Rosberg questions why Webber didn’t brake in crash (Mercedes race review)

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Michael Schumacher matched his best result of the year, passing Jenson Button on his way to fourth place in Korea.

But it was a case of what might have been for team mate Nico Rosberg who was taken out of the race shortly after overtaking Lewis Hamilton.

Michael Schumacher Nico Rosberg
Qualifying position 9 5
Qualifying time comparison (Q3) 1’36.950 (+0.415) 1’36.535
Race position 4
Laps 55/55 18/55
Pit stops 1 0

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Michael Schumacher

Reprimanded after blocking Rubens Barrichello in qualifying, but avoided a penalty and started ninth.

During the race suspension Mercedes took the opportunity to alter both their cars’ set-ups to make them more suitable for the wet conditions.

Schumacher overtook Robert Kubica on the first racing lap, then began putting Button under pressure. On lap 27 he took fifth place off the McLaren driver at turn three.

He dropped back from Felipe Massa during the final stint and briefly came under pressure from Barrichello before the Williams driver also started to struggle with tyre wear.

Compare Michael Schumacher’s form against his team mate in 2010

Nico Rosberg

Took fifth on the grid, Mercedes’ best qualifying performance since Silverstone, beating Felipe Massa and Jenson Button.

As soon as the race got underway he picked off Hamilton for fourth but his race ended when Mark Webber spun into the wall on lap 19. The Red Bull wreckage skidded back across the track where Rosberg had no chance to avoid it.

He hit out Webber on Twitter afterwards, saying:

Don’t understand why Webber didn’t hit the brakes. Was crazy (evidently) to roll back over the track.
Nico Rosberg

Given that Rosberg had been in front of Hamilton, who later ran in front of eventual winner Fernando Alonso, this was an enormous missed opportunity for Rosberg and Mercedes.

Compare Nico Rosberg’s form against his team mate in 2010

2010 Korean Grand Prix

    Browse all 2010 Korean Grand Prix articles

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    Keith Collantine
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    111 comments on “Rosberg questions why Webber didn’t brake in crash (Mercedes race review)”

    1. I also wondered why he didn’t break, did he think it was Hamilton he was running back into?

      1. Or Fernando. Or both. But I guess he didn’t have much of an option to avoid the collision.

        Nico would probably have avoided the crash if he had steered right instead of left.

        1. Which is exactly what Alonso did…

          1. Alonso went left as Webber slid into the wall.

      2. Immediately after the crash Webber was probably too angry on himself to think. Then he saw the car his brain didn’t come back working properly. But thats only what I think. Bad luck for Rosberg anyway, a potential win thrown out of the window.

        1. In a crash its your natural instinct to hit the brakes. No matter how well trained you are your instinct for self preservation should kick in there

          1. Not if your a racing driver. Braking and steering use up tire traction, F1 drivers have very well defined self preservation instincts honed by years of driving and crashing.

            Having said that: braking after hitting the wall would have been the safest thing to do so maybe OEL’s right.

        2. I don’t think that was the case. In Valencia when he drove right over Kovalinen’s car you could see on the onboard camera on Webber’s car that his front tires locked up while in the air, which means that he had been fully on the brakes. Which i guess is because it is very instinctive for the drivers. I think that he should get a punishment, like a 5 place grid drop next race, he should have been on the brakes to stop the car rolling.

          1. Ok, but this time he had already crashed (hit the wall), so maybe that makes a difference.

            1. At that time he had hit Kovalinen and was in mid air. I don’t see how hitting the wall is worse :)

            2. Jarred Walmsley
              25th October 2010, 19:25

              @Mads, I think the point OEL is trying to make is when Webber hit Kovalnien he would have been on the brakes to avoid the crash, in this case he had already crashed

          2. Deserved or not, that penalty would surely raise a lot of criticism. The season is almost over, Webber is the most serious rival of Alonso, and a penalty at this point would surely be perceived as an undeserved gift for Ferrari/Alonso. Maybe he should be punished, but my guess is he won’t.

            1. @Mads: I didn’t say hitting the wall is worse, of course it’s the other way around :o

              And to clarify what I mean:

              After hitting KOV, he was chocked and afraied, this time he was frustrated so instead of thinking about what was the safest thing to do, he was so frustrated he just couldn’t think properly. When making a silly error that throws away such a good shot at the championship, you simply must be frustraited.

