Mark Webber leads F1 world championship

[gary]

After the safety car came out in Budapest
and Red Bull decided not to pit Webber,
it initially looked like a strategic mistake.

Team mate Vettel paid the price with the drive
through penalty and the question will be, did he
hold up the pack to help Mark?
Are all past sins forgiven?

The amazing power of the Red Bull, combined with
tyres that kept on delivering plus Mark's skill
and determination allowed him to create that
twenty-something second lead and we had one eye glued
to the online live timing screen and we were on the
edge of the seat when he finally pitted.

A phenomenal race and Mark has won more races
than any other driver in the championship this
year.

[torana68 (Roger)]

so im not the only one watching? good to see but he has to keep it up.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

No, you guys aren't on your pat malone.

Supposedly Vettel admitted he made a mistake with the safety car.

[MikeyB (Michael)]

What a stunning turnaround for Mark and brilliant driving on his part to take advantage of the unexpected opportunity. I'd been expecting a snoozer of a race, with Vettel driving away into the distance, no passing and no action!

Good to see this year's newbies moving up the order too: Petrov, Hulkenberg and Kobi-san all well placed, with the latter passing more than half the field to get into the points.

As for Schumi's shocking move on Barichello (and afterwards lying about what happened!) - I was expecting an immediate black flag. Hopefully there'll be suitably severe penalty when the stewards reach a verdict.

[astroron (Ron)]

Great Drive by Mark I don't think Vetell did it on Purpose, he is too mean spirited to do that, I think he was just asleep at the wheel
As for Shoemacher what a bloody discrace, It shows that a leopard doesn't change its spots, but he wont like in the past get away with it this time, I hope they throw the book at him
He should have stayed retired

[astroron (Ron)]

All as Shoemacher got was a 10 place penalty at the next race
He never gets any better than 11th anyway so it wont hurt him a bit

[Kal (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by gary

Team mate Vettel paid the price with the drive
through penalty and the question will be, did he
hold up the pack to help Mark?
Are all past sins forgiven?

Vettels radio was down at the time, so he wasn't asked to back up the pack. He was just snoozing

Great drive by Webber and he deserved the win!

[ngcles]

Hi Gary & All,

Yep it was an excellent drive by Mark to win what is usually the least interesting G.P of the season. He got a lucky break with Vettel falling asleep at the wheel at the re-start of which he took full advantage -- and good on him.

I think they ought to do something to improve the Hungaroring track -- there's virtually nowhere to overtake in an F1 car except the main straight that's barely long enough for the purpose if everything is in your favour. The track/race has been like this for 15-odd years and they need somehow to build in a couple of other places where the bold/skilled/desperate can have a lunge.

Races here are won by pit/tyre/fuel strategy. You don't necessarily have to have the fastest car or the most skilled driver. Alonso (2nd) driving what was clearly a slightly slower car, held Vettel (3rd) at bay with little effort for 30-40 -odd laps (mind you, I'm glad he did it ). The next one is at Spa -- my favourite track of the G.P season.

Well done Mark!


Best,

Les D

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by gary

Team mate Vettel paid the price with the drive
through penalty and the question will be, did he
hold up the pack to help Mark?
Are all past sins forgiven?

The look on Vettel's face on the podium suggest he was to blame for the mistake.

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by ngcles

Hi Gary & All,

Yep it was an excellent drive by Mark to win what is usually the least interesting G.P of the season. He got a lucky break with Vettel falling asleep at the wheel at the re-start of which he took full advantage -- and good on him.

I think they ought to do something to improve the Hungaroring track -- there's virtually nowhere to overtake in an F1 car except the main straight that's barely long enough for the purpose if everything is in your favour. The track/race has been like this for 15-odd years and they need somehow to build in a couple of other places where the bold/skilled/desperate can have a lunge.

Races here are won by pit/tyre/fuel strategy. You don't necessarily have to have the fastest car or the most skilled driver. Alonso (2nd) driving what was clearly a slightly slower car, held Vettel (3rd) at bay with little effort for 30-40 -odd laps (mind you, I'm glad he did it ). The next one is at Spa -- my favourite track of the G.P season.

Well done Mark!


Best,

Les D

Les, I agree with you, some of the tracks make F1 races just a procession,races won on Safety car or breakdowns
The body language of Vettel said it all, reminds me of a petulant child
The Bingle in the pits and the wheel flying through the air and going through the pit crews was quite scarey

[gary]

Hi all,

Interesting to read the comments and thank you Ron on the update on
Schumacher's penalty.

Vettel certainly sounded surprised and puzzled when he received the drive through penalty.

As he mentioned in the de-brief - "At the restart I was sleeping and I was probably
relying too much on the radio. In the first stint I lost the radio and didn’t hear anything.
I was waiting for an instruction when the first car was coming in."

