2012 Grand Premio Petrobras do Brasil

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"If “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion” just means no-one has the right to stop people thinking and saying whatever they want, then the statement is true, but fairly trivial. No one can stop you saying that vaccines cause autism, no matter how many times that claim has been disproven.

But if ‘entitled to an opinion’ means ‘entitled to have your views treated as serious candidates for the truth’ then it’s pretty clearly false. And this too is a distinction that tends to get blurred."

It is quite obvious that an opinion that concurs with the second statement in the above quote never can be proved in a discussion whether Alonso or Vettel is the better racing driver, since it's impossible to prove what is "truth".

The guy has every right to state that Vettel is the better driver and he also has every right to ignore any proof that he is wrong.
 
How can they come to a conclusion without an investigation?

When they investigate an incident and no punishment is given, both the investigation and the fact no punishment is given are announced. They didn't investigate.

As far as I'm aware, they've investigated every other incident where a collision has resulted in a vehicle retirement this season. They've announced "no further action" on a handful of occasions. This incident wasn't investigated. This is the inconsistency.

At some point there must be a decision on whether or not an incident will be investigated. Somebody (Charlie Whiting?) decided the incident didn't require an investigation, for one reason or another. Maybe it was because the incident happened on the first lap where incidents are more likely to happen. Or maybe they decided that Vettel had screwed himself over already, so an investigation of the incident would've been a waste of time. I think it's a mixture of both to be honest.

If Vettel had came out of the incident with the car pointing the correct way, I feel the incident would have been investigated and he would have indeed been penalised.
 
So is this the final decisions? No word yet on whether all the parts missing would drop him under the weight limit or post race investigations.

I do find it really weird they didn't investigate the crash. I mean regardless of the outcome, penalty, no penalty, sennas fault, vettels fault just that it wasn't investigated is unusual.
 
At some point there must be a decision on whether or not an incident will be investigated. Somebody (Charlie Whiting?) decided the incident didn't require an investigation, for one reason or another. Maybe it was because the incident happened on the first lap where incidents are more likely to happen. Or maybe they decided that Vettel had screwed himself over already, so an investigation of the incident would've been a waste of time. I think it's a mixture of both to be honest.

If Vettel had came out of the incident with the car pointing the correct way, I feel the incident would have been investigated and he would have indeed been penalised.

Regardless the fia would make many people happy if they released a statement as to why there was no investigation and what they think occurred. We can speculate a lot but if something official is released, many would be at peace.
 
I dunno. I really hate Monaco for racing and that's as old and pre-Tilke as they come. Meanwhile, COTA had a Tilke stamp of approval on it and went really well.

I like Tilke's Buddh International circuit and, to an extent, Yeongam - though they're not great for racing - and then there's Turkey.


At some point there must be a decision on whether or not an incident will be investigated. Somebody (Charlie Whiting?) decided the incident didn't require an investigation, for one reason or another. Maybe it was because the incident happened on the first lap where incidents are more likely to happen. Or maybe they decided that Vettel had screwed himself over already, so an investigation of the incident would've been a waste of time. I think it's a mixture of both to be honest.

Yet the key question is why every other incident where a multi-car collision has seen a driver retire has at least been investigated while this one hasn't been.

Charlie's job is odd and I'm not sure what his involvement actually is. Moving back to the last truly incomprehensible stewarding decision, the team penalised asked Charlie Whiting directly, three times, if they had to do anything regarding an incident and he said no. After the race the incident was investigated, the driver penalised (for a rule not yet written) and he lost the world championship in Brazil that year by a single point...
 
Charlie isn't a race steward. Simple as that. I'm not sure why the teams always rely on his opinion, because at the end of the day he doesn't make the decisions and can only offer his opinion.
They ask him as the guy running race control, but as I understand it he isn't involved in the stewarding process.
 
Regardless the fia would make many people happy if they released a statement as to why there was no investigation and what they think occurred. We can speculate a lot but if something official is released, many would be at peace.

The FIA frankly don't care what fans think or if they are at peace over races, just accept what happened like the teams have and move on. Ireally don't understand the point of wasting your energy over something the people actually involved accept as done and dusted.
 
Charlie isn't a race steward. Simple as that. I'm not sure why the teams always rely on his opinion, because at the end of the day he doesn't make the decisions and can only offer his opinion.
They ask him as the guy running race control, but as I understand it he isn't involved in the stewarding process.

