Formula 1 2013: Round 2 - Malaysian Grand Prix

EvilMonkey

EnterNow wrote: »

But he obeyed that order

No he just didnt get past

Myrddin

Fair point. Did he hassle Vettel all the way to the flag or did he back off eventually?

Though for all the "he's a racer & thats what racers do" type posters...he seemed perfectly happy being the beneficiary of a team order there in Silverstone. "Be wise now, be wise"...aka "Use a team order to get Webber off my gearbox"

_rebelkid

EnterNow wrote: »

Though for all the "he's a racer & thats what racers do" type posters...he seemed perfectly happy being the beneficiary of a team order there in Silverstone. "Be wise now, be wise"...aka "Use a team order to get Webber off my gearbox"

Exactly. The same when he wanted Webber "moved". He was quite happy to tell the team what to do, and would expect Mark to do it, but obviously didn't like it reversed.

I think what Ted Kravitz said (quoted from Webber at conference) at the end of his Notebook is quite interesting.

In that part of the race, they are driving at 80%, so as to save the tyres.

Both of the drivers were told this plan before the race, and they had a plan in place if they were behind each other as to what would happen. So how (or why) could (or would) Vettel forget this?

Nice insight into the minds of RBR.

Anyone

Its crap like is why people dont like Vettel

EvilMonkey

EnterNow wrote: »

Fair point. Did he hassle Vettel all the way to the flag or did he back off eventually?

Though for all the "he's a racer & thats what racers do" type posters...he seemed perfectly happy being the beneficiary of a team order there in Silverstone. "Be wise now, be wise"...aka "Use a team order to get Webber off my gearbox"

I think it was the last 2 or 3 laps.

Yes like all the greats he tries to influence his teams decisions in his favour.

ebbsy

Sure is it not a bit early in the season for team orders ?

vectra

vectra wrote: »

Breaking away from the vettel farce.
What in the name of god were Lotus thinking when Kimi was stuck behind the Hulk?
They should have pitted Kimi and gave him clear air. He would have had the jump on a few cars if they did.

Following cars into the pits was awful strategy but Kimi has to take a little blame for that.

ebbsy

Team orders eh ? That unspoken dirty word.......Mercedes as well today ! All out in the open.

I had to laugh at the horror on the Red Bull's bosses faces as they were talking about it afterwards, are they race drivers or not FFS.

frostie500

Disgraceful stuff from Vettel...does he not realise that in the F1 competition one of the options was Vettel vs Webber and he screwed a load of us out of points...he might have gained seven today but I lost ten!

Myrddin

frostie500 wrote: »

Disgraceful stuff from Vettel...does he not realise that in the F1 competition one of the options was Vettel vs Webber and he screwed a load of us out of points...he might have gained seven today but I lost ten!

Joking aside, what were your thoughts on the Vettel/Webber & Hamilton/Rosberg drama Frostie?

frostie500

EnterNow wrote: »

Joking aside, what were your thoughts on the Vettel/Webber & Hamilton/Rosberg drama Frostie?

I havent seen the race, my telly broke this morning and I've a really slow internet in Germany at the minute, so it's tough to give a definitive judgement on it but from everything that I've read I have got some views on it.

I don't think that anyone likes to see team orders in races but I personally dont have a huge problem with them. They're there for a reason-to make sure that the team can get as many points in the Constructors' championship more so than to help an individual driver (unless it's a situation like Ferrari where there is an obvious number one driver)

At Red Bull Vettel has been able to enjoy the benefits of team orders on numerous occasions, including Silverstone 11, whereas Webber could feel that he lost a world title because the team wouldnt intervene at the Brazilian GP in 2010 and let him win the race and thus given him a commanding championship lead before the final race of the season. Of course this all worked out well for the team and Vettel did win the title but it was risky not to use team orders at that race.

