F1 Fanatic round-up 12/7/2010

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More of the usual post-race coverage coming your way today including Stats and Facts and the rest of the team-by-team reviews.

Here’s today’s round-up:

Links

Bernie Ecclestone says South Africa could host Formula One grand prix (The Guardian)

“We’ve been talking to the people in Cape Town, there are one or two places now that are coming on quite strong which could happen. We’re talking about a building a circuit. It’s probably three years away.”

Magny-Cours, Race 1: Grosjean overall leader (Auto GP)

Former Renault driver continues to impress in his return to single-seaters.

Comment of the day

The situation at Red Bull reminds GeeMac of another famous case of ‘favouritism’:

I totally agree with Webber in this situation. The level of favouritism that has been show towards Vettel is reaching Schumacher-Barrichello levels. First with the way "swervegate" (love that phrase, can’t remember who to thank for it) was handled despite the fact that Vettel was clearly in the wrong and clearly acted in a childish manner with his hand gestures towards the crowd when he got out of the car and now with the revised front wing issue. Webber is doing just the right thing in this situation, keeping cool and winning.

The only person Vettel should be mad at is himself. Frankly a driver that is as highly rated as he is combines with the fastest car on the grid and unofficial number one status should be miles ahead in the championship. But he’s only fourth, a full race win off the lead.
GeeMac

From the forum

Lots of deserved praise for BBC’s F1 coverage.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Abishek, Sohan and Speeder_76!

On this day in F1

Michael Schumacher won the British Grand Prix in controversial circumstances on this day in 1998.

Schumacher was given a drive-through penalty for overtaking Alexander Wurz under yellow flags. But a delay in serving the penalty meant he was able to serve it in the pits on the last lap – having already crossed the finishing line to win.

The rules were later changed to prevent anyone doing the same again.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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50 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up 12/7/2010”

  1. I think GeeMac’s comment goes off a bit at the end, as it’s not Vettel’s fault his car kept breaking down early in the season.

    1. That’s true, but Webber has (we assume) the same car on the other side of the garage, and he hasn’t had quite the same level of unreliability.

      1. GeeMac, I have to disagree with your assertion that Webber is “keeping his cool.” Trashing the team in the press conference is anything but that, regardless of whether or not he has a right to under the circumstances.

        1. Webber’s a tenacious, pumped up, charging, snorting, angry untethered beast of a driver on an adrenalin rush from hell. With more grunt than his considerable skill can handle at times.

          He is in fact, morphing every race more and more in to the iconic beast that is depicted on his gradually more distant employers products.

          It’s ironically poetic.

          1. Hare, that is possibly the best thing I’ve ever read on this site. Sorry, Keith…but it is :D

  2. Red Bull’s handling of it all has been poor, yes.

    What really made me laugh was Horner saying “you think you can manage a smile now?”

    Almost like he can’t believe Webber was ever angry…

    1. Cunning Stunt 8
      12th July 2010, 4:00

      When did Horner say that?

      1. After the GP he radioed Webber and told him something like “you have won the British GP, you can smile now” and he got the now famous answer from Webber.

      2. Anyone think Grosjean might do a Glock and return to F1 in the next 2 year?

        He is doing a good job getting on with racing fast cars pretty well.

  3. I don’t agree with what RBR are doing entirely, but Webbers hardly keeping the high road any longer. If he felt the rest of red bull had stooped to low levels well he’s now joined then. He should have kept his mouth shut and kept the high road.

    1. Exactly. I think his behavior has been far worse than Hamilton’s radio tantrums earlier this season. He has no moral authority any longer. He could have had.

      1. I don’t see why if Webber feels there is favouritism he should keep his mouth shut when the title is at stake.

        1. Well why should it be used as a point of criticism against other drivers and Webber be praised for doing the same thing? Some severe double standards are occurring.

          1. Well why should it be used as a point of criticism against other drivers and Webber be praised for doing the same thing? Some severe double standards are occurring.

            Exactly.

        2. Double standards if anyone here as said it was ok for Webber to say something and not Lewis.

          Webber is in a better position to critise the team though. Lewis was entitled to but was perhaps more unwise to have a go over a strategy call. Entirely different situations but point taken. Although I’ve always argued in favour for driver speaking their minds.

  4. Would say to Geemacs comment of the day that Vettle did loose crazy points at the beggining of the season through no fault of his own. He dominaited Webber in the fly aways but since they got to Europe Webber seems to have the measure of him overall.

    Incidentally https://www.racefans.net/forum/topic.php?id=155 lol, its bad to blow your own trumpet.

  5. Webber is far from “keeping cool” infact him having a go at the team that has given him all his race win’s is stupid and I hope they rip up his contract and boot him out the door for it.

    1. Uh-huh. Great idea – boot the driver with more wins and leading his teammate in the championship out the door. Brilliant. Perhaps they could draft Yamamoto in just to make sure no-one challenges Vettel.

    2. I think it is clear now that Red Bull have not ‘given him’ any race wins – he has had to fight for them to prevent Vettel being gifted them.

      When a team publicly states that the drivers are equal and then favours one over the other I think the driver can say what he likes – if only Barrichello had treated Ferrari the same Schumacher might not have won so many titles…

      For me Red Bull is the ungrateful party – Webber has been there since the beginning and helped them progress to front runners, and for them to decide that he has served his purpose and is now just a rear gunner for Vettel while lying about it shows a lot less class than Mark is showing.