Quite - and whenever a driver is annoyed by something and whines down the radio... "We'll let Charlie know."...
 
I dunno. I really hate Monaco for racing and that's as old and pre-Tilke as they come. Meanwhile, COTA had a Tilke stamp of approval on it and went really well.

I like Tilke's Buddh International circuit and, to an extent, Yeongam - though they're not great for racing - and then there's Turkey.

I quite like Monaco because it's so different, even though the racing isn't great there. And we've still had some exciting racing at Monaco too, it just doesn't involve as much actual passing.

Didn't see COTA, so can't comment. As for Turkey, I've always found it a little underwhelming. I found Abu Dhabi more entertaining than Turkey this year. Abu Dhabi.
 
Hang on, lets first display some evidence? Usually when the drivers specifically mention Charlie, its with regards to track conditions.
I don't seem to remember many incidents between drivers causing a driver to mention Charlie in particular. If they have, perhaps its the driver forgetting or mixing up the roles of race control and the stewards.

Presumably Charlie has a role in penalties in so far as race control are the ones that deliver the news to the relevant team(s). So maybe asking him to ask the stewards to look into it.

But it still comes back to the point that he isn't a steward.
 
Time for a race and season review:

Vettel: Well-controlled race asides from the opening calamities, though he was tempting fate with the pace he was on. Well deserved third championship!

Fantastic up-and-down season for him, with a brilliant comeback in the 2nd half.

Webber: Strong race for him, probably the only time this year he's actually had a better start than Vettel!

Another strong season, though not to the same degree as previous years.

Hamilton: Very good race up until the crash.

A very strong performance this season plagued with reliability issues, though his fiery temper didn't help his points all either.

Button: Very strong, controlled performance today.

Another wildly inconsistent season performance. Moments of dominance, but mostly moments of lack of pace.

Alonso: Average race today, some very slow moments and what was quite a lucky 2nd place, could easily have been 4th.

A valiant performance until the end, drove the socks off the car, though like Vettel he did have his fair share of luck.

Massa: Very good performance today, though I can't say I approve of the legality of team orders.

Very poor season start, just about redeemed himself at the end, though I don't think he should be here next year.

Raikkonen: Race pretty crumbled under his fingers today.

An outstanding comeback. Superb consistency, completing all but one lap, car just wasn't fast enough.

Grosjean: Yet another crash.

Mixed season. Showed promising pace, just far too destructive.

Rosberg: Another lousy performance, albeit with excessive pit stops

Roller coaster season, completely lost the pace in the 2nd half.

Schumacher: Very strong comeback after an early puncture.

Marginally improved season, though I don't think he should have returned at all.

di Resta: Exciting race for him, just blew it at the end.

Average performance this year, clearly outclassed by Hulkenberg.

Hulkenberg: Had a good chance of victory without the spin and crash. Shame.

Quiet start to the year, but really came back strong in the 2nd half.

Kobayashi: Very strong performance with one too many mistakes.

Hugely inconsistent season, most of the time far too slow, but still an exciting driver.

Perez: Not really much to say about his race, other than a good start.

Unbelievably season, a real star, though he did drop off towards the end.

Maldonado: Again, good start.

Bizarre season. Eventually sorted his destructive side out, though he was arguably the most inconsistent driver.

Senna: Racing incident, enough said. Though his lunge seem a tad ambitious.

Another inconsistent season run, though he was impressive at times.

Ricciardo: Average performance today.

Driving at HRT has helped him, does have the better of Vergne.

Vergne: Better than Ricciardo today.

Slightly scrappier performance than Ricciardo this year, though it was very evenly matched.

Kovalainen: Great to get up to sixth, but it was never gonna last.

Has more than outgrown this team, though his frustration towards the end showed.

Petrov: A strong result that so nearly got a point!

A quiet start to the year, but delivered when necessary.

de la Rosa: Had a reasonable start.

Certainly faster than Karthikeyan this year, though reliability was more on his side.

Karthikeyan: Did well to stick around in the first stint, no idea how he dropped back so far after the Safety Car though.

Did well considering the amount of reliability issues and back luck he's had this year. Still professional and determined.

Glock: Didn't really do much today.

