2014 Malaysian Grand Prix thread

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 30 Mar 2014, 10:52

Vassago wrote:It's a short-term gain for Massa. He just costed his team a chance of 6th place. So much for that great atmosphere at Williams. Total team failure!

Meatwad · Post by **Meatwad** » 30 Mar 2014, 11:07

Ricciardo has apparently been given a ten-place grid penalty.

https://twitter.com/JRobertsF1/status/4 ... 4744163328

Bathplug you, FIA! :evil:

noiceinmydrink · Post by **noiceinmydrink** » 30 Mar 2014, 11:12

Okay, now THAT'S the most ridiculous penalty I've ever seen.

good_Ralf · Post by **good_Ralf** » 30 Mar 2014, 11:17

Mexicola wrote:Okay, now THAT'S the most ridiculous penalty I've ever seen.

Seconded. After all Ricciardo already had one in the race. The stewards need to drop that one now.

MyHamsterRacedAnOnyx · Post by **MyHamsterRacedAnOnyx** » 30 Mar 2014, 11:19

I see in there-there's a Franck Lamy--any relation to Pedro?

And yes-he's been given a penalty.It's been served. Move on. And it's not like it was a release into the path of anyone going down pit lane.Would the FiA have prefered them to not do anything and risk something flying off later round the lap or notice-there's a problem,stop and ensure it is fixed before setting off.

Post by **Ataxia** » 30 Mar 2014, 11:24

good_Ralf wrote:
Mexicola wrote:Okay, now THAT'S the most ridiculous penalty I've ever seen.

Seconded. After all Ricciardo already had one in the race. The stewards need to drop that one now.

The 10-second penalty did nothing; Ricciardo was already down and out.

SgtPepper · Post by **SgtPepper** » 30 Mar 2014, 12:08

I can't tell if I admire Massa for ignoring team orders or not. On the one hand, it's perfectly understandable after having been treated so poorly at Ferrari for so many years that he would want to stand his ground, but on the other hand it's somewhat petulant and perhaps overly proud. Perhaps Bottas could have had a go at overtaking Button, and if he didn't manage it switch places again. As far as we know Williams has no history of having treated Massa unfairly yet, but on the other perhaps he's saying he's not going to tolerate it if they do. I don't know.

Post by **mario** » 30 Mar 2014, 12:48

Ataxia wrote:
good_Ralf wrote:
Mexicola wrote:Okay, now THAT'S the most ridiculous penalty I've ever seen.

Seconded. After all Ricciardo already had one in the race. The stewards need to drop that one now.

The 10-second penalty did nothing; Ricciardo was already down and out.

If it is indeed the case that Ricciardo retired before serving the penalty, than I can see why it was the case that he has received a grid penalty instead (although I could have sworn that there was a reference to him taking the drive through penalty during the race).

Speaking of penalties, it seems that both Magnussen and Bianchi have also both received two penalty points against their racing licence for their parts in their respective accidents - now, whilst I think that this is because the rules state that a driver deemed responsible for causing a collision also gets a set number of points, I do feel that it is on the harsh side given both drivers served penalties within the race.
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/03/30/m ... ty-points/

Post by **Ataxia** » 30 Mar 2014, 14:37

mario wrote:
Ataxia wrote:
good_Ralf wrote:
Seconded. After all Ricciardo already had one in the race. The stewards need to drop that one now.

The 10-second penalty did nothing; Ricciardo was already down and out.

If it is indeed the case that Ricciardo retired before serving the penalty, than I can see why it was the case that he has received a grid penalty instead (although I could have sworn that there was a reference to him taking the drive through penalty during the race).

Oh, yeah, he did take the stop-go penalty. What I was alluding to was that Ricciardo was so far back that a stop-go penalty was just a drop in the ocean with regards to time lost.

CoopsII · Post by **CoopsII** » 30 Mar 2014, 15:24

Im on Massa's side I think, he needs to set out his stall, rebrand himself and Im not convinced Bottas would've got past Button anyway if he couldnt get past his team-mate.

Barbazza · Post by **Barbazza** » 30 Mar 2014, 17:28

I don't understand the new penalty system at all. Just like Bottas in qualifying, neither the Bianchi / Maldonado contretemps nor Magnussen's mishap with the front wing were remotely serious enough to deserve points. We used to have this thing in F1...oh, you remember....racing incidents, that's it! All this nonsense is making F1 look (even more) stupid and driving me to enjoy stuff like BTCC much more.

