from the box on his shoulders.

Wow, winning his first F1 race and later rescuing a child? I for my part would consider myself a Maldonado fan now.

I think that was his cousin...still a hero though.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 13 May 2012, 22:01

Not sure whether this is worthy of starting a fresh thread or not, so I'll start it here...

This isn't the first timethat there has been a fire in the pits/paddock this year. Now, I am not saying that there's any conspiracy here, but it is rather unfortunate. It is nice that on that occasion, other teams aided Lotus with catering and hospitality, while other teams aided Williams put out their fire this time. But were these pure accidents, or are personnel possibly being overburdened or something? Mechanics have been making mistakes in pitstops (Hamilton's left rear...) etc. And with an ever-expanding calendar, their lives are not going to get any easier it seems.

Is this pure coincidence? Do the FIA need to investigate why there have been two fires in five races?

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 13 May 2012, 22:02

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:
Klon wrote:
Nuppiz wrote:Included a bit of footage showing the small chaos which ensued at the moment of the fire, and also pointed out that Maldonado took part in the rescue himself by carrying out a kid from the box on his shoulders.

Wow, winning his first F1 race and later rescuing a child? I for my part would consider myself a Maldonado fan now.

I think that was his cousin...still a hero though.

Made me think of this! :lol:

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

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 13 May 2012, 22:08

AndreaModa wrote:Made me think of this!

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

Loved that show. I refuse to watch the CGI version - it loses a lot of its appeal when it changes the medium in which it is created. And how many people find it strange that a fire department in Central Wales should have a fire engine carrying a Jersey (i.e. a foreign!) number plate?!

DanielPT · Post by **DanielPT** » 13 May 2012, 22:28

Now that we know everyone is safe and sound, time for jokes:

They shouldn't have invited Balotelli to the after race party. :lol:

Post by **Ataxia** » 13 May 2012, 22:33

DanielPT wrote:Now that we know everyone is safe and sound, time for jokes:

They shouldn't have invited Balotelli to the after race party.

He was busy winding Joey Barton up...

Klon · Post by **Klon** » 13 May 2012, 22:33

DanielPT wrote:Now that we know everyone is safe and sound, time for jokes:

They will never play "Disco Inferno" on their race-winning party ever again. :lol:

noisebox · Post by **noisebox** » 13 May 2012, 22:37

Changing tack a bit - is this the first F1 win for an out and out pay driver?

Post by **Ataxia** » 13 May 2012, 22:44

I still find hearing 'Pastor Maldonado won an F1 race' weird...

Still, Williams were on fire today :shock:

Post by **Londoner** » 13 May 2012, 22:54

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:I still find hearing 'Pastor Maldonado won an F1 race' weird...

Still, Williams were on fire today

It feels so surreal.

Sadly tomorrow, most people at sixth form will be banging on about some silly football teams who come from Manchester, rather than the Reverand silencing his critics

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 13 May 2012, 23:01

East Londoner wrote:
BaconLettuceNinja wrote:I still find hearing 'Pastor Maldonado won an F1 race' weird...

Still, Williams were on fire today

It feels so surreal.

Sadly tomorrow, most people at sixth form will be banging on about some silly football teams who come from Manchester, rather than the Reverand silencing his critics

Oh I don't know, I think people have to appreciate that today's football results are pretty significant, and seeing that it is the most popular sport in the country, it's not unsurprising just how much attention it will all get. There's no doubt that F1 is a major sport, and with it being on both the BBC and Sky and getting good exposure, it is on the rise, but it's not a patch on football.

Aside from one of my uni mates, the only time I discuss F1-related stuff is on here! :lol:

Post by **mario** » 13 May 2012, 23:17

dr-baker wrote:Not sure whether this is worthy of starting a fresh thread or not, so I'll start it here...

This isn't the first timethat there has been a fire in the pits/paddock this year. Now, I am not saying that there's any conspiracy here, but it is rather unfortunate. It is nice that on that occasion, other teams aided Lotus with catering and hospitality, while other teams aided Williams put out their fire this time. But were these pure accidents, or are personnel possibly being overburdened or something? Mechanics have been making mistakes in pitstops (Hamilton's left rear...) etc. And with an ever-expanding calendar, their lives are not going to get any easier it seems.

Is this pure coincidence? Do the FIA need to investigate why there have been two fires in five races?

Probably coincidence, as I believe that the fire that destroyed Lotus's hospitality suite was down to a faulty piece of electronic equipment (and for the moment the exact cause of this fire remains to be seen, although attention is focussing on a possibly defective fuel rig according to Sky).

