The Official 2013 F1 Thread. Spoilers possible!

Fielding a competitive F1 team cost hundreds of millions of dollars per year. That is why the constructor's title money is so important. The team principles are making decisions that are WAY above the drivers' pay grade.

Yup. Ya wonder if Webber is going to retaliate at some point. The team favors Vettel, and yet he still defies their orders. Wouldn't be surprised if Webber accidentally punts him off the track later this season. Vettel is obviously a great driver, but seems to care only about himself and not the team... sorta sounds like another German driver from a few years back.

Finally, the last few posts have seen the real truth of the situation. Vettel did more of a disservice to the team then he did to Mark Webber.

Webber had newer tires and had good pace in the last stint. Had he not followed the team orders to turn everything down and coast home, I'm sure he would have been able to hold off Vettel who was lapping slower and was on options that were several laps older. The options were only lasting 11-13 laps and Mark was on the harder of the two choices.

Whether Vettel likes it or not, he is racing for a team and when the team boss says turn your engine down and hold position, it is probably in your best interest to do so. The team would have known the lap times both were running and what tire condition both drivers had. Not only that, they would also have access to far far more data that we as a viewing public did not have access to. We do not know if the RB team were seeing hydralic or electrical or temperature issues on the cars prompting them to turn the power down and get the cars home. What we do know is that the team principal made the call to bring the cars home in the order they were running and one of the drivers decided that was not good enough.

As I see it, although it was unfair to Mark, I believe the bigger issue is between the team principal and Vettel. Clearly Horner does not have control over Vettel and clearly Vettel can do whatever he wants with relative impunity. Will be interesting to see how this shakes out over the course of the season.

I don't see Mark being an ass about it. He is a team player and will race on. I guess time will tell!

The fraud of F1 -
A contest between money managers is being disguised and sold as a contest between cars and drivers.

Brawn and Horner put their drivers in a situation where they were not supposed to fight for a win. They were willing to settle for less than a win.
They screwed up.

All or nothing, win it or bin it, is dead.

Neither Mercedes was ever going to catch the Red Bulls. I'm not quite sure what you're saying.

Jenson Button sums it up nicely, delineating the difference between personal ambition and the importance of obeying your team.

To me, this is a natural outcome of Red Bull treating Vettel like a spoiled child all these years. He has always been allowed to do what he pleases and he has ignored team orders in the past without any consequences.

He's probably wondering what all the fuss is about.

Lost in all this is the Force India fiasco. Two things occur to me. One is the obvious, what on earth did they do with their hub-and-nut design?

The other is their race craft: why did they bring in two cars on the same lap? Obviously Sutil's abnormally long stop made a mess of things, but separating the pit stops by a lap would have avoided that, no? Seeing the cars stacked up in the pit box reminded me of a sorry scene from a few years ago.

That is the nub of the issue. Webber is not a self-absorbed asshole. Vettel knows it and being that he is a self-absorbed asshole he knows he can mistreat Webber without any consequences (from Webber).

Then it really isn't "racing"! Shame, because I really like the machines.

Teams do this all the time. If the strategy and data point to having tire changes on the same lap, they will go for it. Its a calculated risk and the crews train for this. Sure there is some risk, and I suspect the team didn't have this problem on their radar, or they wouldn't have tried.

Again every last constructor's point means $$$, so if they can get away with a few tenths by bringing in on the same lap, they will do it.

These types of rules were put into place to bring down some of the costs to play. I believe they were trying to even out some of the team advantages and allow the lesser budget team to be able to better compete.

The idea was to increase the amount of racing, but I am not sure if they are getting their intended results when you factor all the rules into the game.

Team orders is just a term, not a Military Decree. So much hand wringing over nothing.

To be fair, the cost restrictions and the competitive racing are two separate issues.

With the former, costs were out of hand. The commentators were talking about teams which were designing cars and engines exclusively for qualifying. Rich teams were on the verge of building an entire low-mass chassis purely for qualifying. Crazy expensive. F1 still can't agree on a spending cap, but teams have agreed to restrict testing, restrict the number of engines and transmissions which can be used, among other things.

Lowering the cost of entry was a somewhat separate issue. Pushed by Spanky, the idea was to offset the influence of auto manufacturers and fill the field with teams that were interested in racing, not manufacturing. Spanky felt the sport was vulnerable to the vicissitudes of Renault, Toyota et al and he was right. His solution wasn't though. Caterham, Marussia and the now-departed HRT could barely qualify, let alone change the way F1 does its business.

Addressing the issue of competitive racing was actually extraordinary. F1 -- I believe both the FIA and the teams, separately -- polled fans over a few years to find out if the processional racing was a problem. Indeed it was. What was extraordinary is that F1 actually wanted to hear from its fans. Not every day that that happens.

In an attempt to stop the processionals, the FIA tweaked the design rules several times in the hope of making passing easier. None of them worked.

But two things have worked and have either transformed race days for the better (if you're me) or for the worse (if you think it's a gimmick.) The first change is DRS. Now cars aren't slaves to front end instability when they try to make a pass at the end of a long straight. Love it!

The other is built-in tire degradation. This one is more controversial. But clearly it's a wild card that is causing teams problems. And when teams have problems, it's harder for one team to dominate. (This is why there's concern about Lotus having an edge with tires.)

Blah, blah, blah!

Team orders is not "just a term." It's a contractual obligation, printed on paper and signed by Sebastian Vettel. He is in breach of contract. If they wished, they could fire him.

James Allen has a more strategic take on The Real Housewives of Malaysia:

And about Mercedes:

Good stuff.

JC

You sure about that? You sure there is no language ensuring that the team will do all in its power to help Vettel to wins the driver's Championship?

Seriously. Hand wringing.

There was not a single radio station that said "this is an order" or which told Vettel to give the position back. It was a mild embarrassment. And now high drama which the sport loves.

I doubt any of them are losing any sleep at this point. The writers have plenty to write about. The punters get to argue on the 'net. Hand wringing.

We "punters" get to do more than argue. After all we are the original source of all the money. We buy the tickets, subscriptions and sponsor products. Without fans, the whole thing comes to a screeching halt.

I won't support a sport with team ordered finishes.


Vettel's pass on Webber was the top highlight of the race.
I would pay to see that happen again.

I don't buy anything. I suppose I sit through the commercials though. And I am a lot less likely to buy a Red Bull this week. I am sure they are crushed.

BTW-I am not particularly a Vettel fan or a Webber hater. That is what the arguments seem to come down to; Webber fans vs. Vettel fans.

Yeah, as sure as I can be without reading the contract myself. As I understand it, it's part of the boilerplate of an F1 driver's contract.

Thou shalt obey.

Vettel is an employee. He shalt obey. A surprising number of people who are on current F1 teams have commented on Vettel's behavior. Interestingly, to a man they condemn it. I have yet to hear a voice raised in support of him. Not even his enabler-in-chief, Helmut Marko, has been willing to absolve him.

It's unanimous. He's a douche.

BTW, we were discussing the F1 driver's hierarchy a few pages back. I'd put Alonso and Hamilton as 1-2, with Vettel 3rd.

But a wild card may be revealed this season. We don't really know what Nico Rosberg can do in a good car. I have a feeling he's pretty darn good. Last season Schumacher's age was given as a reason for Rosberg's superiority. No doubt it was a factor. But Rosberg often did quite well, even winning a race in a very bad car. He may yet surprise those who don't rate him or who don't have him on their radar.

I'm not really a Vettel fan or a Webber fan.
I'm a Raikkonen fan above all.
"Just leave me alone, I know what I'm doing."
" I was having a shit."

me too (but everyone here know that)