Re Williams - well, I am a big Bottas fan but I you can't argue with Massa's logic about him having the opportunity to pass but not being able to do it.

As for Benedict Cumberbatch - I thought he was a breath of fresh air to be honest. Intelligent and articulate questions are not something you usually get with the podium interviews. He got one fact wrong, so what? I can hardly blame him given that most of the races in the last 10 years have been so bland that they often merge into one. He at least clearly has an interest in F1 unlike most of the dumb-ass Hollywood 'A-listers' that usually turn up.

DonTirri · Post by **DonTirri** » 30 Mar 2014, 17:32

My quick cliff notes of what stuck to mind.

- Damn that Merc is fast. Shame it was the wrong guy winning :/
- Red Bull aren't THAT beaten it seems. As long as they remain in one piece and don't screw up (Poor Ricciardo :/) they're the only ones to match Mercs. Which annoys me.
- I had fun for the last 20 laps as it came to Alonso. The graphic was showing him not having used Primes. The finnish commentator team and me were expecting him to pit all the way until he finished. I was hoping he REALLY didn't go for primes and got disqualifed.
- Magnussens chop was a moment of "You gotta be kidding me..." Kimi was in position to fight for top points. I wasn't too surprised to see him just cruise around for the rest of the race. Annoyed yeah, but not too surprised.
- WTF Felipe? Bottas backed off in the early parts of the race when he was told to, despite being faster, but you couldn't let your goddamn ego go long enough to let him pass? You clearly weren't gonna touch Button. Bottas could've have. I'm sorry, but Valtteri is, was and always will be faster than you. Just like Rubinho before you Felipe, you are nothing but a glorified no.2. Get that to your skull >_>

(Yes, I am still pissed)

- Grosjean finished? Damn. I'm impressed.
- Kamui is clearly overdriving that piece of dogturd. Imagine what he could do in an actually GOOD car?
- Is it surprising that the first time I even registered Saubers were racing was when Sutil parked it?
- Hulkenberg drove quite a race. Color me impressed.

I wish there had been rain :/

Cynon · Post by **Cynon** » 30 Mar 2014, 18:04

Huge amounts of respect for Felipe Massa for disobeying team orders. Make Bottas pass you for position!

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 30 Mar 2014, 18:05

DonTirri wrote:- Magnussens chop was a moment of "You gotta be kidding me..." Kimi was in position to fight for top points. I wasn't too surprised to see him just cruise around for the rest of the race. Annoyed yeah, but not too surprised.

!? Chop!? He was right on the kerb! The only person who moved was Raikkonen.

DonTirri · Post by **DonTirri** » 30 Mar 2014, 18:44

Salamander wrote:
DonTirri wrote:- Magnussens chop was a moment of "You gotta be kidding me..." Kimi was in position to fight for top points. I wasn't too surprised to see him just cruise around for the rest of the race. Annoyed yeah, but not too surprised.

!? Chop!? He was right on the kerb! The only person who moved was Raikkonen.

He was within his right to move, being clearly ahead. Magnussen was where he wasn't supposed to be. And when a guy's front wing hits the rear tyre of the guy in front, the guy in the back is at fault. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

pablo_h · Post by **pablo_h** » 30 Mar 2014, 20:12

It's called spatial awareness and not ruining your own race. Even soccer moms in SUVs get that right sometimes.

Post by **mario** » 30 Mar 2014, 21:03

DonTirri wrote:
Salamander wrote:
DonTirri wrote:- Magnussens chop was a moment of "You gotta be kidding me..." Kimi was in position to fight for top points. I wasn't too surprised to see him just cruise around for the rest of the race. Annoyed yeah, but not too surprised.

!? Chop!? He was right on the kerb! The only person who moved was Raikkonen.

He was within his right to move, being clearly ahead. Magnussen was where he wasn't supposed to be. And when a guy's front wing hits the rear tyre of the guy in front, the guy in the back is at fault. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

I still wouldn't say that Magnussen "chopped" Kimi off - to me that would imply a sharp change of direction towards Kimi, but Magnussen held a constant line through the corner (he maintains a consistent amount of steering lock from the onboard footage).

Paul Hayes · Post by **Paul Hayes** » 30 Mar 2014, 21:24

I think the main thing I took from today's race was how lucky Caterham are to have Kobayashi *paying them* to drive that car. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up being the first "young team" driver ever to score, although he'll have to get a move on before Lotus and Sauber gets their acts together.