Wizzie wrote:
Frentzen127 wrote:I'm just speculating here, but it could have been the debris from the Schumacher/Senna incident.

You could be right but, even so, the damage only became obvious 20 laps later.

And that is the odd aspect - it might be possible for one driver to have damaged his wing that way, but given that Vettel's problems did not crop up until much later in the race (long after the debris had been cleared up) I wouldn't have thought his problems were related to that accident. It's probably nothing, but it just seems a little odd that both of their drivers would have had front wing damage despite not getting involved in any obvious incidents.

QuickYoda41 · Post by **QuickYoda41** » 14 May 2012, 00:07

Just wow!

Never would've thought, even after Saturday.

Predictions are just impossible this year, I might try an HRT-win at some point of the year. :lol:

dnhrudi · Post by **dnhrudi** » 14 May 2012, 00:45

Just watched the so called F1 expert on Channel News Asia (Singapore) compare Maldonado with Alex Yoong, in that if Yoong had been able to access a more successful team he could have done what Maldonado had done. He did however fail to mention that Maldonado was a GP2 runner up against Yoong's Malaysian Formula Asia championship win. Idiot. There are undoubtedly 2 kinds of driver that bring funds to a team. Well done Maldonado,he deserved that one start to finish, and hope he does it again one day.

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 14 May 2012, 01:35

AndreaModa wrote:
East Londoner wrote:Sadly tomorrow, most people at sixth form will be banging on about some silly football teams who come from Manchester, rather than the Reverand silencing his critics

Oh I don't know, I think people have to appreciate that today's football results are pretty significant, and seeing that it is the most popular sport in the country, it's not unsurprising just how much attention it will all get. There's no doubt that F1 is a major sport, and with it being on both the BBC and Sky and getting good exposure, it is on the rise, but it's not a patch on football.

Aside from one of my uni mates, the only time I discuss F1-related stuff is on here!

Indeed, the Premier League finale today was like Interlagos 2008 all over again. Manchester United won their match, and at the time were set to win the championship. And then, seconds later, Manchester City scored a goal to put them 3-2 up over QPR, handing them the title with only seconds left to play in their match. I don't think there has been a finish to a major football league title race as close as this one, ever.

WaffleCat · Post by **WaffleCat** » 14 May 2012, 03:16

dnhrudi wrote:Just watched the so called F1 expert on Channel News Asia (Singapore) compare Maldonado with Alex Yoong, in that if Yoong had been able to access a more successful team he could have done what Maldonado had done. He did however fail to mention that Maldonado was a GP2 runner up against Yoong's Malaysian Formula Asia championship win. Idiot. There are undoubtedly 2 kinds of driver that bring funds to a team. Well done Maldonado,he deserved that one start to finish, and hope he does it again one day.

What?Wait.......EH?I know he had a few wins in A1GP and all,but still.....Wha.....

?

CoopsII · Post by **CoopsII** » 14 May 2012, 06:05

DOSBoot wrote:If Maldanaldo wins, everyone is going to go crazy over here.

He did, did they?

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 14 May 2012, 08:29

dnhrudi wrote:Just watched the so called F1 expert on Channel News Asia (Singapore) compare Maldonado with Alex Yoong, in that if Yoong had been able to access a more successful team he could have done what Maldonado had done. He did however fail to mention that Maldonado was a GP2 runner up against Yoong's Malaysian Formula Asia championship win. Idiot. There are undoubtedly 2 kinds of driver that bring funds to a team. Well done Maldonado,he deserved that one start to finish, and hope he does it again one day.

All regional media around the world are stupidly biased. For example, Galvao Bueno, long-time lead commentator for Globo in Brazil, insists at every damn race that Massa is still a great driver and Ferrari are deliberately screwing him over to favour Alonso. While it's true they do favour Alonso, its not like they deliberately make Massa's car worse... :roll:

And in a Globo F1 documentary recently, they voted Rubens' first GP victory the greatest victory in the sport, with Massa winning the 2008 Brazilian GP second. I mean really, what the hell guys, are you blinded by a sea of green and yellow?! Bueno in general is a nutcase, he's like Murray Walker but with a third of the IQ. No wonder his crap performance at the 2010 World Cup led to the creation of this meme;

It quite simply means "Shut up Galvao!" :lol:

Klon · Post by **Klon** » 14 May 2012, 12:04

kostas22 wrote:And in a Globo F1 documentary recently, they voted Rubens' first GP victory the greatest victory in the sport, with Massa winning the 2008 Brazilian GP second. I mean really, what the hell guys, are you blinded by a sea of green and yellow?!