            2. It would be bad for the championship yes, but that shouldn’t change anything. You can’t make a mistake and then not be punished just because it would be bad for the championship battle.

              And for OEL: Oh now i get what you mean, yes that could be very likely what happened.

          3. After watching this video a dozen times,

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv6o2lWgET8

            I have to agree with Mags, he made no attempt to hit the brakes, and has instead steered the car on to the track away from the wall. At least a 5 place penalty for that move.

            1. The onboard footage doesn’t tell the whole story, but it helps. Webber lets go of the wheel, and grabs it when it’s already sideways. Find a reverse angle of the crash and you’ll see the car drifts along the wall in a straight line for a moment and then something breaks and it veers onto the course.
              Webber is sensible to try and roll all the way off the road otherwise he’s going to cause an even bigger accident – no way an F1 driver wants another car spearing into the side of him at race speeds, to suggest it is lunacy!

            2. i couldn’t agree with Andy more.

              Aint no-one rolling their car onto the racing line on purpose. Aint no-one no how. :)

        3. Is it possible that the brakes were broken? I imagine that after hitting a wall and losing one half of your car that maybe the brakes don’t work quite as well as normal.

      3. I dunno if it would have made any difference (or even if he did have his brakes on), only 2 of his wheels were in contact with the ground (rear left was ripped off, and front right was correspondingly up in the air) when he went off across the track into Rosberg.

        To me Rosberg’s comments sound like a bit of deserved sour grapes at having a potentially great race wrecked by another driver having an accident that had nothing to do with him.

        I thought Mercedes took a big gamble in putting an untested wet weather setup on the car on the track whilst the race was red flagged, but it was a gamble well worth taking and Ross and his boys all deserve lots of praise for doing it and making it work.

        1. I will have to agree here. Breaking or not I doubt would made much difference. Besides that big of a side impact would sure move your feet and legs about making it very hard to hit the break or even you did might cause you to loose the peddle.
          Further consider how close the wall where to the track at that location breaking could potentially also placed him right in the middle of the track which would been even worse. As pointed out one wheel up in the air and one ripped off break performance wouldn’t been the best. I’m not sure but I would assume the individual tires break systems are independent so ripping off the break system from one or more tires would still mean the others would still function. I assume they are like regular cars and have split hydraulic systems so failure on one or two tires would still allow power to the remaining tires?

      4. I also wondered why he didn’t break, did he think it was Hamilton he was running back into?

        What is wrong with you and Alistair? If Webber was a stupid man, then yes, he would intentionally back into Hamilton. But Alonso was and is Webber’s biggest threat. If you’re going to come up with conspiracy theories, at least let them make sense.

        1. If webber took out hamilton, he would have been as good as out of the championship. That would only leave vettel and alonso to look out for. Yes, Alonso would have been better to take out, but Hamilton would have meant one less championship contender.

          1. It is not about eliminating contenders, it’s about winning the tittle!!! Great Webber, nice job, you left Ham out but Alonso is the champion, eh?!?

            If the action was intentional, then Alonso would have been the man to hit. 2nd in the WDC and right behind Webber in th race. Some Ham fanatics sometimes just see the whole world conspiring against him

      5. Cunning Stunt 8
        25th October 2010, 23:11

        I think perhaps the issue with Webber was that he only had two wheels touching the ground. The left rear suspension broke on impact with the wall which made the right front lift in the air when he was rolling backwards. I’ve never tried driving a car with two wheels but I doubt there was much he could do.

        1. Cunning Stunt 8
          25th October 2010, 23:14

          As macahan has actually pointed out below.

      6. ATTENTION EVERYONE: brake is not the same as break.

        I’ve used them both in a sentence to demonstrate the difference.

        If you brake you have a better chance of stopping the car before it hits something and breaks.

      7. I saw this twitter message here recently from @VirginRacing

        If you tear front right and left right calipers off an F1 car and hit the brakes, would you expect pedal pressure? #justSayin

        Followed by in responds to a question

        Front/rears are obviously completely separate, but I think it’s quite possible that the rear circuit was u/s too. Will ask ;-)

        And finally

        @VirginRacing looked like left rear took a hard hit. My guess is no brakes. Thx for the insight mate.