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 30 Mar 2014, 21:31

mario wrote:
DonTirri wrote:He was within his right to move, being clearly ahead. Magnussen was where he wasn't supposed to be. And when a guy's front wing hits the rear tyre of the guy in front, the guy in the back is at fault. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

I still wouldn't say that Magnussen "chopped" Kimi off - to me that would imply a sharp change of direction towards Kimi, but Magnussen held a constant line through the corner (he maintains a consistent amount of steering lock from the onboard footage).

Yeah... you can say Magnussen shouldn't have left his nose there, but equally, Kimi should not have just moved across the track as if Magnussen wasn't there at all.

Dan B · Post by **Dan B** » 30 Mar 2014, 21:38

And just to add more insult:
http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/3085 ... sgression/

good_Ralf · Post by **good_Ralf** » 30 Mar 2014, 21:43

Dan B wrote:And just to add more insult:
http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/3085 ... sgression/

Couldn't they have just Ricciardo the 3-strike rule; two more offenses and then he has the grid drop? I'm guessing that system has been ditched, right?

Dan B · Post by **Dan B** » 30 Mar 2014, 22:07

No clue about that; I think they ditched that for the Penalty Point system but I'll wait for a better answer.

Thoughts about the race:

- Raikkonen was nowhere. Again. Okay his car might've been damaged but I've seen similar incidents in the past and the person who came off worse raced as hard as he could. Raikkonen seemed to throw in the towel, and it makes me wonder why that seat hasn't gone to a more deserving driver (Hulkenberg, Perez, Bianchi, Chilton, Grosjean, etc).

- Red Bull's pitstop was hilarious, though I do feel bad for Ricciardo getting all the bad luck. That being said I do think Vettel has a more worthy competitor as a teammate and if Ricciardo does somehow outperform Vettel maybe the balance of power will swing his way.

- Good to see Kobayashi being somewhat competitive with that car of his; maybe we'll see points from them in the future but then again we're only 2 races in and there's 17 to go.

- Sad to see Perez getting hit with bad luck again; I don't think he would've been around Hulkenberg but to say he would've finished 7th or 8th wouldn't seem out of the ordinary.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 31 Mar 2014, 12:27

I watched the race in the Kentagon at Brands Hatch before the BTCC (it overlapped just one support race). There was great support for Hamilton taking the lead at the start, and in the battle between the Hulk and Fernando, the Brits were supporting Germany...

Alextrax52 · Post by **Alextrax52** » 31 Mar 2014, 12:37

Sauber confirmed yesterday that they have the weakest line up on the grid. I hear that GVDG will take Guti's seat in Bahrain Practice

roblo97 · Post by **roblo97** » 31 Mar 2014, 13:54

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:Sauber confirmed yesterday that they have the weakest line up on the grid. I hear that GVDG will take Guti's seat in Bahrain Practice

That is great news

Shizuka · Post by **Shizuka** » 31 Mar 2014, 14:21

DonTirri wrote:- Grosjean finished? Damn. I'm impressed.
- Kamui is clearly overdriving that piece of dogturd. Imagine what he could do in an actually GOOD car?
- Is it surprising that the first time I even registered Saubers were racing was when Sutil parked it?
- Hulkenberg drove quite a race. Color me impressed.

Grosjean puts up a fight indeed: finishing 11th this early in the season is promising. To fend off a "not bothered" Kimi is a plus.
Kamui will eventually pass those Saubers at one point in the season. If he keeps this pace going, with finding a few tenths in qualifying (that still seems to be the problem), he's going to do it. This performance should be a sign for team bosses higher up.
The Saubers I thought of as "slow, but reliable cars" until their double DNF. Now they are "slow AND unreliable". That's not good. Until the European season starts, not much can be expected by them: a 13th-14th finish here and there, but that's about it, really.
Hülk's wish was to finish at least 7th according to his pre-race interview; job well done. He seems like to continue the late-2013 upsurge, and that's going to be a plus for Force India: this year they are in frame for 4th in the WCC, but 5th is possible too. Of course, I wouldn't count Perez out just yet: yes, he had a clash in Melbourne, and wasn't really shining in either qualis, but I can't fully rate him where he stands until he gets a clean race going.

