[Race] The GROAT - Round 1 - 2019 Red Bull Ring vs 1999 Nürburgring

[crmalcolm]

2019 Red Bull Ring
Whilst Charles Leclerc started the race well from pole position, Max Verstappen encountered an issue with his anti-stall, dropping from 2nd down to 8th place by turn 2. Lando Norris briefly battled Lewis Hamilton for 3rd place, and Kimi Räikkönen ran as high as 4th. Räikkönen held the position until lap 7, when he was passed by Sebastian Vettel, who had started 9th. By lap 9, Verstappen had recovered after his poor start, passing Räikkönen and Norris. Kevin Magnussen pitted on lap 12, dropping him to the back, but was handed a drive-through penalty soon afterwards after the stewards found he had over-stepped his grid line at the beginning of the race and started too far forward. He would only recover one place during the race, and eventually crossed the finish line in 19th.

Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel pitted on lap 22, with Bottas emerging in clear air in 4th, but with Vettel stuck behind Norris, Räikkönen and Pierre Gasly in 8th after a communication issue saw his pit-stop take longer than expected. Leclerc pitted on the following lap, handing the lead of the race to Hamilton. At this stage of the race, the Mercedes cars were suffering from the high air and track temperatures. Hamilton repeatedly ran wide at turn 1, driving over the sausage kerb. This eventually caused damage to his front wing, forcing him to pit for a replacement on lap 31 and dropping him to 5th place. Verstappen inherited the lead, but pitted on the following lap; Leclerc thus regained 1st place.

Verstappen emerged from the pits in 4th place, and began his charge towards the front. He passed Vettel on Lap 50, on the straight after turn 2. Vettel subsequently pitted on the following lap. Verstappen then passed Bottas into turn 2 on lap 56. Finally, he caught up with Leclerc at the front, passing him into turn 2 with three laps to go. On lap 69, Verstappen took a wide line through the corner on the inside of Leclerc, making contact and resulting in Leclerc leaving the track and driving over the kerb. Verstappen held on to his lead until the chequered flag, and the stewards later deemed his overtake legal. Vettel passed Hamilton on the final lap to take 4th place.

Verstappen's victory marked the first win for a Honda-powered F1 car since Jenson Button in the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix. The race was also the first race in the season not to be won by a Mercedes driver, as Valtteri Bottas finished in third and Lewis Hamilton fifth. Antonio Giovinazzi scored his first ever career points in Formula One by finishing tenth place. This also marked the first race in which every driver saw the chequered flag since the 2016 Japanese Grand Prix.


1999 Nürburgring
On race day the track was dry but the start was delayed when Alessandro Zanardi and Marc Gené lined up out of sequence on the grid, necessitating another formation lap. As the start was aborted during the start lights' sequence, the top five qualifiers and Jean Alesi actually jumped the start but were not penalised due to the aborting of the start. When the race finally got under way, Frentzen led from Häkkinen, but further back there was trouble at the first corner. Damon Hill's Jordan suffered an electrical failure in the middle of the pack which caused Alexander Wurz to swerve into Pedro Diniz, sending the Sauber into a barrel roll. The safety car was deployed while Diniz was helped uninjured from his car – a fortunate end result as it was later revealed that the Sauber's rollbar had failed when it hit the ground.

The race settled down with the top six Frentzen, Häkkinen, Coulthard, Ralf Schumacher, Giancarlo Fisichella, and Irvine. On lap 17, Irvine passed Fisichella after pressuring the Italian into running wide at turn 8. Whilst further back Zanardi was an unfortunate victim to the collision between Diniz and Wurz as his car was damaged from this incident earlier on and would eventually retire on lap 11 when his Supertec engine stalled. Just moments later the rain began to fall and Ralf Schumacher took advantage of the damp track to pass Coulthard. End of lap 20 Häkkinen pitted for wet tyres, which proved to be premature as the rain quickly blew over and the track dried. The following lap Irvine pitted for dry tyres but the stop lasted 28 seconds with the right-rear mechanics seemingly confused over a last minute change in tyre choice. Team mate Mika Salo had damaged his wing the previous lap leaving the Ferrari pitcrew unprepared for Irvine. On lap 24 Häkkinen on wet tyres was lapping around seven seconds slower than the leaders and was overtaken by Irvine over the start-finish straight dropping to 13th position. Soon afterwards, with his tyres clearly overheating, Häkkinen pitted again to change back to dry tyres emerging just in front of Fisichella who was in fact a full lap ahead of the championship leader.

