[Official] Round 09 - British Grand Prix

[Marbot]

I wasn't aware that the McLaren car was that bad!

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by JamesH

Of course they should still sack Whitmarsh. It's obviously all his fault. He was the one holding the jerry can who didn't put enough fuel in LH's car. A lot of people don't know that. Still, what with his job of designing, building, lollipoping and wheel changing, he was a bit busy.

I understand that he's delegated the lollipoping due to having to fetch the wheels and tyres.

[Marbot]

Here's Martin Whitmarsh being asked why he only put one sweetener in Lewis Hamilton's tea.

[Finn]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/for...#ixzz1RsXR0jbC

http://planetf1.com/news/3213/703300...s-On-The-Line-

[Born Racer]

The Daily Mail claims

according to a report

Whitmarsh reportedly has

Sportsmail understands

Nothing to see here.

[Marbot]

You appear to have stumbled upon a Daily Mail article.

[Finn]

Originally Posted by Marbot

You appear to have stumbled upon a Daily Mail article.

Yes I know it's all speculation and the papers aren't the most reliable source for news at the moment (unless some phone hacking has happenend )

[Marbot]

I have stumbled upon this Pitpass article.

http://www.pitpass.com/44204-Time-to...marsh-hysteria

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by Marbot

I have stumbled upon this Pitpass article.

http://www.pitpass.com/44204-Time-to...marsh-hysteria

Blimey - Pitpass not jumping on the hysteria bandwagon. That's a first.

As for saying a tardy pitstop caused Buttons exit from the GP - surely its the other way round - they were too quick to release him - not too slow.

[Finn]

Drivers sounding positive.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/93046

Maybe it's Ron with the issues with Martin and not the Mclaren board, who knows.

[Flat Out Farr]

As a big McLaren Fan, I am gobsmacked at the elementary mistakes made by McLaren. Insufficient fuel in Lewis's car and missing the wheel nut on Jenson's car? These are mistakes a novice FFord driver/team would make !!

Big respect to Ferrari and to Alonso for doing an excellent job.

As nice a guy as I am sure Martin Whitmarsh is, he needs to sort this out. Unless I have missed something, they appear not to have anyone like Adrian or Patrick co-ordinating the design departments, or, if they do in fact have someone, he seems to be away with the fairies currently!!

McLaren have a lot of very clever, very capable engineers who can do this. Jenson and Lewis could easily have the cars higher up the grid. Stop worrying about how to de-rail Red Bull, by politics. Accept they got a head start on every other team again. Short of kidnapping Newey or making him work for HRT next season, you need to accept that you need an experienced guy so get looking !!

The fans and racers are willing McLaren to topple Red Bull. Jenson yet again drove the wheels off (literally) the car. Canada was a brilliant result. This weekend could have easily netted the team with another shed load of points, but ......

Wouldn't it be easier to give Lewis formal membership of the FIA stewards team and a platinum card for membership??

Seriously guys, it is getting boring seeing Vettal win so easily. I may end up committing sacrilege and buy a Ferrari t-shirt this season !!!

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by Flat Out Farr

As a big McLaren Fan, I am gobsmacked at the elementary mistakes made by McLaren. Insufficient fuel in Lewis's car and missing the wheel nut on Jenson's car? These are mistakes a novice FFord driver/team would make !!

It's already been explained: fuel issue - lack of heavy running meant a guess needed to be made of fuel load, and LH's rapid advancement through the field mean they started using more petrol than planned (more traffic = lower fuel consumption). They guessed wrong. Wheel nut - missing? The wheel nut came off the car, and dropped out of the gun whizzing off in to the garage. The gun man went for the spare and the jack man mistook the move for a complete signal and dropped the car which is the signal to the lollipop man to let the car go. No missing nut AFAIK. A simple mistake that any team, FF or F1 could make, and have done.

That said, Whitmarsh should go, NOW. He is spending too much time as his alter ego, Lady Gaga, and it's obviously affecting his performance on track. Not many people know he actually drives for HRT under a pseudonym.

[Flat Out Farr]

Originally Posted by JamesH

It's already been explained: fuel issue - lack of heavy running meant a guess needed to be made of fuel load, and LH's rapid advancement through the field mean they started using more petrol than planned (more traffic = lower fuel consumption). They guessed wrong. Wheel nut - missing? The wheel nut came off the car, and dropped out of the gun whizzing off in to the garage. The gun man went for the spare and the jack man mistook the move for a complete signal and dropped the car which is the signal to the lollipop man to let the car go. No missing nut AFAIK. A simple mistake that any team, FF or F1 could make, and have done.