  6. poor camera angle for the start of a race. shame on you tv director.
    http://www.formula1.com/wi/597×478/tvimages/2010/unitedkingdom/sunpic3.jpg
    sometimes i think FOM is run by monkeys.

    1. Pole sitter covered by a stupid Santander logo! What a joke.

      1. Cunning Stunt 8
        12th July 2010, 3:59

        Haha, I didn’t even notice that, too busy watching Webber :)

    2. Yeah I noticed that too, so stupid, and it only makes me hate Santander even more!

  7. Nothing about Barichello besting The Stig and every other F1 guest’s time in the reasonably priced car on Top Gear?

    1. Well as this was clearly the F1 news story of the day I can only assume that Keith is preparing a special feature on it…

  8. Woohoo, third COTD! Thanks Keith.

  9. Not sure why my Grosjean comment ended up answering Cunning stunt 8.
    Sorry for that.

    1. Haha I wondered why it was there. Fair point though, if he keeps impressing then who knows what could happen in the future. I think he’ll need to find sponsors to get a drive though

  10. There is no reason why Webber and Vettel need to make up. Just look at the relationship between Rossi and Larenzo in the MOTO GP, they are in the same team and they hate each other, it is almost like two separate teams.

  11. Has all this animosity between Red Bull and Webber effectively ruined Daniel Ricciardo’s prospects of a career with Red Bull? They may not want another Australian in their team after Mark leaves.

    1. Right, because all Australian’s are the same. /sarcasm

      1. No, but there is such a thing as speculation. /sarcasm

    2. I think they’d judge Ricciardo on his impressive performances in F3 and WSR rather than hold a silly grudge against the whole of Australia.

      However Ricciardo’s probably more likely to end up at Toro Rosso. If Webber gets dropped I suspect Buemi’s the man who will benefit. He’s done well this year and he’s a Red Bull man through and through who isn’t going to rock the boat.

      1. In other words, he’d be Vettel’s Heikki…

  12. Now Webber is ahead of Vettel it will be a good test to see if Red Bull stays true to their words. They stated that they gave the better part to Vettel because he was in front of Webber in the championship but I think they made that statement because Vettel was on poll by then and they expected him to win the race and stay ahead of Webber for the rest of the season.

    Now mark is ahead and they have no choice but to give him preference in the future other wise the media will have a field day.

    Good on you Mark, keep showing that Aussie grit and bring home a chmpionship..

    1. Not sure how to read the words “Webber is in front in the WDC now, so we will do it differetly next time” from Horner.

      It might just mean, that next time around they won’t give parts to the guy in front but to the other one, as he has to make up most points!

      1. Next time they’ll probably say “after last time we decided we had to be fairer, so we tossed a coin…and Seb won”

        1. Is that Helmut Marko’s coin… the one that has Seb’s head on both sides?

          1. It would be something like this…

            Head’s Vettel wins
            Tail’s Webber looses

      2. I’m sure in his interview/inquisition from Eddie Jordan after the race (great television!) Christian did respond to a direct question from Eddie that Webber would get a component in the next race if there was only one available.

        1. Doesn’t really have a choice now does he?

          Ok a bit cynical on my part, I actually see the reasoning, and Horner stood by his decision, which is fair enough. Webber just hears a lot about favouritism, I’m sure he believes it.

          Vettel and Webber certainly aren’t gonna keep each other warm on a cold night.

      3. It will mean that next time they’ll only give the part to the driver who’s engineer is called “Rocky”…

  13. Return to South Africa? Why Cape Town, is Kyalami too old and unsafe? In any case whoever did the new Arena Section for Silverstone should work on the new track too…

    1. Probably just the new fad of having races in pretty looking harbours. Kyalami is a bit short too, F1 cars would probably get round there between 1:10:00 and 1:15:00.

    2. I don’t understand the obsession Bernie has with shiny new venues. Surely it would cost less to upgrade Kyalami to the relevant length and safety standards than it would cost to splurge millions on a new track that will inevitably be disliked by everyone but the teams themselves?

      Oh, who am I kidding. “Bernie Ecclestone” and “Logic” don’t always appear in the same sentence… :S

      1. I’m not sure hw much room there is to update Kyalami. But if he’s looking for something shiney and new there is always Phakisa in Welkom that they built for MotoGP. The only problem with the circuit is that it is in Welkom…which is a dive.

  14. I don’t know if he’s on your Twitter list Keith but here’s one if it isn’t
    Gianluca Pisanello @gpq1971 Jarno’s race engineer

    1. Actually found some new accounts I’m sure weren’t on the list before as that’s how I first started following drivers etc.

      Anyway just in case,

      @edb_lotusracing Head of Vehicle Dynamics at Lotus Racing

      @fairuzfauzy pretty obvious who that one is :P.

      @twlotusracing Lotus Racing Formula One team Press Officer

      @Mansell5 our Nige. Not entirely sure if legit but seems it.

      @eliseosalazar

      1. Eliseo Salazar! My favorite backmarker of all time. I’m going to start following him immediately!

  15. For all of you who blame the current Lotus racing outfit of not being the real thing because there not “Team Lotus”, Fernandez is working on settling that as well:
    http://adamcooperf1.com/2010/07/12/fernandes-acquires-team-lotus-name/

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