Biggest shock of the week so far for me: "Ecclestone offers to waive race fee for 2013 German GP" :eek6: BERNIE VOWS TO HELP NURBURGING KEEP GP (PistonHeads.com)
2nd edition of McLaren's animated series "Tooned." [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Pwlf49TiY]Round 10 German GP - Tooned McLaren - Episode 2 Slicks - YouTube[/ame]
OK to talk about it yet? :biggrin5: Alonso really ran a masterful race, he looked a lot like Vettel did last year....get just far enough in front to keep them from using their DRS on you, stay in clean air and out of trouble and roll to the end. I'm sure everyone was just waiting for the Ferrari's tires to go off and see him drop back thru the order, but it didn't happen! Alonso may be on his way to this third driver's championship, but Massa is killing them for the constructor's, isn't he? And it's the Constructor's that pays all the money, not the driver's championship.... I was surprised that Webbo couldn't come forward after qualifying third, wonder why? Oh well, on to the Hungaroring this weekend.
Highligt to read, spoilers in post. Though this trick won't work for Tapatalk.... That ending was a bit odd though, I'm not sure about the ruling for Vettle's penalty. He would have passed anyway, if he had waited. I think 20 seconds might be a bit excessive. Though on the other hand, if the controversy of Red Bull's engine mapping is correct (in that they've managed to finagle a kind of traction control system within the letter of the law) then that's exactly the situation where it would have helped, since he passed Button on the paint, which has far less traction available than tarmac. End spoilers.
I totally agree with the mapping issue. Button actually left rubber down as he tried to match Vettel's acceleration out of that turn. And I do think the penalty was adequate.
That turn 6 pass made by Vettel was very telling. Vettel on the paint & he out accelerates Button who is spinning tires on the asphalt. That was pretty stupid on Vettel's part. Button could have been passed easily at that stage in the race. No reason to do it there that way. I figure Vettel got off lucky only to lose a couple spots via the penalty.
Well, we're obviously past the need for spoiler alerts at this point; the cows have already left the barn, so to speak. Sorry to anyone still waiting to watch the race on DVR or a re-broadcast. I think it would do no harm to set a suggested guideline for use in these threads on M/A so we don't need to sit at the keyboard wondering if we've waited long enough. Obviously no "punishment" for not following (or just forgetting to do so), but how about a 24-hour post-broadcast moratorium? Comment before that with either zero substantive details or a clear spoiler alert, fair game after.
UBB has a [spoilers] tag that could be added. It basically does what I did up there and changes the text to the background color until a cursor rolls over the text and makes it readable. Though I suspect Tapatalk and other mobile readers will ignore that tag just like it ignored my color change trick above.
The "catch" here doesn't surprise me. If I was going to cover all costs, I would expect the same. My guess is Bernie figures the F1 race has nothing to do with the reason the 'Ring is bankrupt and that the event always makes a profit. He also probably knows there's greater television interest in F1 on that particular track so there are greater revenues there as well. Anyone who thinks he cares one tiny iota about helping the locals needs to take off the rose colored glasses and look again. Bernie Ecclestone Offers to Help the Nurburgring (AutoGuide.com)
I've seen some speculation that fewer safe drive-off areas and more gravel traps would prevent that kind of driving. Then if Vettel had gone off that way, it'd have been race over for him. Thinking about it, that might be nice to see. Keep the drivers a bit more on their toes as far as leaving the track goes.