        So if what ViriginRacing his hinting about in their communication with @Formula1blog

        Webber could try to break as much as he wanted to no avail, guess we will really never know for sure but I found this exchange interesting indicating that after that shunt he might or might not had any breaks at all. Only official word from RedBull Racing and/or telemetry data could really prove this. But at least this answered my question I had regarding the breaks. If you bust of the calipers on one front and one rear you no longer have any breaking power. Front wheel was for sure busted up badly and rear tire didn’t look to well of either she he might or might not had any breaks.

    2. Mike-e that’s a good point..and it’s lucky hamilton did get took back over…i wreckon he would’nt have had that great a visibility as well to see that it was nico in his mirrors. looking at the crash there are only 2 things he must have been thinking –
      Try and keep this thing away from the wall and keep the momemtum by moving across the racetrack

      OR

      I’ll back up and hit Lewis – LOL

      1. Lol!

        OR

        If I’m not finishing, neither is anyone else!

      2. Another one. Why Hamilton, doesn’tit make more sense to think he was trying to hit Alonso??

        1. The conspiracy theory is because both the McLaren and Mercedes are SILVER whilst the Ferrari is RED. Even out of the corner of your eye you’d know it wasn’t a Ferrari, but whether it was a Mercedes or a McLaren you couldn’t be sure.

          Having said that, I don’t think it would have made any sense for Webber to intentionally take out Hamilton, he needed drivers in play to take points of Alonso and Vettel, having Hamilton finish ahead of either of them would have been preferable.

    3. Yeah I was wondering that to! What the hell did he think? And also he turned the wheel so he’d roll back out on track. Clearly the car was damaged but he initially rolled backwards in a straight line and all of a sudden he turned the wheel to steer out over the track.
      Feelt so bad for Nico who could have scored maybe even a victory after Vettel’s engine blew up, which was soooo insanely sad! =/ Is Vettel the new Kimi Raikkonen with his unlucky problems?

      1. He didn’t turn the wheel for that, the front end was damaged and one of the wheels was totally off the ground, which is what caused it to go off in that direction

        1. I could see he clearly did turn the wheel. He turned the steering wheel and the left front was still on the ground and it turned.

      2. Uhm go look at the replays. One front wheel is WAY up in the air and the tire that was not in the air was the tire that hit the wall and more then likely had broken suspension and steering link as well.

        Plus to avoid hand and wrist injuries procedure is upon inevitable collision get your hands of the steering wheel and keep them off or find yourself with a broken wrist or ripped of thumb.
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocKfnKDklPw
        Look at around 23 sec. Hamilton knows crash is expected so remove his hands of the wheel. At about 33sec you have another crash check the steering wheel how it snaps back and forth. Could caused serious injury if holding on to the wheel.

        Actually if you check the onboard camera
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GJJIFpuTCA&feature=related
        at about 1.12 when he is spun around and crash is imminent he takes hands of the wheel, slams into the wall and grab hold of the wheel again shortly after the crash but it’s not more then fractions later that he is hit again. It actually looks like he is trying to steer the car at a 90deg across the track or at least it looks like he is doing a small correction to get his cutting angle across the track bigger.

        If he had hit his breaks and/or not adjusted the steering angle I think he would/could have gotten stranded in the middle of the track which would been even worse.

        It was unfortunate that Rosberg got collected but such is racing at times. Alonso got nicely by but Rosberg was at the wrong place and took the wrong path. Feel sorry for him.

        1. I don’t think Mark could have done anything better, he did hit the wall very slowly but he jumped back on track very fast after hitting the walls,poor Nico have now were to go.

    4. There’s no real excuse for letting your car roll back across the track like that. Webber got away with another one, yet again. Really he should be on the receiving end of a grid penalty for the next race.

      1. How about: It’s broken and isn’t responding. Would that qualify as a real excuse?

        Or what about: If I hit the breaks, I’ll stop in the middle of the track, whereas if I don’t I’ll end up on the other side of the circuit out of the way. Does that qualify?

    5. Was crazy (evidently) to roll back over the track.

      Crazier than trying to go past him by diving to the left, onto the grass, next to the wall? Nico has himself to blame just as much as Webber.