Ralf Schumacher pitted from 2nd position at the end of lap 27 for his scheduled first stop leaving Frentzen and Coulthard battling at the front followed by Fisichella twelve seconds behind the leaders in 3rd place. At the end of lap 32 both Frentzen and Coulthard pitted for their first scheduled stops with both Jordan and McLaren mechanics impeccably turning their cars around in 7 seconds, and both returning comfortably ahead of Schumacher. At this point in the race both Irvine and Häkkinen were well out of the points, meaning that if the order stayed the same Frentzen, Irvine, and Häkkinen would have all been tied for the points lead with two races to go, with Coulthard six points behind them.

What followed was a series of retirements. The first to fall was Frentzen, who ground to a halt at the first corner after his pitstop because he had forgotten to disable the car's anti-stall system. The team claimed it was an "electrical issue" in order to protect Frentzen. Coulthard inherited the lead and stayed out front until the rain came back with a vengeance. The Scot chose to stay out on dry tyres while most pitted for wets, which ultimately proved to be a costly mistake, as he slid off the road and out of the race on the 38th lap as the conditions worsened. Within a handful of laps two Championship contenders had seen their hopes of winning the title fall by the wayside. Ralf (still on dry tyres) then inherited the lead which he held until his pitstop six laps later. This allowed Fisichella (also on dry tyres) to take the lead with Ralf in second, as the rain stopped. Meanwhile, Johnny Herbert had quietly moved up the order after changing to wet tyres just at the right time. Mika Salo would soon be forced to retire with brake problems.

The heartbreak then reached new levels. On lap 49, Fisichella spun out of the lead like Coulthard before him leaving him like Coulthard (emotionally distressed), giving the lead back to Ralf. But then Ralf too lost the lead (and probable first win) when his right rear tyre punctured, allowing Herbert to take the lead which he would not lose. Further back the Minardis were taking full advantage of the unpredictable nature of the race with Luca Badoer in fourth and Gené in seventh. But with just 13 laps to go, Badoer's gearbox failed, denying the Ferrari test driver his first ever Formula 1 points and leaving him in tears. Gené was promoted to 6th, which became 5th when Jacques Villeneuve's car failed with a broken clutch, robbing the BAR team of a chance to get their first-ever point before 2000. Behind him, Irvine and Häkkinen had fought their way back into contention for points, with Irvine holding 6th ahead of Häkkinen. After cruising for most of the race, Häkkinen turned up the pressure, eventually forcing Irvine into a mistake and taking 6th place. At the front Barrichello tried everything to pass Jarno Trulli for 2nd and make it a Stewart 1–2, but ultimately had to settle for 3rd. Meanwhile, Häkkinen caught and passed Gené for 5th to earn 2 invaluable points, but the Spaniard held onto 6th ahead of Irvine to give Minardi their first point in four seasons.

[S griffin]

The Austrian GP was a great race between two young ones. However 1999 Nurburgring had drama all the way. I remember watching the full race on F1's YouTube channel during the first lockdown two years ago(!) and it was enjoyable as it was the first time

[chunterer]

Anyone could have won that race it was a total lottery, but it was a great day in the end for Herbert and Stewart.

[Skam85]

I think 99 Nürburgring is going to go deep into this competition. It should.

[coppice]

If it's genuinely GROAT then let's avoid the usual lazy trap of getting stuck in the last decade or so and ignoring everything earlier because not everyone saw it on telly .

Two obvious candidates are the 1957 German GP - Fangio's greatest drive and the 1967 Italian GP - Clark's race, puncture means a pit stop (in an ere when races were non stop ) , heroic recovery to lead again , runs out of fuel , didst up between Brabham and Surtees and Big John wins for Honda .

Best I've seen live ? Tough to call - but the 1987 British was certainly memorable if you were in the Stowe grand stand, as I was .

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by coppice

If it's genuinely GROAT then let's avoid the usual lazy trap of getting stuck in the last decade or so and ignoring everything earlier because not everyone saw it on telly .

Thanks for describing work related to the GROAT as lazy -


Just to clarify - the following sources were consulted to determine the bracket seeding (who have all compiled a 'best race of all time' list):
sportszion.com
dive-bomb.com
racefans.net
chaseyoursport.com
formula1.com
f1chronicle.com
redeyeevents.co.uk

The draft list was then published here - https://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=156710 - with additional input from 10/10ths members of further races to be considered.