In some alternate parallel Universe, a driver in the same car might be thinking
something like this -

a) I want to be world champion.
b) I want to win this race.
c) I definitely want to beat that guy in front of me.
d) I have the benefit of only being 23 years old.
e) I will never fall asleep or lose concentration because of a, b, c & d.
f) I know my car is faster than everyone else's.
g) I know this car ideally needs about 3 or 4 seconds of clear air
between me and the guy in front. I will drop back a bit now.
h) I know the one and only car in front will have to pit shortly.
i) My radio is not working. Big deal, I won't let it distract me from the restart
which I know could happen at any moment. (As they say in flying school, "aviate,
navigate, communicate - in that order".)

So whether a mistake or whether a miscalculation, it matters not now as the race
is run and so we move onto Spa.

[Jeffkop (Jeff)]

Originally Posted by ngcles

I think they ought to do something to improve the Hungaroring track -- there's virtually nowhere to overtake in an F1 car except the main straight that's barely long enough for the purpose if everything is in your favour. The track/race has been like this for 15-odd years and they need somehow to build in a couple of other places where the bold/skilled/desperate can have a lunge.

Les D

I dont know Les .. Shumaker seems to think theres plenty of room .. all you have to do is scare the other drivers into using it !!!

Vettel is a spoilt sook IMO. Fancy over taking the higher placed drivers on the cool down lap then cleaning up the 3rd place sign parking yer car in the scrutineering area.

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by Jeffkop

I dont know Les .. Shumaker seems to think theres plenty of room .. all you have to do is scare the other drivers into using it !!!

Vettel is a spoilt sook IMO. Fancy over taking the higher placed drivers on the cool down lap then cleaning up the 3rd place sign parking yer car in the scrutineering area.

And the Aussie commentator said the car has a long nose and it is hard to see where the front is
They can stop right up to the guy with the front end lifter but can't stop at a great big #3 sign

[multiweb (Marc)]

Good for him. The best way to shup up his critiques is doing exactly what he's been doing.

[ManOnTheMoon (Matt)]

If mark wins the WDC this year it will come down to race's like in Hungary where he made a win out of nothing! great driving that will win him the championship if he keeps this up. 4 weeks till the next race cant wait!

[sejanus (Gavin)]

I highly doubt red bull will win at Spa, though theres quite a bit of aero needed there it's a big horsepower track and mclaren and ferrari will probably edge ahead here unfortunately.

Same goes for monza as well of course. I very much doubt webber will win any of the next 2 races so fingers crossed he can finish in the top 3-4 to not fall out of contention for the last few races where they'll be strong again.

[torana68 (Roger)]

It was the best F1 I have seen recently, I was laughing at the pit twits, imagine standing there with the lolly pop stick, letting your car out and seeing it hit the other car, how would you feel? whats the guys new job? (he's probably making coffee with the wheel fitter from the Mercedes crew)

[MikeyB (Michael)]

BBC pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz has an interesting article on the BBC F1 website, Behind the scenes at the Hungarian GP, where (among other things) he talks about the unusual reactions in pit-lane to Mark Webber's remarkable drive for the win in Hungary. Apparently people from other teams as well as Red Bull were fascinated by what was happening on track and supporting Mark in his bid for victory.

[gary]

Originally Posted by MikeyB

BBC pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz has an interesting article on the BBC F1 website, Behind the scenes at the Hungarian GP, where (among other things) he talks about the unusual reactions in pit-lane to Mark Webber's remarkable drive for the win in Hungary. Apparently people from other teams as well as Red Bull were fascinated by what was happening on track and supporting Mark in his bid for victory.

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the link which was a good read.

During the television broadcast, as in the story, Kravitz had mentioned that
the Mercedes mechanics had pulled back their air guns to help Webber pit, which was
not only very sporting of them, but seemed to demonstrate how they were
caught up in the excitement of it as well.

Good to see they were rooting for him in a way.

I re-watched most of the race again a few nights ago and it is telling,
now with the benefit of hindsight, that even for quite some time after the
re-start, the BBC commentary team were saying how unlucky Webber had
been for the team not to have pitted him at the same time everyone else
did. In other words, the strategy of letting him stay out in front was not at
all self-evident to the experienced commentary team.

During the original live broadcast, I was watching the live timing screen and
Webber and Barrichello were the only two that did not pit when the
safety car came out.

When I watched again the other night, you can hear a mix of what sounds like
elation, concentration, urgency and determination in Mark's voice when he
comes over the radio asking something to the effect of "please find me a good
slot" for the pit stop. This was a guy who had been running qualifying lap
after qualifying lap to make that twenty-two second lead and if you saw the
segment in the pre-race show where Mark was showing how to drive the
Hungarian track in the Red Bull simulator, you can't help but feel he would
have been pushing that car in the real world at the type of limits that would
probably have you spin off in the computerized simulator.

That one pit stop was probably the most exciting in the season thus far.

[MikeyB (Michael)]

And Mark did it while driving Vettel's rejected "Luscious Liz" chassis!