The Official 2013 F1 Thread. Spoilers possible!

good points.... funny how no one complains about cars having to manage fuel....

and this just in:

tire swapping... and why teams do it

good article: LINK

After the first pace car, Mercedes to Nico Rosberg he had too much fuel and needed to burn some off to avoid a weight problem.

Speaking of which, NBC's ineptitude extends to the race coverage, too. SPEED never once missed a restart. NBC managed to miss the vital last restart of the race. Somehow they filled all the safety car time with blather, then went to commercial for the restart. Never replayed it, either. Dolts.

Mercedes are now thinking about keeping Ross Brawn around for another season, now that things are going well.

He wants to be there. And Paddy Lowe is making all the right noises. But Mercedes management is overstuffed at the moment with Toto Wolfe also trying to be team boss, although they're trying to make a virtue out of it.

A bit of a mess over there and I see Lauda's hand in trying to force Brawn out. Now that Mercedes are front of the grid his machinations look unproductive.

Oddly enough Vettel had NEVER won an F1 race that Alonso started ahead of him on the grid while Alonso has won four times after starting behind Vettel. That is one-eighth of Alonso's wins.

Vettel is almost unstoppable from the front row, but only meh once he drops out of the first two rows in qualifying. He only has four podium finished in races he started worse than 4th in. Alonso has WON races from as far back as 15th.

These are interesting statistics, but one must always keep in mind the anomalies of sample size. The main reason Alonso has won more races from behind is because the Ferrari typically qualifies poorly and he has a lot more opportunities. Conversely, Vettel tends to qualify exceptionally well and thus has many fewer opportunities.

And you can look at it as Alonso typically having a competitive car, but doing a lousy job at qualifying, so he ends up with slower cars in front of him. Conversely, Vettel may do a much better job of maximizing his qualifying performance and thus when he is down the grid, he is surrounded by faster cars.

In the end, it is final results that matter and Vettel is getting better results.... period. (Believe me, I'm not a Vettel fan, but a spade is a spade.)

- Mark

This made me remember some of the stupid tire rules the FIA has tried in the past:

- Grooved tires?!?

- Not changing tires during an entire race weekend?!?!?! (ask Kimi!)

- and now the opposite, purposely fast degrading tires?!

This is working out about as well as when they tried to increase passing by making the cars narrower!?!

I understand sample size and statistical validity. I understand that this is discrete ordinal data. I have a Minitab Project going with qualifying and race results going back to the start of 2008.

Statistically speaking Vettel has a mean qualifying to race finish position decline of 1.66 spots and this is significant at the 5% level. Alonso's mean finish position is statistically no different than his mean starting position. However, Alonso's median difference is a statisically significant 1 spot better, also at the 5% level.

In other words, there is statistical evidence that Alonso finishes better than he qualifies, while the opposite is true for Vettel.

Vettel has never won a race from outside the first or second row. Alonso has won races from the fourth, sixth and eighth row. Kimi and Button have won from the fourth row also. If Vettel cannot run away and hide from the front of the pack he becomes a non-factor. Several other drivers can win or contend from pretty far back in the pack.

Vettel is the PERFECT driver for the current RBR car and strategy running under the current rules. We will know a lot more about how good a driver he is next year with all the rule changes.

You're statistics are stronger than mine, but I think you've done a good job summarizing what the say.

Again though, you can look at this two ways - that Alonso is a great driver in the race proper or that he is a lousy driver at qualifying.

- Mark

Without looking up his stats at Renault, I would say that it's a stretch to label Alonso as a bad qualifier.

It's obvious that he has never had a dominant car at Ferrari. His teammate, whom he routinely outqualifies, will testify to that.

Vettel has been driving the dominant car for the last 3-4 years. If he weren't winning, he would deserve to be fired. I don't know what the car/driver ratio is, but it's got to be 80% car, if not more.

I accept that Vettel is a splendid driver. I also believe that the Red Bull's engine and design do not lend themselves to overtaking and winning from behind. They don't have the top end speed of a Force India or a Ferrari, and most passing is done in DRS zones. DRS doesn't seem to help the Red Bull as much as it does other cars. I find this highly amusing.

The Red Bull loves clean air and fast corners, where it can set fast laps and sprint off to large leads. It is a machine built for qualifying and racing from the front.

I believe all of the above to be true. And none of it indicates that Alonso is a bad qualifier.

Besides the fact that statistics can be used to show almost anything, how would Senna's stats compare to Vettel's? I tend to think Senna would look much worse, but he was probably the greatest qualifier to ever live. I think your stats show Vettel is pretty good too, Alonso, not so much.

In 2004 Alonso won 6 poles. In 2005 Alonso won 6 poles.

Both seasons, going against the Ferrari machines of Schumi, Brawn and Todt.

You'll never convince me he's a poor qualifying driver. It's the car, not the driver.

Statistics can only mislead those who do not understand statistics. I am curious how you concluded my statistics show Alonso to be not so good a driver?

To add some support to your theory, Webber's 9 wins at RBR have all come from row one starts. So 37 of 38 RBR wins came from the front row and one from the second row.

Only to the extent that in F1, it is almost always more about the car than the driver. To the extent that the driver matters in F1 (which is not much overall), I think you do have to ping Alonso for poor qualifying, at least compared to Vettel.

- Mark

If Alonso qualified in an RBR in the same positions he does in the Ferrari you might have a point. But Alonso is in a Ferrari and Vettel in an RBR which is really designed to run in clean air, qualify up front and then run away and stay in the clean air.

Really, Newey designed the perfect car for the current regs and Vettel is the perfect driver for that car. How he would fare in another car is just speculation.

Give me a ride , I'll out qualify all of them. With no tungsten weights needed. And I won't whine about making 17 million a year.

Heads up the race is live on CNBC at 7:30 eastern.
My cable company didn't show any listing for F1 on Sunday except the delayed race on NBC sports.
Too bad we're out of town until Sunday early afternoon. At least I have the dvr set for something....

Thanks. I'd searched my program listings and it wasn't even shown on that channel. I'm beginning to dread how NBC will screw up the Premier League. Their organization is dismal.

They're screwing up my outdoor motocross viewing already. The TV listings are sometimes the racetrack's name, sometimes the main sponsor's. only sometimes does the title include 'motocross', or 'moto'.

Not to mention first and second moto coverage is split between NBC, and Fueltv.