F1 - Silverstone Qualifying ONE HD 21:15 AEST 29 June 2013

[gary]

Coverage of the Qualifying rounds for Silverstone this weekend will be aired on
ONE HD on Saturday at 21:15 AEST.

Coverage of the race itself will be on Sunday starting at 21:30 AEST on TEN.

Weather is expected to be fine but overcast on the Saturday and Sunday.
Many will remember the rain last year in qualifying, inundating the track before
Q2. When four cars spun off within the space of a minute, Q2 was red-flagged
for over ninety minutes with six minutes remaining on the clock.

Mark Webber has been a two-time F1 winner at Silverstone and was also successful
there in earlier years in junior categories, so it would be great to see the Australian
win there again, particularly on the back of his announcement that this will be his
last year in F1 with his move to be a driver for the Porsche LMP1 sports car racing
team.

Christian Horner has confirmed Raikkonen is "an option" for 2014.
Ricciardo or Vergne might also be promoted.

Lewis Hamilton, who is on record before saying he would have loved to be in
a Red Bull car, is under contract to Mercedes for a three year deal said to be worth
USD24 million a year.

Meantime, on June 2, Red Bull chief engineer Adrian Newey somewhat
embarrassingly crashed his Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Super Trofeo
at a race meeting in Silverstone on the formation lap whilst warming up the
tyres.

Video here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qH-pNjim3I
and outside view here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlS2f2bu4gg

Renault have released this sound bite of their F1 2014 V6 turbo engine here -
http://www.renaultsport.com/Come-on-...0.html?lang=en

Though not as loud as the present V8's, Renault report -

Originally Posted by Renault Sport

Fundamentally the engine noise will still be loud. It will wake you from sleep, and circuit neighbours will still complain. The engine noise is just a turbocharged noise rather than a normally aspirated noise: you can just hear the turbo when the driver lifts off the throttle and the engine speed drops.

[scagman (John)]

Originally Posted by gary

Meantime, on June 2, Red Bull chief engineer Adrian Newey somewhat
embarrassingly crashed his Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Super Trofeo
at a race meeting in Silverstone on the formation lap whilst warming up the
tyres.

Ooops,

It would be nice to see Ricardo step into the Red Bull.

Thanks for the updates.

Cheers

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

Fastest in first Q 1 so he's out to prove a point.
I reckon it'll be Kimi to RB and hopefully Riciardo to Lotus.

I base this on nothing at all.

[gary]

Originally Posted by JB80

Fastest in first Q 1 so he's out to prove a point.
I reckon it'll be Kimi to RB and hopefully Riciardo to Lotus.

I base this on nothing at all.

Hi Jarrod,

I noticed Ricciardo had the fastest Q1 time but apparently it was very wet
and only 11 drivers ventured out to do a full lap. All the others only did
an installation lap, except the Iceman who didn't get his tyres wet at all.

Sounds like the weather is similar to what we have here in Sydney at the moment.

The BBC have an article saying Vettel wants to be consulted by Red Bull
on who should be his team mate. I'm sure he does!
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/23081346

So if you were Sebastien, the $64 question is, would you want to have as your team
mate an ex world champion who will be in the identical car as yours and may beat
you, or do you want a less experienced driver so you can stay No. 1?

As most of the drivers freely admit, they are rarely friends with each other.

Daniel, understandably, is eager to progress his career and take the spot.
See
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/ricciardo-r...104345225.html

Originally Posted by Daniel Ricciardo

"Not only myself but Australia will miss him [Mark Webber] on the grid. But then that's my job to try and keep Australia still cheering for someone. We'll see what happens there."

It certainly would be fabulous to see him given the chance. You can't blame
him for having that permanent grin at the moment. 23 years old, being paid
€400,000 a year, driving F1 cars, touring the world, single with girlfriend.
Imagine how wide his grin would get if he were given an RB9.

[gary]

Massa into barriers again. Four times in the last three tracks.

[astroron (Ron)]

Hamilton on pole Yippeee
Cheers

[gary]

Fantastic qualifying session by Daniel Ricciardo to reach 6th.

No only did he out-qualify his own team mate, he out-qualified both Ferraris as well as Raikkonen.