      1. Whatever! Nico came around a blind bend and had milliseconds to decide which way Mark’s car was traveling, then which way he should go.

        Only Nico knows what was visual presented to him in that moment. He shoulders no fault.

        1. Sure, ‘milliseconds’…it’s not Mark’s fault if Nico apparently doesn’t have the famed reflexes F1 drivers are supposed to have.

          Face it, it was his stupid decision.

          1. UneedAFinn2Win
            25th October 2010, 16:07

            Itchyes, you need to look up “friction”, “momentum”, “reaction time” and finally “trolling”

          2. I think this is a stupid assertion, if Nico had carried on the racing line and still clipped Webber then Nico would be getting a penalty for not trying to avoid it.

            Doesn’t matter how fast your reflexes are, you have no idea how fast a damaged F1 car without four wheels in the wet is going to stop or slow down, and what Nico did was his best hope of avoiding it without looking in hindsight.

          3. @Icthyes………..That is a bit under the belt and an extremely unkind remark about young Nico Rosberg? ………why blame the young man who was the innocent victim?.

            Of course it was Mark Webbers fault.This isn’t the first time he has taken other innocent drivers out.He should have been punished,leading the Championships or not,why should he get away with it??others are punished enough goodness only knows..

            1. I think Nico did go the wrong way but really he barely had a chance. Also, Brundle commented on the f1 forum that it looked like Webber had a left rear puncture so couldn’t stop I think.

        2. I was very surprised at Rosberg, it does show lack of experience. Every time I have heard or seen written comments by top racing drivers from Moss to Schumacher they always say the same thing. In situations like that aim for where the loose car is coming from, don’t aim where it’s going. OK he may still have crashed into Webber, we will never know, but usually if they aim for where the car is coming from they get away with it, if they aim where the car is going they don’t.

          He actually had plenty of time to make his mind up, watching, I realised he was going to the wrong side of Webber as soon as he changed his line, and my reflex’s are those of an old man, not a GP driver at the prime of his life.

          I’m sorry for Rosberg, but he is not totally blameless in this.

      2. Nico ran into Webber on a left hand turn, when Webber span Rosberg saw him collide with the wall on the right, to have turned right in that situations if just ridiculous.

        Webber’s fault hands down, his wheels didn’t lock therefore no effort was made to stop the car.

        Regardless of who he is, how far up the table he is, who his close competitors are or how far through the season we are, a penalty is deserved.

        I mean come on, this is way worse than Petrov’s incident off the line two weeks ago.

        1. @Ben,At last,SANITY is back…,I agree 100% with you..

        2. You’d have preferred if Webber had stopped his car in the centre of the corner instead?

          His car was heading off the circuit. It’s broken, so chances are he has no drive. He has two options: (a) let it roll off the track, (b) stop it in the middle of the track. Hmm.

    6. @skett it was his rear left suspension which had failed, the whole car would have been pitched at an angle, he would have instantly known it was broken, what followed then could be one of those conspiracies that rattles on…..

    7. He only had two wheels on the ground, with much smaller contact areas than usual. On a wet track too. If he did brake, he wasn’t getting much retardation.

    8. Oh no, another Timo Glock-Brazil conspiracy event? Rosberg probably didnt realize that one of Webber’s tires was pointing at the sky and the other front suspension had collapsed. Oh and it was sopping wet. If I were Webber I would have been keen to roll off the track instead of waiting against the wall for an unsighted car to ram him. Webber did the best thing he could in the circumstances.

      I hope everyone suggesting that Webber was trying to intercept Hamilton is trying on some dark gallows humor. That kind of accident, a car hitting another disabled stationary car, the kind that injured Will Power and Zanardi so badly, is the nightmare of motorsports. In today’s age of safety it is one present scenario with a good chance of killing a driver, or two.

      1. Glock’s Brazil incident was staged of course, you really think Lewis would be so passive to let a WDC go in the last lap when all he had to do was to pass just one car if he didn’t know something was going to happen ?, don’t be so naive.

    9. 1)
      Do we know that he didn’t break?

      2)
      Did the brakes work at all after the crash?