That said, Whitmarsh should go, NOW. He is spending too much time as his alter ego, Lady Gaga, and it's obviously affecting his performance on track. Not many people know he actually drives for HRT under a pseudonym.

So this is the 1st time McLaren have had this problem in a GP?
The team know Lewis will give it 11/10ths to try and win, so what is better, give him enough fuel so he can drive like he does, or have him go on a fuel economy run ??

They know how much fuel the Mercedes engine uses under varying circumstances; the telemetry tells them this at every practice session/race. So McLaren are so stupid they delete all the previous figures from their database?
Get real; they have no excuse; someone somewhere screwed up big time !!

I totally accept that the lollipop man mis-read the signals. Everyone will claim pressure of the moment. However, at this level, you cannot make mistakes (Force India did a great job of ruining Di Resta's race by having Sutil's tyres out for him !!). Anyone with a military background will tell you that for a critical situation, you rehearse and practice till you can do it in your sleep. The same applies to Pit-stops.
Sorry to sound so cold about it, but that is how it is.

The whole team needs to learn from this and NOT make the same mistake again.

If that was Ferrari, P45's would have slid across the table by now!

QED.

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by Flat Out Farr

So this is the 1st time McLaren have had this problem in a GP?
The team know Lewis will give it 11/10ths to try and win, so what is better, give him enough fuel so he can drive like he does, or have him go on a fuel economy run ??

They know how much fuel the Mercedes engine uses under varying circumstances; the telemetry tells them this at every practice session/race. So McLaren are so stupid they delete all the previous figures from their database?
Get real; they have no excuse; someone somewhere screwed up big time !!

I totally accept that the lollipop man mis-read the signals. Everyone will claim pressure of the moment. However, at this level, you cannot make mistakes (Force India did a great job of ruining Di Resta's race by having Sutil's tyres out for him !!). Anyone with a military background will tell you that for a critical situation, you rehearse and practice till you can do it in your sleep. The same applies to Pit-stops.
Sorry to sound so cold about it, but that is how it is.

The whole team needs to learn from this and NOT make the same mistake again.

If that was Ferrari, P45's would have slid across the table by now!

QED.

Sounds like you should be running Mclaren then, not Whitmarsh.

Except you know nothing about fuel consumption of racing cars. The fuel consumption rate depends on the circuit and the condition, they had no experience running the current car/engine combo at Silverstone. Ergo, there had to be some guesswork involved. Intelligent guesswork (because yes, they do have all the figures from other circuits), but if you are not in possession of all the facts, and HAVE NO WAY OF GETTING THEM, then there is still guesswork involved. It would be interesting to know how much less fuel they put in than they actually needed - I'm guessing probably between 5 and 10 litres. So not much. I'm sure they will learn from the mistake. Somebody did screw up the guess, but the reason why they screwed up is very understandable.


I believe Mclaren reherse pit stops time after time after time after time. I believe more than the other teams. All the other teams practice and practice and practice. Difficult to see how they can practice even more. Many teams this year have STILL had bad pitstops. Sh*t happens. You cannot predict the unexpected.

Ferrari may throw P45's around like confetti, but it's a stupid way to run a company or team. If you keep getting rid of people who have learn from their mistakes, you just get people in who haven't.

Has anyone said that Mclaren haven't learn from this? Or are they just going around with their fingers in their ear ignoring everything, pretending that the GP went fine. Nope. They will learn.

[Born Racer]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/mot...the-abuse.html

I think the pressure team principal Martin Whitmarsh is coming under is unfair. He does not decide how much fuel goes in a car. Nor does he change the wheel nuts during pit stops.

Considering David Coulthard's role as commentator, it's really bad that he is so uninformed.

[JamesH]

Addendum : Bad Pitstops

In the BGP there was Force India with Di Resta, Mclaren with Button, and RBR with Vettel - the last costing him the race.

I wonder why Mclaren are getting so much flack from people here, when the RB mistake cost them the win, and the FI mistake cost them a top 10 (if not better). Nobody seems to have asked for Horner to resign for the RBR cockup.

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by JamesH

Nobody seems to have asked for Horner to resign for the RBR cockup.

No, but he did come up with the 'team orders' thing to help gloss over that. Clever thinking! I bet Martin Whitmarsh was frantically willing Hamilton to take out Massa on that final lap.

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by JamesH

Addendum : Bad Pitstops

In the BGP there was Force India with Di Resta, Mclaren with Button, and RBR with Vettel - the last costing him the race.

And don't forget Kobayashi's "unsafe release". Those other incidents cost places and points; Kobayashi's could have cost lives.

