2013 FORMULA 1 CHINA GRAND PRIX RACE ***OF COURSE THERE ARE SPOILERS***

My prediction for second and third was right! Really glad for Alonso here, well deserved.

Seeing a nice honorable win to a thankful fellow like Alonso is nice for a change


Rosberg's roll-bar was broken the entire race, and they're not sure if it was starting to fail during Q3 now. Just bad luck there, looks like he inherited Schumacher's reliability from last year! Really wonderful progress by MB though, they have a real shot at third in the WCC or maybe even 2nd depending.

 

Cherche d'or.....

 

Job well done for Alonso and the Ferrari looks like it could actually win this championship. Pretty cool.

Seb showed the world that he made the right call in Malaysia. Without those extra points he wouldn't be in the lead anymore.

Webber showed the world that he really is nothing more than a #2 and drove straight into another car.

This is going to be a great season with Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton and Kimi so close to each other.

 

My two favourite quotes of the day:

Nico Rosberg talking to the BBC before the start of the race about the soft tyres:

"I think the start of the race will depend on how many corners the tyres will last!"





And Ferrari's radio message to Fernando (having just set a fastest lap by some margin):

Ferrari: "........okay Fernando, there's no need to push!........no need to push!"
Fernando: "Yes!....yes!.....I'm not pushing!.......I'm not pushing!"

 

fun fact:

Alonso's race winning time was 0.016s slower than Rosberg in 2012. 1h36m26.945s to 1h36m26.929s



Even though I'm hot and cold about Ferrari as a team, I can't help but smile from ear to ear with Alonso winning today, really pleased for the guy and extremely pleased Vettel didn't get the jump on Lewis at the end there.

 

I think that's a little bit unfair on Webber!

As I posted earlier, the line that Vergne took into the corner did give the impression that he was opening the door for Webber to simply go through (sister team and all that b:censored:ks), but It turned out he wasn't opening the door at all - he was just taking a very late apex and so the door slammed in Webber's face.

Had it been any other car then I think Webber wouldn't have risked it, but as it was a Torro Rosso, I think he thought it was a done deal.

Basically Webber misread the situation but it was a crap line that Vergne was taking!

 

Fully agreed Ferrari have a real whack at the WCC with this one. Bahrain should be interesting, Red Bull will be stupidly quick there. If Ferrari can keep with Red Bull there than I believe they will have a WCC in their hands. Alonso is undoubtedly a superior driver to Vettel and Massa seems to be working better than Webber is for RB.

Mercedes is possibly the only monkey wrench in that situation as they have developed their car quite well so far and I do not believe Lotus have the capital to keep up with this level of development beyond halfway through the season (they have stated earlier that cashflow would be their only hindrance). My prediction is Lotus will be the clear best of the rest come Spa but the top three will have pulled away from them purely by development.

 

You're way too forgiving. Vergne was so much ahead at the turn in point, that wasn't even close. If the TR had been Alonso, all the knives on here would have come out.

 

this +1.

that was a very confusing door indeed, Vergne looked like he was taking a completely different racing line into that corner!!

 

It was a crazy line however MW should have had the small amount of patience and wisdom to wait for the next DRS zone.
Along with the short fueling gamble it shows his frantic state of mind that he has allowed Vettel to put himself into.

 

I was under the impression that DRS was an FIA controlled automated system. Why was it allowed to activate ?

 

Stewards analyzed JEV's footage and apparently he took that line the whole time. It's not that strange that drivers have different driving lines.

Apart from that, Webber has admitted he was 100% at fault. His front wing wasn't even at the rear tires of JEV...

 

She's way hotter (Alonso's chick). And I don't exactly think Michibata looks like a dog, very much fancy her!

Is Xenia's sister single?

 

There may have been an issue with the automatic systems again (as we had in Australia and Malaysia), so it may have been up to the drivers to manually deactivate the DRS.

If that's the case then the drivers could simply claim that by the time they realised their DRS was open they were already in the yellow flag zone.

 

The BBC's post race coverage had a (brief) interview with Webber after he'd come out of the stewards office and he said that when you see the footage from one angle it looks like he was alongside enough to be noticed and it looked like he was being allowed through (as he thought was happening), but other footage showed he was a bit too far back and Vergne was simply taking a late apex.

The way Webber was talking when he came out of the stewards office, no way did he think he was 100% to blame, if anything he was hinting that it was simply a racing incident.

From: Mark Webber penalised for Jean-Eric Vergne clash in China | Chinese Grand Prix | Formula 1 news, live F1 | ESPN.co.uk :

"Then we got to Jean-Eric at turn six and, yes, I was coming from a reasonable distance behind but he knew I was there. Initially under braking I thought Jean-Eric was being very co-operative under braking and I thought that's fair enough and we'd roll round there together and he'd give me some room. But then he came down [towards the apex] and I couldn't get out of it at that point. It probably looks quite clumsy, but it was disappointing that we made contact."

That doesn't sound to Me to be a man who thinks he was 100% to blame!

At the time of the accident Webber's front wheels were just ahead of Vergne's (I've had the race on a constant loop all day in the back ground thanks to the BBC's digital coverage! ).

 

This has got to be the best lineup ever...
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What exactly did David Coulthard mean on the podium when he said to Fernando?:

".......We can see your girlfriend is down there today so I'm sure you'll be having a private celebration tonight!

 

?
Granted I don't have BBC after race commentary with infinity replay so I have to rely on FIA sources etc... (who NEVER lie! ).

 

1) Nah! - I prefer blondes!

2) They're rubbish at F1 predictions! - not one of the drivers on those boards made the podium!

 

Dirty Dave

yarrrr

 

He admitted it was his mistake to the FIA but trust Me, he doesn't believe it was 100% his fault!

 

It's estimated that Raikkonen lost 0.25 seconds a lap because of the Mexican's antics (what was it with the mexicans today? Cinqo de Mayo celebrations are still far off!). Collision happened around lap 16, so Kimi lost 10 seconds, not including the time lost because he couldn't overtake Hamilton.

Still doubt he could've taken the win with Alonso's pace though.

 

Alonso cruises, Kimi impresses, Hamilton hangs on, Vettel tries, and Massa fades

But seriously, this was an outstanding race and extremely fun to watch.

 

They are quite nice-looking. I thought they could have smiled more during the podium ceremony... they were wearing rather stony-expressions at that time.

All the best,
Andrew.

 

Where was this?Thanks