      3)
      When you, after something like a crash, are moving across the track with a damaged car, then the last thing you should do is to alter the speed and direction of that movement when you know that other cars are closing in. Why? Well, if a driver sees your car moving in one direction he can estimate were that car will be when he passes it and then chooses the best way to pass. If the driver in the crashed car all of a sudden stops or change direction, then it will just confuses other drivers approaching with speed. If you think about it, you have probably seen many crasches due to this.

    10. Loving Schumacher’s 2938-second lap time!

      1. He was 2 seconds faster than Rosberg on that lap!

    11. Some pls correct me if my observation is wrong…after mark webber spun around and hit the wall there was still enuf momentum to put him into a 2nd spin..with only 2 wheels on the ground I’m sure even if he did break,he wudnt have been able to stop due to aqua planing. Secondly if he did slam on his breaks like most people suggestdont u think he wuda locked the breaks n slid of jus the way he did anyway considering how bad conditions wer(cars breaking in a str8 line we’re slidn ryt of)..and if he broke lightly then maybe he would have stoped in the middle of the track makin it even more dangerous for him or a driver behind him,taken into consideration that he wudnt have been able to move after comin to a stop because he car and rear suspension was broken pretty bad.

    12. When I watched the replay of the accident I specifically looked to see if his front wheels were locked and then wondered myself why he didn’t seem to hit the brakes. Only Mark and the telemetry can tell us if he tried to brake, so it would be interesting if the team responded to this assertion. Regardless, it’s a shame that Rosberg was taken out.

    13. Most probably he was hard on the brakes but we have to remember the track was wet (and oily, also the crash probably severed a brake line or something.

      I don´t think Mark would put his life at stake to get Nico or somebody else for that matter out of the race…

      1. Exactly! I can’t imagine someone intentionally putting themselves in the path of a 100mph+ car to take them out, especially when the car they are in has 2 wheels and no control.

        The monocoque is designed to take the force of one impact. A second impact in the same place and it’s useless.

    14. I think some of you need to take a hard look at the onboard from Mark. He DOES take his hands off the wheel just before he hits the wall. As he hits the wall, he lets the wheel spin violently, then grabs it and tries to straighten the car out so that it DOES NOT roll across the track. Unfortunately, the left front was cockeyed and the right front is pointing straight- neither wheel changes direction when Mark is moving the steering wheel. Mark was unable to steer the car. It is unknown whether his brakes still worked and whether he hit them or not. It is also unknown whether hitting the brakes would have actually prevented his car from rolling.

      Webber’s Onboard:
      http://www.f1-info.cz/?page=showitem&path=SBOPLjQmJSBOPLjQmMHNlHNjHUM&item=HaPHUFOVgQnjOVoRkJOVnOiDPRnIKOOoJSHUOoMPSROVnQnkOoPRRNOVnPSPQUdSSaOiWQDT&sizex=HgeHdC&sizey=HaTHQX

      1. Looks like he did try to save it.
        Thanks for the link for race incidents, as I did not get to see the race but at least got to watch some of the interesting moments there.

    15. I can see now what Webber was trying to do. He obviously was unaware that the car was damaged beyond repair after the first part of the crash and tried to save it – whereas when I was watching it live, I thought he was crazy trying to park his car on that side of the race track. It all happens a lot faster than we can imagine, and slow-motion onboard shots can make him look a bit silly. It was obviously a spur-of-the-moment thing that he probably regrets now, but it’s not much good blaming him too much – as we all do silly things under pressure.

      1. Webber was a passenger… No driver has there hands on the wheel going into the wall, unless you want broken hands.

        Sorry M8′s, but Mark just did what any driver with common sense would do… let go of the wheel. The rest was Nico’s problem. Alonso got through with less time to react than Nico… so enough!

        1. We won’t hear anything more from Mark on this. He’s admitted he went off because of his own error. I don’t think he’ll go out of his way to confirm or deny Nico’s accusation, so that’s that.

          Bottom line: it’s a racing incident. Get over it, guys.

          1. Exactly. He obviously didn’t try to take Rosberg out did he?

    16. Please watch Youtube and you’ll see that

      1) Alonso already passed Webber when Webber was stuck to the wall.
      2) Webber suddenly slides to the other side of the track, just as Rosberg is coming.
      IMO Rosberg had no chance to avoid a collision.

      It was quite embarrassing for Webber, so he keeps his mouth shut. But maybe his team would like to tell what has happened.