I watched the replays several times. The lollipop man twitched and then lowered the lollipop again, presumably when he saw Maldonado coming. Bashi got out of the box (fair enough - instant reaction), then hesitated and nearly came to a standstill. Then he carried on! He was side-by-side with Maldonado and still trying to elbow his way out into the fast lane. While poor old Maldonado was trying to elbow his way into his box. It could have been very, very nasty. Formula 1 is still living on borrowed time before there is a serious pitlane accident.

I love to to watch Careful Kobayashi on track, but I think he really stepped out of line in this incident and deserved rather more than a rap over the wallet.

[Razzzor]

Yeah there were a lot of pit stop mistakes in this race, but not putting enough fuel in the McLaren takes the cake in my opinion. At least with that they had fuel figured to look at so should have known what to put in. Then considering the fact the race was already run at a slower pace while the track was still damp.

Imagine if it were dry the whole race and Hamilton took the lead at the start. There's no way he could have held onto it if he was THAT SHORT on fuel.

Re the last few laps battles...

Massa vs Hamilton: it was a nice, albeit ridiculous maneouvre trying to go around the outside of Hamilton. He still might have got him down the straight if he didn't have brain fade and launch himself completely off the track. Would have made for one of the better passes of the year if he pulled it off.

Vettel vs Webber: you can't compare this incident to previous team orders, in particular to last year when Massa was ordered to move aside and give Alonso the lead. It can't be compared because there's 2 laps to go, it's not for the win, and they're about to take each other out. Other team order incidents like Massa/Alonso and Barrichello/MS were purely for extra championship points. In this situation it was to have the cars finish the race.

On top of that, Vettel might be 3.5 wins clear of Alonso in points, but the championship isn't over. Look at Bayliss/Edwards in the Superbikes in 2002. Bayliss won 14 of the first 17 races of the season, then Edwards won 9 in a row and managed to win the title. You can't count Ferrari out because they were without a doubt quicker on Sunday, on one of Red Bull's best race tracks, and Vettel had the lead and the wet track advantage (he's def the best in F1 on a wet track), and he still lost the race. Even without the pit incident, Alonso would easily have passed him on the track.

If Ferrari's speed continues then they could completely turn the points around, especially if Vettel has a couple retirements.

[Sodemo]

I think perhaps McLaren banked on there being more wet running, as it turned out, after the first 12 or so laps it wasn't wet any longer, so therefore the fuel usage went up.

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

I think perhaps McLaren banked on there being more wet running, as it turned out, after the first 12 or so laps it wasn't wet any longer, so therefore the fuel usage went up.

I read a quote from someone at Mclaren somewhere, posted above, that they also expected LH to be stuck in traffic for longer, which uses less fuel. A case of LH being too fast, which given the poor performance of the car this year, would have been rather unexpected!

It was a mistake, but given all that we know, quite an understandable one.

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by JamesH

, which given the poor performance of the car this year,

I don't think that the McLaren car has performed poorly. It's only the Red Bull's performance in qualifying that has really set them apart. The performance of the team as a whole is what seems to be the problem at the moment.

[dsg]

Originally Posted by Marbot

I wasn't aware that the McLaren car was that bad!

This is exactly what I was thinking. Seems to me the car is ok, it just isn't being driven or serviced very well.

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by dsg

This is exactly what I was thinking. Seems to me the car is ok, it just isn't being driven or serviced very well.

Driven? Did you watch the Canadian or British GP's?

I'd say the car was being driven to the best of its ability. Which isn't quite able enough, compared to the RB, and now the Ferrari.

[Born Racer]

Kobayashi's move to get back Maldonado on Lap 20 was excellent. Precision personified. He is so impulsive and usually very controlled.

I thought Schumacher put a good move on Alguersuari on Lap 35 too. Jaime only just missed him but it worked out.

I think I saw someone say elsewhere (perhaps it wasn't on this site) that Hamilton made two moves when Vettel tried to overtake on Lap 36; this isn't the case. He didn't change from his line really at all.

I was curious to know what Ted Kravitz meant about McLaren when he said that Button's engineers were annoyed that their message about the undercut had been broadcast (he mentions this around Lap 41). All radio transmissions are open to broadcast, so they should expect this, although it's fascinating to think that what is chosen to be broadcast can have some impact on the race outcome.

When Webber tried to overtake Vettel into Copse, he seemed to back out to soon; I would have kept it on the outside there. He wouldn't have gone wide, but Seb would have had to tighten his line.

Domenicali looked very appreciative of Mark's efforts on the podium with his firm round of applause. Webber to..

another number two position.

Horner's comments about how both Red Bull drivers "probably would have ended up" in the fence seemed harsh and not too trusting. Perhaps he didn't mean that they probably would have and just may have.