The Official 2013 F1 Thread. Spoilers possible!

Attendance expected to decline again. 100,000 the first year. 75 the second year. Maybe 65,000 this year.

Sauber's Monisha Kaltenborn, who is Indian, thinks F1 has completely dropped the ball in India. It's a huge market and while it has terrible poverty, it also has growing wealth and opportunity. F1 has failed to make inroads.

I think Bernie's shortsighted need to satisfy his paymasters is why. Bernie's totally focused on squeezing the last dollar out of every deal. He pays no attention whatsoever to marketing the sport or growing it. He bounces from country to country looking for the next government or business that's willing to pay his exorbitant fees.

Ecclestone has no time or energy left to actually market his sport. He could care less if the stands are empty and the host country apathetic. As long as he has his money, he's happy.

Hell, I firmly believe he was coerced by the teams, via the Concorde agreement, to expand F1's presence in North America. I think he was willing to let Montreal and the United States go begging, had the teams not forced him to find opportunities here.

more tire drama

holy hell, are we going for 5 stop strategies for tire survival this weekend?

Mandated pit stops based on lap intervals, a la MotoGP last weekend?

oh god no.. not that shit again....

:huh

looks like the moto GP guys might get rained out... which would be a shame as it was probably the saving grace for racing this weekend. Maybe something dramatic will happen in India such as KERS failure on a Red Bull not driven by Mark Webber.

I thought there was a reg about all 4 wheels leaving the track? At Buddh the cars are doing it more than once on every single lap.

I think Adrian Newey and Red Bull's accountant ought to stand on the podium when Vettel inevitably wins the race on Sunday. It's the design and Red Bull's financial muscle which is winning these races. The Red Bull car is unbeatable. Light years ahead of everyone else. The right men deserve the credit.

Hear hear!
I had high hopes for this year, and it started so well. Up until half-season I could convince myself there were three or four contenders... the racing was fun.
Now, its like Herr Schumacher all over again.
Its really not Vettel's fault, he is a really likeable fella, but his team has killed the sport dammit.

The moment Pirellii was forced to change tires the season was over. For whatever reason, be it traction control or downforce or car configuration -- the Red Bull chewed up the old tires and other teams had a chance.

Pirelli wasn't forced to change tires; they just didn't have a choice unless you want to see exploding tires in every race.

It seems to me that all of the other manufactures need to get off their ass and start creating solutions to their problems (like Red Bull does) instead of bitching and complaining (which RB also does). Red Bull started the season with a good car but they had some close competition to deal with. In a few short weeks they seemed to sort out the performance issues and once again have the car to beat. I'm pretty sure that's how it would be even if the new tires didn't favor them.

It was the same way when the double diffuser was banned. Red Bull didn't have the fastest car at the first race. However, their engineers and money designed pieces to make a faster car (imagine that concept in F1).

I thought designing the fastest car possible within the rules is what F1 is all about. I'm a Mercedes fan but this is racing.... and Red Bull is winning for a reason.....

I'm just tired of people bitching about the fastest car winning instead of bitching about why their favorite team sucks so damn badly.

exploding tires could have been prevented by not re-using the tires on the opposite side. these are directional tires and pirelli had unwisely consented to their improper use.

Pirelli was indeed forced to change the tires. Left to themselves, they would not have made the switch.

One cannot speculate as to how competitive Red Bull would have been late in the season on the old tires. There's no evidence either way.

Designing cars within the rules is indeed the goal. Arguably, over the years Red Bull have won while not doing that. I hope Mark Webber spills the beans once he's no longer obligated to keep their dark secrets.

I think it's wide of the mark to suggest the other teams aren't working their butts off to improve their cars -- either this year's or next year's. The difference between them and Red Bull is two-fold.

One, Adrian Newey is without question the best designer in F1, and he has been for quite some time. And two, Red Bull spend much more money than everyone else. Money allows you to waste time exploring different ideas. Other teams cannot afford to waste precious manpower on potential dead ends. Red Bull can. They just hire more people and spend more money.

There's no disgrace in that. I support Ferrari and that used to be them, the richest team in F. Now it's Red Bull. But money isn't hard work, it's money. Nasty, fizzy caffeinated beverage money.

Not entirely true. Teams were using the tires on the wrong side of the car, too much camber, too low tire pressure, running them for too long etc. All against the guidelines Pirelli had issued. Basically teams were using the tires in a way they were not designed to perform. Teams wanted to gamble and find the extra tenth here and there. This along with the sharpie of a kerb in Silverstone added up for too much.

After that the tires were changed, but Pirelli also took more control over tire pressures, camber angles and usage of the tires.

So its not something Pirelli was forced to do. They easily could have said we aren't changing the tires and you need to deal with it by using our guidelines. Like you said they did start making sure teams are using their recommended guidelines but they also changed to a construction that's less likely to disintegrate if its punctured. I'd like to know if every tire that failed was used backwards on the car at some point. At the beginning of the season I thought I read something about the new 2013 tires not being directional anyway?

Will the latest Kimi radio message get to feature on a T-shirt?

Team> Kimi. Get out of the fucking way!!!!

Kimi> Don't shout!

Congrats to the entire Red Bull Team.

At least Seb is a humble winner

https://www.youtube.com/embed/pTZSnqPp2NU

I'd buy that tee shirt.
Can't figure out why they didn't pit Kimi sooner but oh well.
Moto GP race much more entertaining.

Silence is deafening.

Money shot!