      1. that’s a theory, RB going to the FIA so they finaly get rid of Webber and so be able to explain to the world why favouring the finger boy

    17. what a barbie, it’s Rosberg himslef who should brake.
      Can’t get how approaching accident in full speed is reasonable? He did control his car, Webber didn’t.
      Webber did minimum right imho. The worst thing would be to brake and stop the car in the middle of the track to be hit by approaching car.

    18. Well, he did take Hamilton out @ Singapore, i wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to do the same again.

    19. When I saw it live I admit I found it rather odd, but after seeing the reverse angle shot I don’t think there was much Webber could have done. His car only had two wheels on the tarmac and it was rather wet.

      And as much as I feel for Rosberg, shouldn’t he really have asked Webber himself about this instead of moaning on Twitter? Its a bit reminiscent of those silly Twitter arguments that went on after the Toronto Indycar race this year.

      1. On the contrary as long as there’s some public forum where the drivers are saying what they actually think I’m glad of it.

        1. Don’t get me wrong, its great for us to see this stuff, but he wrote “Don’t understand why Webber didn’t hit the brakes”. Well he might have understood had he asked him – I don’t know if he actually did or not, but the wording doesn’t suggest that he did. If he still felt aggrieved afterwards, then rant away.

          I just think doing things via the internet instead of talking to someone face to face, as with those Toronto spats, can be a bit childish in certain situations. But I do understand Rosberg’s frustration, I was gutted for him.

          1. Still I’d rather have this than “for sure…the guys did a fantastic job…I have no opinion about anything…”

            1. I like to hear real opinions too, don’t get me wrong on that, I just generally think that if you have a problem with someone, you should deal with it face to face.

      2. I don’t suppose Webber would have been available to talk to anyone after that incident and just wanted a quit time to get over it.

        Rosberg must have been gutted as well, so not the best time to see Mark. I suppose they’ll talk it over next time round in Brazil

    20. I like the way Alonso avoided it. Alonso turned right and then left to avoid it. I think Nico would have done something like that.

      1. I think it looks like Rosberg did the same. He thought about going off-line into the position where Webber would have bounced away from, saw that Webber was stuck to the wall and steered left instead. Then Webber did come off the wall and started going across the track but by that time it was too late to steer into Webber’s slide and go around the back. It was really bad luck and I don’t think Rosberg could have done anything different.

    21. Any chance you could take out the massive outlier lap (i.e., when it was red-flagged) as it makes it difficult to see any difference between the two team mates performance?

      1. You can click and drag on the chart to zoom in on the laps you’re interested in. It adjusts the scale automatically so the distorting effect of lap four is removed.

    22. To me it looked like Webber’s car was too damaged for the brakes to work after the impact with the wall. I thought the car looked like it was ‘listing’ to one side when slewing back across the track. Maybe this caused the brakes not to work properly.

    23. Accidental Mick
      25th October 2010, 16:50

      There is something else to bear in mind. Even on a normal road car the brakes don’t work anywhere near as well when the car is reversing. I forget what the percentage difference in efficiency is but it is quite high.

      I would imagine racing cars exagerate this discrepancy. So. in reverse, only 2 wheels on the ground and a wet track – Webber couldn’t have done anything differently.

    24. Charles Carroll
      25th October 2010, 17:03

      So, is there any more talk about how Michael should retire or should have never come back after this last performance?

      1. Now it’s, “the other guys all threw it off the road, so it doesn’t count”. :)

      2. Schumacher got dusted again by Rosberg, all weekend. If it wasn’t for Rosberg’s misfortune it would have been another beat down. We’re still waiting for the coming to grips with the car we were promised by Brawn after they redesigned the car to suit Schumacher after Catalunya.

        1. Charles Carroll
          26th October 2010, 3:48

          If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas. When Rosberg wins seven championships, I’ll say he’s better. Until then, I don’t care if Michael is towed along in a wagon by Ross Brawn, he is still the better driver.

