frankbooth
Super Member
Your ignorance of the sport is showing. Please move on...
Sebastian Vettel on pole
- Thread starter epifanatic
- Start date
Your ignorance of the sport is showing. Please move on...
usedto
Lunatic Member
At least mine is selective.
I understand the "team" concept. Then don't call it a race or sport.
Surely you are familiar with team sports. The Red Bull team won the race and their drivers finished 1-2.
usedto
Lunatic Member
I understand that.
It's like NASCAR - the points championship can go to a driver who wins the pole for every race, leads the most laps for each race, but only comes in second for each race. He wins a prize for consistency.
Now go ask the driver if he wants to win the championship that way, or would he have rather won a race or two to go along with it.
I saw that happen in drags a few years back between (I think) Force and Pedregon - one threw a race so his team member could inch the other out in points. Great strategy, but I, as a spectator, would rather see a race to the win, not the wallet.
I would like to see a thrilling race with thrilling overtakes, I would like to see to win the best driver, irrespective of his nationality. Team orders or similar strategies suck. Apparently I am both old fashioned and naive.
kneeOhFight
Addicted Member
That's exactly what occurred. The decision to dial back the engine mapping in order to conserve them for future races, and conserve tires to preserve the team sweep were both rational, pragmatic responses to what the game has become, and this incident has really exposed it.
F1 is an engineering/innovation competition for prize money and glory, and it is fueled by staggering amounts of sponsor/ad money. The drivers have become almost necessary evils to prevent it from becoming a robotics competition. The decisions made (and ignored by Seb Vettel) had everything to do with the $350-400 million USD it costs to navigate the top of the F1 heap, and nothing to do with sport. The potential negative impact of not having those two rolling advertisements at the head of the field carried the day. The oceans of money that are the lifeline of the sport are now strangling it, that much has been made abundantly clear. If this isn't enough of an alarm bell to cause change, the multi billion dollar golden goose that is Gran Prix racing will die.
I'd be very surprised to learn that Mark Webber (like his Aussie compatriot and multiple Moto GP world champion Casey Stoner just did) isn't on the brink of quitting the top formula of motorsport because of what it has become and where it is headed. He is, first and foremost, a true sportsman.
But the driver's championship is just a footnote to the season. Sure, it matters to the drivers, but the teams - the people who design, build, maintain, and own the cars - are in it for the constructor's championship. The order the team finishes at the end of the year determines who gets what sized slice of the money F1 hands out, the driver's championship pays nothing. The driver may get an endorsement, but the team gets nothing for having their driver win the driver's championship. So they want their drivers to do well, but 1 + 2 adds up to the same as 2 + 1.
Look at Kimi Raikkonen. He finished 3rd in the driver's championship last year. Nice result. This year, his car is car #7 - not #3. That's because the Red Bull Team won the 2012 constructor's championship, they got to number their 2013 cars 1 & 2. Ferrari came in #2, so their 2013 cars are 3 & 4, and McLaren came in 3rd, their 2013 cars are 5 & 6. Lotus, the Team Kimi drives for, came in 4th, so he got #7.
Or look at Lewis Hamilton. Came in 4th in the 2012 driver's, drives car #10 this year, Massa who finished 7th last year and drives car #4 this year, or Perez, who finished 10th last year and drives car #6 this year.
Point is, team standings mean everything in F1. I'm not sure F1 discloses the dollar amounts of what they pay back to the teams, but it's a lot. There are drivers in the field that have to pay millions of dollars a year to the team just to get to drive. It was said that Vitaly Petrov paid $20 million to get to race for 2 seasons. His money dried up, he's not racing this year.
kneeOhFight
Addicted Member
Lots of uproar about this issue. Thankfully, it includes some well conceived editorial journalism. Here is another piece on the matter with strong historical perspective.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...ll-have-loved-every-minute-of-it-8549034.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...ll-have-loved-every-minute-of-it-8549034.html
For recent historical perspective, it should be noted that there was a rule prohibiting team orders as recently as 2011 - but the teams found ways around or disregarded it and accepted the penalty - and it was dropped.
With the controversy this race has stirred up, it wouldn't surprise me to see it reinstated. And it wouldn't surprise me to see the teams come up with ingenious ways to skirt it.