Post by **mario** » 31 Mar 2014, 17:54

roblomas52 wrote:
Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:Sauber confirmed yesterday that they have the weakest line up on the grid. I hear that GVDG will take Guti's seat in Bahrain Practice

That is great news

It has been confirmed that van der Garde will indeed take part in the first practise session in Bahrain - Sauber also intend to give van der Garde and Sirotkin one day each in the two day test session that will follow the Bahrain GP. http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/03/31/s ... r-bahrain/

Overall, I have to agree that Sauber's line up is indeed poor (for all the criticism Gutierrez gets, Sutil was only a few seconds ahead of Gutierrez on track at the time that he retired), to the extent that you have to wonder whether Sauber might even ditch at least one of their two drivers before the end of the season.

DanielPT · Post by **DanielPT** » 31 Mar 2014, 18:34

mario wrote:It has been confirmed that van der Garde will indeed take part in the first practise session in Bahrain - Sauber also intend to give van der Garde and Sirotkin one day each in the two day test session that will follow the Bahrain GP. http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/03/31/s ... r-bahrain/

Overall, I have to agree that Sauber's line up is indeed poor (for all the criticism Gutierrez gets, Sutil was only a few seconds ahead of Gutierrez on track at the time that he retired), to the extent that you have to wonder whether Sauber might even ditch at least one of their two drivers before the end of the season.

They could even have Hamilton and Alonso on the car that I doubt they would be much higher on the grid. They need to sort the car first and foremost since even the 'young' teams are now catching up. Although there is one weakness in their drivers that might be contributing to their woes. Development feedback. I think neither of them are renown for it. They also might be starting to miss much famed designer James Key (he had still designed last year car).

Post by **mario** » 31 Mar 2014, 19:31

DanielPT wrote:
mario wrote:It has been confirmed that van der Garde will indeed take part in the first practise session in Bahrain - Sauber also intend to give van der Garde and Sirotkin one day each in the two day test session that will follow the Bahrain GP. http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/03/31/s ... r-bahrain/

Overall, I have to agree that Sauber's line up is indeed poor (for all the criticism Gutierrez gets, Sutil was only a few seconds ahead of Gutierrez on track at the time that he retired), to the extent that you have to wonder whether Sauber might even ditch at least one of their two drivers before the end of the season.

They could even have Hamilton and Alonso on the car that I doubt they would be much higher on the grid. They need to sort the car first and foremost since even the 'young' teams are now catching up. Although there is one weakness in their drivers that might be contributing to their woes. Development feedback. I think neither of them are renown for it. They also might be starting to miss much famed designer James Key (he had still designed last year car).

Oh, the car is no doubt the biggest limiting factor in this instance - for a start, Sauber have admitted that the car is overweight and that they are only slowly able to bring the weight down whereas outfits like Force India, for example, have already managed to get reasonably comfortably within the weight limit (and that is allowing for the fact that Hukenberg is just as heavy a driver, if not even more so, than Sutil).

Add to that the fact that their aero efficiency seems to have gone down since last year (they are quite slow in a straight line compared to their rivals) and that they seem to have no real advantage in tyre preservation either (especially with relatively conservative choices by Pirelli) and all in all the car itself is certainly flawed. The loss of Key does also seem to have hurt the team - he was quite highly rated not just for his technical abilities but effective financial management too - but Key's loss is perhaps just one symptom of the heavily disrupted development period Sauber went through last year when their future looked very bleak, and even now the team is not exactly in good shape.

The point that you have picked up on though, driver feedback, is one area where I do feel that they are being let down by their drivers in though. Sutil has generally been thought of as being average to poor when it comes to setting up a car and in terms of providing useful feedback for development and Gutierrez, given his relative inexperience, has indicated in the past that he has struggled in terms of set up and development work too.
The car is, overall, not a particularly good package, but with that in mind I am not sure that their current driver line up is necessarily the sort of line up that would be best at eking a better performance from the car through refining the set up.

Cynon · Post by **Cynon** » 31 Mar 2014, 19:41

DanielPT wrote:
mario wrote:It has been confirmed that van der Garde will indeed take part in the first practise session in Bahrain - Sauber also intend to give van der Garde and Sirotkin one day each in the two day test session that will follow the Bahrain GP. http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/03/31/s ... r-bahrain/

Overall, I have to agree that Sauber's line up is indeed poor (for all the criticism Gutierrez gets, Sutil was only a few seconds ahead of Gutierrez on track at the time that he retired), to the extent that you have to wonder whether Sauber might even ditch at least one of their two drivers before the end of the season.