        2. Lol, errrrrm ok.

    25. I don’t blame Webber… Even if he braked the car would slide back to the track… On 3 wheels it’s hard to break (has you can se on video)…

      http://www.f1-info.cz/?page=showitem&path=SBOPLjQmJSBOPLjQmMHNlHNjHUM&item=HaPHUFOVgQnjOVoRkJOVnOiDPRnIKOOoJSHUOoMPSROVnQnkOoPRRNOVnPSPQUdSSaOiWQDT&sizex=HgeHdC&sizey=HaTHQX

    26. a penalty for webber for letting the car roll accross the track, that’s the most ridiculous thing i have heard all day, the guy had an accident and some people feel that he should receive a penalty for ending up back on the track just after his accident? it’s called an accident, accidents usually involve some loss of control, so get over it, it was an accident…i seriously doubt he did it on purpose…

    27. Watching that onboard it almost looks as though the front wheel that’s still on the ground is locked up after the initial impact…it’s hard to tell though because of the spray etc…

    28. 1. Oh, I now get all the Hamilton fanatics that say Webber was trying to take him out, and not Alonso, at that point 2nd in the WDC and right behind him in the race. Webber was not informed that Rosberg overtook Ham, therefore he missed on Ham and hit poor Nico. So it works out that it was a team error… silly

      2. Even if Webber’s action was intentionally, he’ll never get a penalty. Imagine the media roar against Ferrari: penalty with 2 races to go + Hockenheim = media tsunami… ufuf

    29. Great race for Schumacher his best of the season. Feel bad for Nico a potential podium is lost on a race where they were looking very strong.Hope they are learning a lot from this season so that they can come back & fight for the WC in 2011.

    30. Let’s see, in absolutely horrid conditions Webber loses control, spins into the wall and two seconds later is backwards across the track. And some folks think he checked for traffic, figured out who was behind him, deliberately didn’t brake and then steered to so as to take Rosberg out in the same horrid conditions that caused his spin. All this from crap video that you’re lucky to tell what make of car it was? Slow-motion isn’t real-time, either. Get serious. Webber might have been stunned, whatever, but I distinctly recall him removing his gloves, cleaning his fingernails, eating a sandwich, talking to his Mom on his cell and putting his gloves back on before Rosberg collected him.

    31. Has anyone got the onboard footage from Rosberg? Would love to see the crash from that angle and how much he really could have done to avoid crashing into Webber.

    32. Is there any way to change the scale in the lap times window? I’m trying to compare the lap times of the two drivers, but the differences are compressed by the one really long lap.

    33. This is one silly conversation! I find myself wondering if any of the posters have been in a car crash ever… The truth for me as a young man with plenty of experience of car and motorcycle accidents, where I generally and by instinct seemed to be able to do exactly the right things needed to avoid injury and minimise damage is that it all gets mentally rather busy very quickly. (was a pity I didn’t just ride/drive better in the first place, but I digress). You could say “Webber could have played it differently”, or “Rosberg could have avoided the accident”, but NONE OF US WERE THERE dealing with the situation and conditions unlike the drivers who we are so blithely commenting on.

      1. Charles Carroll
        26th October 2010, 14:40

        I’ve been in two rather violent collisions myself. Being conscious, I knew enough to hit the brakes to ensure that my vehicle did not drift back into traffic. For matters of full disclosure, I do not possess a super license nor make millions of dollars driving Formula One cars. Apparently, if one does that for a living, they forget how to use the breaks after an accident.

        1. Actually my mother had someone crash into the back of her car a week ago and just lost all braking power after that. She managed to brake by downshifting a bit and then shoved in the guardrail to come to a standstill.

          From those replays, and seeing Webbers front wheel was in the air, it was hard to tell if braking actually still worked on his car.

    34. Charles Carroll
      26th October 2010, 14:11

      It seems pretty clear that Webber did not brake on purpose. Gerhard Berger agrees: http://en.espnf1.com/redbull/motorsport/story/32266.html. Not a very classy move by ol’ Weebs.

      1. Berger is bored has has been making some grand statements lately. I think he’s taking over for Lauda…

        1. Who in turn was only trying to rival Moss.

    35. I find it hard to believe that the same Mark Webber who was so concerned about safety that he didn’t want to race in those conditions, (like many of the other drivers) is going to expose himself to the possibility of a 200MPH torpedo in the vulnerable SIDE of his car… Sideways on when you are the recipient of the impact is the crash that breaks your hips (which can be well nasty, possibly involving that all important wedding tackle!), staves in the side of your head and generally makes you unattractive to pit girls etc, and I just can’t see that being an attractive option.