A fiesty racer, but beaten by Pic a bit too much.

Pic: A valiant effort to maintain 10th in the constructor's.

Promising start to his career, certainly met the match of Glock.
 
Turkey has Turn 8. That's it.

Shanghai doesn't ever really fill all its capacity and the actual circuit looks like someone skiing.

Valencia's recent races have been made by incident as opposed to racing, generally.

Singapore and Abu Dhabi are only really made by their backdrop but CotA is very decent.

Of all the tracks, Suzuka is my personal favourite, though Montreal, Monza and Interlagos are all close. All 4 of those tracks just seem to be the ones that click most with me.
 
Really enjoyed it. Proper end of season nail-biter. Anyone else just prefer races at old tracks like Brazil to the characterless Tilke-designed circuits?...
Except you forget that Interlagos went through decades of natural selection and Tilke is given a couple of billion and told to go make a circuit.
I can only hope they will include a clause in the concord agreement that will force drivers to test new designs on their sims.
 
Gutted for Hulkenberg, thought it was a small mistake. Make the pass or get a penalty almost.

Vettel with a full race ahead took a gamble cutting back in. If that was me I would've kept wide as if someone was passing. Incredible how the second collision didn't take Vettel's back wheel off.

Glad to see the back of Michael Schumacher. If Button had a pump failure or anything, that wouldv'e changed it and letting Vettel swan pass was getting involved and allowing Vettel to get further up to do something if Alonso found himself in the lead with likely McLaren failure. Alonso wants everyone to race as normal, in the same way any sport at its climax. You can't have a football team letting a team win on the last day and say we didn't want to get involved. Such a shame to end his career.
 
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The FIA frankly don't care what fans think or if they are at peace over races, just accept what happened like the teams have and move on. Ireally don't understand the point of wasting your energy over something the people actually involved accept as done and dusted.

It takes away from the enjoyment I get from watching the series. I don't have a problem with Vettel winning, I have a problem with the governing body of any sport showing any signs of favoritism. I also watch american football. Referees in the NFL tend to go a bit easier on teams that sell a lot of tickets if you know what I mean. That is wrong and I complain whenever I feel these things occur because they interfere with my enjoyment of any sport for which I pay good money by having a special network package just so I could see these events.

Any governing body that does not care about what their fans think is absolutely insane. Formula 1 lost a lot of fans during the Schumaker-Ferrari era because of this sort of thing. They had to completely change the series to get a lot of those viewers back. I do not want to see the same thing happening. Especially here in the states where finally more and more people are learning about this great series. Things of this nature could easily turn that around though.
 
This shot was awesome, does it fit within the rules of the caption contest?

sLKi1.jpg


I felt like giving him a bear hug when I saw this in the broadcast.

So close.

"This puts Alonso at 3 championships that he has lost with the narrowest of margins.
110-109-109 With Raikkonen-Hamilton-Alonso in 2007
256-252 With Vettel-Alonso in 2010
281-278 With Vettel-Alonso in 2012

He's now 8 points from being a 5-time world driver's champion. For all the whinging about Vettel's dominance, Vettel's 1st and 3rd WDC's were won by a total of 7 points."
 
Except you forget that Interlagos went through decades of natural selection and Tilke is given a couple of billion and told to go make a circuit.
I can only hope they will include a clause in the concord agreement that will force drivers to test new designs on their sims.

The problem is not Tilke, it's the FIA specifications that govern how he designs a new track, he has anything but free reign.
 
Hang on, lets first display some evidence? Usually when the drivers specifically mention Charlie, its with regards to track conditions.
I don't seem to remember many incidents between drivers causing a driver to mention Charlie in particular. If they have, perhaps its the driver forgetting or mixing up the roles of race control and the stewards.

Presumably Charlie has a role in penalties in so far as race control are the ones that deliver the news to the relevant team(s). So maybe asking him to ask the stewards to look into it.

But it still comes back to the point that he isn't a steward.

I was going to say, it's likely that Charlie has to be the middle-man for contact between the Stewards and the teams. The news of investigations etc. comes from race control, as do penalties handed out. So maybe it works in reverse too, maybe he's responsible for tasking the Stewards to investigate incidents, but i'm not sure.
 