With the controversy this race has stirred up, it wouldn't surprise me to see it reinstated. And it wouldn't surprise me to see the teams come up with ingenious ways to skirt it.
bogle111
A Canadian enjoying Wales
Thank you for that.
bogle111
A Canadian enjoying Wales
Jean Todt was responsible for the change, cause Mosley screwed Ferrari boss Todt because of it.
kneeOhFight
Addicted Member
Something quite notable that hasn't yet been mentioned in this thread is, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were also instructed by Ross Brawn to maintain and finish in their respective P3 and P4 slots for the same reasons, which they did. By rights, the position (or, at least the opportunity to try and regain it) belonged to Rosberg, something Hamilton openly admitted to the world during the podium interviews. The four fastest cars and drivers on the day were prohibited from competing with each other, not just the two Red Bulls. Rosberg appeared to be just about as pleased as Webber did. It's hard to say how Ferrari would have played it, but I'd bet that if Alonso had still been in the race and in the thick of it, it wouldn't have played out in the absurd fashion that it did. Ross Brawn has been thought to be on his way out of Mercedes anyway. I expect they will use this incident to grease the skids for him.
nasadowsk
Bow:good, hunt:needs work
^^^ This
Every time I'm told F1 is "real racing" and "real racers" and "real race cars", I turn on the TV and see scripted **** on a 'race track'. What does it matter Red bull finished 1-2 this race? Ferrari will whine, get a rules change, and finish 1st next them, then some other team will whine, get a rules change, and finish 1st.....
Repeat repeat repeat.
I mean, seriously, there's controversy here because the guy who was told to finish 2nd in the race had the balls to finish 1st?
Why don't they just announce the finish at the beginning of the 'race' to save us channel flippers the time?
I'm trying to think of another sport where it's not only accepted, it's actually a controversy when you don't sandbag...
Pretty much. Even IndyCar sounds more interesting this year. The 500 might actually be worth watching this year.
Ever notice how F1 fans have to rag to the world how great F1 is and put EVERY other form of racing down? Tells you a lot about F1 right there...
kneeOhFight
Addicted Member
All that this and the rest of your post is is an indication of your perception of the sport, and not necessarily anything to do with the realities of it. Ever notice how strident American style racing fans feel the need to rag to the world about F1?
epifanatic
acoustically suspended
Originally Posted by bentpencil
So this is what you NASCAR bashers call "real racing"? Some d*ckhead wearing headphones and pushing a pencil tells you who is supposed to win the race?
I don't recall anyone on this thread "bashing" NASCAR, but you feel the need to "bash" F1? Typical...
If your'e not interested in F1 keep your nose out of it, find a cable thread to **** on.
So this is what you NASCAR bashers call "real racing"? Some d*ckhead wearing headphones and pushing a pencil tells you who is supposed to win the race?
I don't recall anyone on this thread "bashing" NASCAR, but you feel the need to "bash" F1? Typical...
If your'e not interested in F1 keep your nose out of it, find a cable thread to **** on.
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usedto
Lunatic Member
If I'm not mistaken, you seem to crap on every other "American" racing thread that ever gets started here.
If your perception of racing is running around the track all day as fast as you can, then tapping your brakes at the end to become the first loser so your bunk buddy can win and make your bosses rich, then GREAT!!
I guess it's all a matter of view point.
You come to the plate, two men on base. The manager sends the signal for you to bunt.
But you know you can win the game with a home run, so you swing for the fence. And pop out. Your team loses an American game because you didn't do as the manager of the team instructed you to.
Individual tries to be heroic, team loses. It's sort of a prerequisite, in a team sport, to do what's best for the team even at the cost of personal glory for the individual. If the car Vettel was attempting to overtake was from a different team, you can bet his managers would be telling him to overtake if possible. Because that would be good for the team.
Not me, I've stated several times right here that I enjoy NHRA. I enjoy SCORE offroad trucks and I have a buddy who supplies drivetrain components to many of the top teams. My dad was a diehard NASCAR fan, he also liked country music. Maybe my apathy towards both stems from wanting to be a different person than he was, he sure as hell never understood rock music or F1.
And one more little tidbit:
As you might have noticed from all of the links posted, there's not really anybody out there who is all that happy with team orders in F1. But as it stands right now, that's the way the rules are written. The rules change constantly in F1, if there's enough stink, they'll change this again.
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bogle111
A Canadian enjoying Wales
You make some good points here, especially if Alonso was in there. Re Ross Brawn, do you think he would go to a team like Force India? LOT of potential thrre.
kneeOhFight
Addicted Member
Ross Brawn isn't a young man. If he isn't 60 yet, he soon will be. He has conquered Formula One with Benneton, Ferrari, and the rebranded Honda team he bought, Brawn GP. He's quite wealthy from that long career of incredible successes and the sale of Brawn GP to Mercedes. The only current name in the sport that deserves to be considered near his level is Adrian Newey. There aren't any more dragons in F1 for him to slay. I don't see why he wouldn't be considered as strong a candidate for FIA President as Jean Todt, if he even wanted to bother. I expect Mercedes will sponsor a year or two of mandatory gardening leave for him, given his inside knowledge of their systems.
kneeOhFight
Addicted Member
It didn't tale new Mercedes F1 brass Niki Lauda and Toto Wolff to hang Brawn out to dry over this affair. No surprises here.
http://www.f1today.net/en/news/lauda-and-wolff-sides-against-brawn-over-rosberg-team-order
http://www.f1today.net/en/news/lauda-and-wolff-sides-against-brawn-over-rosberg-team-order
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