He is certainly giving it everything to get that seat at Red Bull.

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by gary

Fantastic qualifying session by Daniel Ricciardo to reach 6th.

No only did he out-qualify his own team mate, he out-qualified both Ferraris as well as Raikkonen.

He is certainly giving it everything to get that seat at Red Bull.

Sure is Gary, I hope he does well in the race
But Hay! that lap of Lewis Hamilton was something to behold
Cheers

[gary]

Originally Posted by astroron

But Hay! that lap of Lewis Hamilton was something to behold
Cheers

Particularly given that in practice he was quoted as saying he wasn't happy
with the balance of the car.
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/23107303

Martin Brundle and David Croft were making light of how Lewis said he likes to "chill out"
before qualifying. Sounds like it has something going for it!

[gary]

Originally Posted by astroron

Hamilton on pole Yippeee
Cheers

Hi Ron,

I think I could hear you shout out all the way down here in Sydney when Lewis's left rear
failed on lap eight.

That's apparently twenty tyre failures this season, four in this race alone and Vettel's
were reported to have "cuts". Perez had two tyre failures over the weekend.

Anyway, Lewis did well to come back after being last at one point to end fourth.
Likewise Webber did well after that troubled start that saw him drop to 14th to get back
to second and Roseberg did well to maintain the pace at the end to hold him off.

[MortonH]

What a race!

[04Stefan07 (Stefan)]

Great race!

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by gary

Hi Ron,

I think I could hear you shout out all the way down here in Sydney when Lewis's left rear
failed on lap eight.

That's apparently twenty tyre failures this season, four in this race alone and Vettel's
were reported to have "cuts". Perez had two tyre failures over the weekend.

Anyway, Lewis did well to come back after being last at one point to end fourth.
Likewise Webber did well after that troubled start that saw him drop to 14th to get back
to second and Roseberg did well to maintain the pace at the end to hold him off.

Gary, it was a good race in the end ,but we shouldn't have to put up with such distractions of exploding tyres for it to be so.
I was as you inferred not very happy when Lewis's tyre exploded
But he did a great job to get back up to fourth.
Well done to Nico and Mark and also Alonso for making the back end of the race so exciting.
Cheers

[Larryp (Laurie)]

Another couple of laps and Mark Webber may have won. Great effort by Danny Ricciardo as well.

[goober (Doug)]

Filthy luck for the Golden Boy and Hollywood, but cracker last 7 laps. Felt very sorry for Lotus's decision on Kimi on that final SC.

[gary]

In an article at the BBC, F1 writer, Andrew Benson reports -

Originally Posted by Andrew Benson, BBC

Pirelli attributed blame to the teams mounting the rear tyres the wrong way around, running low tyre pressures, using extreme cambers - the angle at which the wheel is mounted on the suspension - and what it described as "high kerbs" at Silverstone.

Originally Posted by Andrew Benson, BBC

The manufacturer said, in its first statement, that all the failures happened on cars with the rear tyres mounted on opposite sides of the car from the one intended.

This has become common practice this season as teams try to manage usage of tyres that have been designed to wear out quickly to guarantee races with multiple pit stops.

Pirelli was aware of the practice but has now admitted it "underestimated" the effect it could have and admitted it "did not forbid" it.

It added that "under-inflation of the tyres and extreme camber settings, over which Pirelli has no control, are choices that can be dangerous under certain circumstances."

Article here -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/23155008

[goober (Doug)]

I read that yesterday. Interesting, Pirelli taking the high ground and handing out a stern "tut tut" to the teams.

[Barrykgerdes]

A lot has been said detrimentally at Pirelli. However the blame must be laid on the teams who took the medium tyres with the idea that they would have better adhesion (and thus speed) at the risk of higher tyre wear. Pirelli knew this and were specific as to how the tyres were fitted to achieve longer life but apparently this advice was not followed.

The medium tyres needed to give lap times of say half a second better than the hard tyres and last for enough laps to allow a tyre change in less than three seconds to be worth while (arbrary figures for the reasoning). This does not appear to have been followed by the teams that had the left rear tyres blow out prematurely.

Barry