They could even have Hamilton and Alonso on the car that I doubt they would be much higher on the grid. They need to sort the car first and foremost since even the 'young' teams are now catching up. Although there is one weakness in their drivers that might be contributing to their woes. Development feedback. I think neither of them are renown for it. They also might be starting to miss much famed designer James Key (he had still designed last year car).

Hamilton and Alonso would be blocking each other in the pitlane a la Hungary 2007 and getting grid penalties due to playing dirty with each other. I think Sauber's reasons for qualifying in the back would be vastly different if they had Hamilton and Alonso... :lol:

go_Rubens · Post by **go_Rubens** » 31 Mar 2014, 20:30

It seems that Sauber are in more issues than they can solve. The car is just bad, as in if it is fighting with Marussias and Caterhams it is a very bad car, especially for Sauber's recent standards. I'm still puzzled as to how they can turn the season around, their financial woes around, and get the car to go faster. Pity really, because if I'm not mistaken, Sutil has now broken Pierluigi Martini's record for most races without a podium, when I feel at points in his career he should have been well away from achieving that stat. As much as I want to see Sauber fly, I fear this season, with their financial problems, is spelling the end of the team in F1. Maybe the new budget cap will help, but I'm starting to wonder if the FIA will get that to work either.

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 31 Mar 2014, 21:11

Felipe Massa and Bottas team radio, Malaysia 2014

http://youtu.be/ngWhFrQdIYA

LionZoo · Post by **LionZoo** » 31 Mar 2014, 22:18

http://i.imgur.com/cvvWNNz.gif

watka · Post by **watka** » 31 Mar 2014, 22:21

Jocke1 wrote:Felipe Massa and Bottas team radio, Malaysia 2014

http://youtu.be/ngWhFrQdIYA

I thought Rob Smedley moved to Williams with Massa?

Anyway, I can understand why Massa didn't want to just let him past but what I disapprove of if his reaction to Bottas having a go at him. He seriously freaked out - "he crashed me" is a bit of an overreaction. Its fair enough for the team to have to tell Bottas to fight for the position but its another thing for Massa to expect that he can just keep the position when he's clearly going slower.

My two cents on the Magnussen incident is that the penalty was extremely harsh and that the FIA's definition of an "avoidable incident" is far too strict. There was clearly no recklessness in the move, Mag has his nose up to inside of Raikkonen but he'd pretty much let the move go and unfortunately he didn't quite lift off enough when Raikkonen came back across. Racing incident written all over it. Bianchi's penalty is a bit more reasonable as that was a side on collision due to late braking. But it wasn't in any way malicious.

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 31 Mar 2014, 22:50

The whole "crashed me" thing was much earlier in the race wasn't it? And unrelated to Bottas I thought. I forget which other driver it was, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't his teammate.

LionZoo · Post by **LionZoo** » 31 Mar 2014, 23:15

Honestly, Massa's whining to results ratio this season is off the charts.

Klon · Post by **Klon** » 31 Mar 2014, 23:49

watka wrote:I thought Rob Smedley moved to Williams with Massa?

Yeah, but he's not his race engineer anymore, he is in some higher position with Williams.

Quite frankly, I as a team boss wouldn't care about the past of my driver, not following team orders is simply not acceptable. It's not like he was raped or something actually traumatic like that. If this continues, I don't see Massa lasting any longer than Rubens did at Williams.

LionZoo · Post by **LionZoo** » 01 Apr 2014, 07:01

Klon wrote:
watka wrote:I thought Rob Smedley moved to Williams with Massa?

Yeah, but he's not his race engineer anymore, he is in some higher position with Williams.

Quite frankly, I as a team boss wouldn't care about the past of my driver, not following team orders is simply not acceptable. It's not like he was raped or something actually traumatic like that. If this continues, I don't see Massa lasting any longer than Rubens did at Williams.

Isn't Smedley on gardening leave still?

CoopsII · Post by **CoopsII** » 01 Apr 2014, 09:33

Klon wrote:
watka wrote:I thought Rob Smedley moved to Williams with Massa?

Yeah, but he's not his race engineer anymore, he is in some higher position with Williams.

Head of vehicle performance, which I take it means the racing car and not the artics and catering vans :lol:

James1978 · Post by **James1978** » 02 Apr 2014, 17:23

Tee hee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2eZroJ ... toj_QWSReA