I am quite the Barrichello fan and even I find that hilarious. :lol:

Frentzen127 · Post by **Frentzen127** » 14 May 2012, 12:17

kostas22 wrote:I mean really, what the hell guys, are you blinded by a sea of green and yellow?!

Yes they are. It is a very common stereotype in the rest of latin america that Brazilians are deemed to "hover above ground" because to outsiders, it seems the world just isn't good enough for them.
Most of them however are still remarkable chaps, at least the ones I've had the pleasure to run into, don't let my cynical side fool you. Just don't mention sports in front of them.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 14 May 2012, 12:28

I don't think anybody has yet pointed out that this is the first time this year that AussieBrit has not finished fourth in the race, and that this is the first time that a team has scored a second Fastest Lap.

johnston21 · Post by **johnston21** » 14 May 2012, 12:55

It appeared to me that in Jean-Eric Vergne's 1'st stint he was running Softs except on his Left Rear which looked like a Hard. ???

Pamphlet · Post by **Pamphlet** » 14 May 2012, 13:47

Klon wrote:
kostas22 wrote:And in a Globo F1 documentary recently, they voted Rubens' first GP victory the greatest victory in the sport, with Massa winning the 2008 Brazilian GP second. I mean really, what the hell guys, are you blinded by a sea of green and yellow?!

I am quite the Barrichello fan and even I find that hilarious.

Wait, did they just put a Barrichello victory above a Senna victory?

I'm not sure if I should laugh or respect the Brazilians for FINALLY getting over Senna.

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 14 May 2012, 14:33

Pamphlet wrote:
Klon wrote:
kostas22 wrote:And in a Globo F1 documentary recently, they voted Rubens' first GP victory the greatest victory in the sport, with Massa winning the 2008 Brazilian GP second. I mean really, what the hell guys, are you blinded by a sea of green and yellow?!

I am quite the Barrichello fan and even I find that hilarious.

Wait, did they just put a Barrichello victory above a Senna victory?

I'm not sure if I should laugh or respect the Brazilians for FINALLY getting over Senna.

Ahhh shite, you're absolutely right, I remembered the list incorrectly. Rubens was third, Massa was second, and Ayrton's win at Interlagos 1991 was first. Thanks for reminding me of that.

But yeah, point still remains, while Interlagos '91 was quite extraordinary in the sense that Senna didn't have enough energy to even climb out of the car, yet enough to drive the thing, there have been bigger and better wins in the history of F1. Notice how Brazilian wins take up the Top 3 in a Brazilian show... :roll:

Pamphlet · Post by **Pamphlet** » 14 May 2012, 14:59

kostas22 wrote:Ahhh shite, you're absolutely right, I remembered the list incorrectly. Rubens was third, Massa was second, and Ayrton's win at Interlagos 1991 was first. Thanks for reminding me of that.

But yeah, point still remains, while Interlagos '91 was quite extraordinary in the sense that Senna didn't have enough energy to even climb out of the car, yet enough to drive the thing, there have been bigger and better wins in the history of F1. Notice how Brazilian wins take up the Top 3 in a Brazilian show...

Hah, should've known. Makes far more sense to put that drive on top, but that only makes things even more hilarious.

madcat · Post by **madcat** » 14 May 2012, 17:05

It was a really good race overall and Maldonado really was on fire...

Phoenix · Post by **Phoenix** » 14 May 2012, 17:19

madcat wrote:It was a really good race overall and Maldonado really was on fire...

That may explain the fire at the Williams pit...

Mister Fungus · Post by **Mister Fungus** » 14 May 2012, 17:59

CoopsII wrote:
DOSBoot wrote:If Maldanaldo wins, everyone is going to go crazy over here.

He did, did they?

Well Windsor tweeted that Chavez has announced a public holiday due to to Pastor's win.

Waris · Post by **Waris** » 14 May 2012, 18:07

I was in a pub watching the Grand Prix and I almost literally peed myself in the closing laps.

TomWazzleshaw · Post by **TomWazzleshaw** » 14 May 2012, 21:22

johnston21 wrote:It appeared to me that in Jean-Eric Vergne's 1'st stint he was running Softs except on his Left Rear which looked like a Hard. ???

So it was HE that got hit by Di Resta on lap one, not Vettel. How they both got away without any major damage is beyond me.