The three races you mention are all in the list - and if the more recent races are less deserving of inclusion, they will surely lose out in the voting?

[coppice]

If it comes up with only three pre 1970 races as being potential candidates it suggests a lack of knowledge of, or interest in that era by those expressing a view . I don't care who was consulted - 'OAT' in this context means back to 1950 . Do you really not even raise an eyebrow that , apparently, very little of note happened between 1950 and 1970 ,and that the closer to the present we come , the better races became?

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by coppice

If it comes up with only three pre 1970 races as being potential candidates it suggests a lack of knowledge of, or interest in that era by those expressing a view . I don't care who was consulted - 'OAT' in this context means back to 1950 . Do you really not even raise an eyebrow that , apparently, very little of note happened between 1950 and 1970 ,and that the closer to the present we come , the better races became?

Do I raise an eyebrow - not really, because (as the opening thread said) it's 'just for fun'.

The lack of knowledge - it was opened up to the forum for input, and only three races prior to 1970 were included in suggestions.

The bracket will see many more recent races disappear. It could be argued that the bias of races towards more recent eras suggests many things:
- the majority of F1 viewers today don't remember races that far back.
- the level of reporting (and hence awareness) of races has increased in recent years.
- that recency-bias is in people's recollection.
- that the racing is better in recent years.

When determining the GROAT (in an entirely non-scientific, personal opinion, popularity kind of way) - if the best race to come out of the '50s was the 1957 Nürburgring race, then that race has the chance to be the GROAT. Every other race is not in that category.

How I see it:
We have 1 race from the '50s. The passage of time has rendered that the best '50s F1 race.
We have 2 races from the '60s. These are the top two of that decade, but we have not (collectively) reached a conclusion on which is the best.
As we get closer to 2021, the clear sign of a 'best' race become less clear, and so more races are in consideration.

There is also the consideration of how the brackets played out in other 'OATs':
Round One of the COAT saw Williams and Ferrari heavily represented. The semi-finals saw half the remaining field being a Lotus.
Round One of the COAT saw a lot of cars from the '00s. The semi-finals saw equal representation from '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s.

The GOAT saw a current driver up against a '90/'00s and two '80s drivers in the semi-finals. Apparently, no drivers of note raced between 1950 and 1980.



Or - it's just something that people find enjoyable and not really getting too bothered about.

[coppice]

Having a bit of fun is fine. But endowing the exercise with an authoritative sounding 'of all time ' label suggests an awareness of Formula 1 history in respondents which is clearly lacking .

One race from the Fifties simply because, y'know , it's a long time ago ?

Why not just call it 'my favourite races' because that patently is all it is .

[BTCC frog]

Originally Posted by coppice

Having a bit of fun is fine. But endowing the exercise with an authoritative sounding 'of all time ' label suggests an awareness of Formula 1 history in respondents which is clearly lacking .

One race from the Fifties simply because, y'know , it's a long time ago ?

Why not just call it 'my favourite races' because that patently is all it is .

I think this is an unfair accusation. Maybe it does seem quite unbalanced with so few races from the 1950s, but crmalcolm did offer the people who are going to be voting the chance to nominate races, and nobody did add any others from the 1950s. The truth is that this is not an official vote, and very few people are voting on these polls, and I have avoided voting when one option is a race that I have never seen. If the brackets had been filled with races of which there is little to no footage of, surely most people wouldn’t have voted at all, because they don’t know enough. And there wouldn’t have been many votes at all. To be honest, I do think there could have been more old races on there, and some of the recent races were not classics, but I don’t really care because no race that is not on the list is a serious candidate for the GROAT, and before that it is just a bit of fun. And I also think more recent races are generally more exciting, even ignoring the bias of not knowing the result before you watch the race. But obviously this is subjective.

As for this poll, my vote also goes to Nurburgring 1999.

[chunterer]

I think coppice is on one hand being harsh but also well meaning and, one has to say correct, about the disproportionate amount of 'historic' races compared to the last couple of decades.

But as you say malcolm, a lot of input into the choices likely came from younger fans whose knowledge doesn't go back much further than the late 80s?

[chillibowl]

That’s true for me. My votes have tended to be on the side of races I have personally watched 90s on. Also voted for a lot of races in Montreal (location checks out lol).

Some older races are better represented via old clips, articles, movies etc but it’s the races I have personal experience with where my vote goes.