      I like conspiracy theory generally, but this one doesn’t pass the common sense test, IMHO, I am sorry to say. BUT. I could be wrong, the conspiracy theory could be right, (some of the 9/11 ones definitely are!) and only time will tell, and I am always grateful when people like yourselves make me look at events from another viewpoint.

    36. I don’t have an opinion on whether he tried to brake, didn’t, should have, or couldn’t have. I do find it amusing that so many are of the opinion that in the space of less than two seconds, Webber concocted a subversive plan to take out another championship contended with his broken car. While 1994 Schumacher/Hill incident comes to mind for comparison, the timing and mental calculations required there would have been far more conducive than this circumstance. Also, keep in mind that Webber’s ability to brake was affected by wet conditions and the fact that both front wheels (and perhaps the right rear) were disabled by the time he came off the wall.

      Despite what pundits (Berger, for example) have said, I find it to be very tall and unlikely accusation to suggest Webber tried to cause a collision with anyone.

      1. edit: I meant ‘left rear” may have been disabled….

        1. Not to mention the conspiracy theory relies on Webber getting it wrong as to who he was taking out.

    37. The explanation is simple! In fact no explanation is required for something so obvious.. at least for ppl with a bit of F1 intellect. After contact with the wall Webber would have been optimistic of continuing the race, which is what racers do. The broken suspension would have compromised his controlability of the car. He had NO control of his car’s ‘travel’ & was at the mercy of the car’s directional momentum. Unfortunately Rosberg could not manoeuvre around the stricken red bull. It was unfortunate that the track contained so many walls on the shoulder of the track! In hind-sight it woulda been best to steer across the kerb & go with it’s direction rather than steer across it, but for that wall being were it was. It is preposterous to think Webber positioned his car in order to take anyone out deliberately.. absolutely preposterous! He would’ve hoped of continuing!

    38. I meant to say.. In hind-sight it woulda been best to steer with the direction of the kerb rather than steer across it & to the right.. (because the kerb’s height had interfered with the steerability of the car). Cheers

    39. All these negative comments and implied intentions of Webber to “take out” someone are ridiculous.

      Please consider:
      1. Does anyone know if his brakes were left in working condition after the first impact?
      2. His left front wheel was totally off the pavement as his car backed onto the racing surface, I don’t think he could “steer” the car if he wanted to.
      3. Would ANY driver risk getting T-boned at high speed, risking injury that could end his championship hopes on the spot?

      Let the conspiracy theories multiply!

    40. If you are look this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl12WLsuCbI , first half you think why Webber didn’t breake but in the second part you will see that one of he’s front wheel is in the air, so maybe he was breaking…

    41. Not directly related to the article, but just wondering has anyone else noticed that the corner where Webber went wide and spun appears to be off camber (adverse incline).

      It appears that the track falls away from the centre of the corner. The FIA’s track design guideline / standard (Appendix O to the International Sporting Code) specifies, that adverse incline is generally not acceptable unless dictated by special circumstances in which case the entry speed should not exceed 125km/h.

      From watching some YouTube videos of laps around the circuit in the game F1 2010 (not the best reference I know, but the best I could find considering F1.com hasn’t uploaded an on board video yet) it appears the entry speed is around 150 to 160km/h.

      So yeah, I don’t really have a point, but probably goes part way to explaining why Webber spun there, and I guess if that corner is indeed off camber, how did it slip through the FIA approval process?

    42. Let me guess if this is right. Webber leading championship in horrid conditions choreographs to lose it around an off camber corner and plan to hit the wall and hope the car is still driveable enough to go back across the track and take out opponents.

      Wouldn’t this have just allowed Vettel to have the edge going into the last two races and hinder his chances?

      Has anyone sensible thought of the possibility that he made an error a lap earlier and was losing time to Vettel with Alonso closing in and took the corner a little wrong and had an ACCIDENT and panicked when he realised he was off and tried to keep on racing as most race drivers do and probably didn’t realise the car was as damaged as it was. hmmm.

      And Berger. where have you been for a while. what a great way to get back into the spotlight. noticed you mentioned great drivers like Senna, Schumacher and Alonso. Wonder if any of these have blatantly taken off other drivers to claim drivers titles. maybe you’re upset that Webber may win one and you never did.

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