I can't believe the amount of hate Vettel have received lately. Yes, some of it's justified, but come on. It doesn't matter what the little guy does, people will always think of something, no matter how small or big it's.
DK
To anyone who was watching the BBC's coverage - did anyone hear either Coulthard or Edwards thumping their desk during the race?

Yes.
So, we learned our lesson? Tell me more about you knowing better than specialists from every website and weather service available...

I hope so. Some were saying that it's definitely going to rain on Sunday, almost a week ahead of the race. Yes, it rained, but, these so called "specialists" didn't know 5 minutes before the race if it's going to rain or not. That's the beauty of São Paulo.

Again, these "specialists"; A forecast was that the rain was going to stop completely at 15:15 (local time) and no more rain for the next thirty minutes, if I remember correctly. It stopped, but guess what? The rain went down even heaver a minute or two after that

You simply can't believe the forecast at São Paulo. In some cases, not even a few minutes in to the future. This is also true at some other tracks, Spa for example.
Yet the last time a guy took two drivers out on lap 1 he got a race ban.

And it was three corners sooner.

Well, then Alonso should receive a race ban, right?

Grosjean on Hamilton == Alonso on Raikkonen. The only difference is that the latter did not result in a massive accident because it happened on the outside (left part of the track).
 
Time for a race and season review:

Webber: Strong race for him, probably the only time this year he's actually had a better start than Vettel!

Another strong season, though not to the same degree as previous years.

Did we watch the same race? Webber almost took out Vettel twice and played a major part on the first incident, not to mention it was incredibly risky him (or the team) not giving his position away to Vettel (could have used the Massa method for example).
If Vettel had lost the title I'd have fired Webber, including compensation. So many mistakes it seems he was negligent and not a single good move.

Today's best driver was easily Massa. Literally the best race I've seen him since before the accident. Such a team player and such a good driver when he is on.


And continuing race analysis, today there were 2 of the best silliest moments of the season: kimi going out of track and bear hug alonso.
Also funny that race of champions finally mattered for something.
 
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Well, then Alonso should receive a race ban, right?

Grosjean on Hamilton == Alonso on Raikkonen. The only difference is that the latter did not result in a massive accident because it happened on the outside (left part of the track).

So...

A guy taking two drivers out on lap one resulting in a ban being compared to an incident where a guy took out two drivers on lap one and it wasn't investigated means Alonso should be banned for not causing a crash...

Huh?
 
This shot was awesome, does it fit within the rules of the caption contest?

sLKi1.jpg


I felt like giving him a bear hug when I saw this in the broadcast.

So close.

"This puts Alonso at 3 championships that he has lost with the narrowest of margins.
110-109-109 With Raikkonen-Hamilton-Alonso in 2007
256-252 With Vettel-Alonso in 2010
281-278 With Vettel-Alonso in 2012

He's now 8 points from being a 5-time world driver's champion. For all the whinging about Vettel's dominance, Vettel's 1st and 3rd WDC's were won by a total of 7 points."


I know what you mean in this picture he just looks like a broken man.
 
I can't believe the amount of hate Vettel have received lately. Yes, some of it's justified, but come on. It doesn't matter what the little guy does, people will always think of something, no matter how small or big it's.

It's quite obviously a 2 way street though (Alonso gets his fair share of flack as well).
 
Well, Vettel may be the luckiest driver in the field* but he made it count and did what he had to to win the title. Three double titles in three years is no mean feat.

I feel for Hamilton this season though, he has been robbed of a lot of good results this year and this was a sad way to end the McLaren relationship.

*Alonso has two incidents this year and ends up with two DNFs, Vettel has two incidents (DRS boards and a huge clout from Senna) and gets away scott free
 
One thing is for sure though. You have to think Red Bull will be hiring new lads to do their alternators.

I mean, if Vettel had succumbed to something or other and Alonso took the championship, it could only be viewed as an alternate ending.
 
Well, Vettel may be the luckiest driver in the field* but he made it count and did what he had to to win the title. Three double titles in three years is no mean feat.

I feel for Hamilton this season though, he has been robbed of a lot of good results this year and this was a sad way to end the McLaren relationship.

*Alonso has two incidents this year and ends up with two DNFs, Vettel has two incidents (DRS boards and a huge clout from Senna) and gets away scott free

+1

I guess they all had their hardships. It was a great race. Kimi made the whole thing brighter...haha
 
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