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4, dull as hell

Vettel, he was just the best this weekend. The Hulk did a great job too but he lost to much in the race IMO

What about if Red Bull had let Webber through? What would it look like?

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Webber on 98. Only 1 point behind Alonso.
Vettel 92 ponts.

the first few laps were really rather good and then started a dull settling-down section. After the SC came out it was more confusing than anything. I would say 3 but I'll give it an extra 2 for some overtaking that we saw today.

7/10

I dunno, It maintained my interest. The director always seemed to be looking for overtaking or potential overtaking and the start and end parts of the race were very exciting with passing happening all through the field....

I guess I'm biased because I love the track, but I quite enjoyed that race...

(Maybe it helped watching the on-board feed too which picked up a few more moves than were shown on screen...might be why I was never bored during the race...)

Something that I feel was plainly obvious, at least in my opinion, is F1 has to do something about all the backmarkers in between the leaders on SC restarts.

To have something like 20 second gap between Vettel and Hamilton on the restart was pretty ridiculous..

Give them a wave around or make them trundle through the pit lane the lap before green, I don't care, it annoyed the hell out of me seeing all those cars between the leaders getting in the way of potential excitement....

I have no idea, it was a good rule as well. The finish could have been much better with the top three having to fend off cars with much fresher tyres.

yeah I am perplexed as to why they stopped doing it, probably something to do with not wanting lapped cars to be speeding around the track to catch up under SC conditions.

By that part of the SC period though (the final lap....) the incident should be cleared up, and they're all going to be under the limiter anyway.

Ah, maybe I've just hit upon the reason, they can't let them go ahead and get their lap back because with everyone on the limiter they'll all be doing the same speed and they won't catch up unless the SC slows the pack down to something stupid...

Still no reason why they couldn't trundle down pit lane out the way though....

It was average race. Early parts were nice, and there was interesting group for the minor points late in the race. I gave it 6.

I believe the stopped the wave around because it was extending the length of the SC period.

The wave around never happened untill the accident area was clear. In the case of Liuzzi's crash yesterday it was cleared in 4-5 laps so thats about when lapped cars would have been waved around which would have added another 2-3 laps to the SC period as the lapped cars went round to catch the line again.

I also think some drivers showed concern about been unsure when a lapped car would suddenly accelerate to pass them while they were still going slow, weaving around to keep tyre temp behind the SC not expecting to be overtaken, Although I don't recall there ever been problems or any close calls.


Something I thought would have been a better way of doing it was making lapped cars drop back rather than been waved around. One easy way to acchieve this in a quick & safe way is to ask lapped cars to enter the pits & then hold them behind the red light at pit exit untill the leaders had passed them & they could then be released to the back of the line. Restart could then be the next lap.

that would be a good idea like you suggest.

on the other hand, I feel it is sometimes unfair if for example you have managed a 30sec gap that all of a sudden because of the SC your gap is now only 1 sec. So in that perspective the lapped cars in between are (mostly) a small disadvantage after you gained a huge advantage. In the case of Webber it turned out to be a bigger disadvantage, in the case of Alonso he lost 5 seconds I think compared to the situation before the SC.

To me if the top cars want the "advantage" of lapped cars out the way then you have to let lapped cars get the lap back. To me it seems unfair to give one group all the advantages and another all the disadvantages, so I'd be against shuffling them to the back.

I would send them at the back of the queue and give them a lap. It would be advantageous for everyone I think.

Bit of an anti-climatic feeling throughout the race, although I thought the racing after the Safety Car was amazing.
A 6.

4. Pretty boring, nothing special happened...

and what is the standing of the grand prix??

Then you'd have some cars running one lap less than the rest and getting fuel savings, thus opening the possibility of some cars short fuelling on circuits where SCs are more likely and intentionally dropping a lap down to save a lap's fuel.

I'd just drop the lappers to the back of the pack. Once you've lost a lap you're usually out of the points anyway (Interlagos being a recent exception), I don't see why they'd get too upset about it.

The safety car is not here to make the race more exciting and people need to stop viewing it as such. It should only be used for safety reasons, otherwise we would get invisibris cautions like in NASCAR.

The best would be to keep the gaps as they are before the yellow, but there is no practical way to do it, so the closest we can practically get to fairness is to keep the cars positions on track.


These two groups are not really fighting together. The fairness to be looked upon here is within drivers in the same lap.

Destroying the gap a driver built is already a big blow, if on top of that you let the guy behind be on their neck, having taken no risk at all in backmarker overtaking, it's just plain unfair to me.