Webber has always been willing to do what was best for the team before and there have been numerous cases where he was told to hold station and save fuel/tyres/engine in the closing stages of a race. Today Red Bull issued an order to Vettel and Webber that ordered their drivers to maintain position and save their cars.

Vettel choose to ignore the order and overtook Webber. In many ways you can applaud Vettel for saying to hell with this I want to win but It wasnt a fair fight given that Webber had been told by the team that they werent racing each other.

Vettel looked at it from the perspective that he won the last title by 3 points so 7 points can be hugely important at the end of the season. It was a very understandable reaction from Vettel and one that I dont think anyone would disagree with....but he had been told that he was to hold station.

He disobeyed a direct order from his team (on numerous occasions) and he should be punished for it. However in F1 there are no * signs attached to the results and Vettel will have the points and prizes for winning the race. He will however also have to deal with a lot of negative blowback.

Red Bull (the energy drinks company) favour Vettel. Red Bull Racing however does not favour either driver. Horner has gone to great lengths to make sure that the machinery is identical and that the driver in front has the call on strategy. Horner and Webber also have their GP3 team so there's clearly no ill feeling from Webber towards the team about his status. His relationship with Marko however is much more complicated....

Overall I think that Seb was completely in the wrong, even though I understand why Vettel did it. He called for team orders earlier in the race and then when an instruction was issued that he didnt like he ignored it which is unacceptable. Vettel had 42 odd laps to get in front and wasn't able to do.

The crucial thing for me is that Formula 1 is the ultimate team sport. There's 5 or 600 people working towards one goal and that's to win titles. If the most public member of the team disobeys an order it has the potential to change the atmosphere within the entire team. Also, and perhaps most importantly for the next few races, Webber has always been a driver that gets his best performances when he's pissed off. He'll use this for motivation and he'll lift his performances to a high level following this.

At Merc I think that the team looked at the race and knew that Red Bull were out of touch and they decided to issue an order for their drivers to hold station. It was a different situation to Red Bull but the team wanted the same result, the driver in front has earned that position and with us not under pressure from behind it was wise to tell Nico to stay behind.

Any overtaking move is risky in F1 and both Red Bull and Mercedes knew this and they were looking to safeguard their points by taking away one element of potential for costing them points. If Button hadn't had his pitstop problem and was on the heels of Rosberg you can rest assured that the order wouldnt have been given.

So in other words I can see both sides of the coin on this one and while being able to understand why Seb ignored the team order I don't see how anyone could applaud him for it or say that "that's what a real racer does." He was in the wrong and I'm glad that his pathetic attempt at a post race apology was met with the right reaction from the press corp who all asked him tough follow up questions

Bullseye1

Watching the replay on Sky again. There was 10 laps to go when Vettle overtook Webber. What do people want a procession for the 1/5 of the race. If Webber wast happy with Vettles actions he had ten laps to get position back. I can understand the argument to hold position with 2 laps to go but not ten especially with two Mercedes in close contention. The overtaking manoeuvre was perfectly fair.

Bullseye1

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Watching the replay on Sky again. There was 10 laps to go when Vettle overtook Webber. What do people want a procession for the 1/5 of the race. If Webber wast happy with Vettles actions he had ten laps to get position back. I can understand the argument to hold position with 2 laps to go but not ten especially with two Mercedes in close contention. The overtaking manoeuvre was perfectly fair.

But at the same time you can understand that they don't want a repeat of Turkey 2010 when Vettel managed to have a brain fart and crash into Webber when both were driving in a straight line.

Edit: The race edit of that race from F1.com is still one of my favourites ever, I watch it regularly....great race.

counterlock

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Watching the replay on Sky again. There was 10 laps to go when Vettle overtook Webber. What do people want a procession for the 1/5 of the race. If Webber wast happy with Vettles actions he had ten laps to get position back. I can understand the argument to hold position with 2 laps to go but not ten especially with two Mercedes in close contention. The overtaking manoeuvre was perfectly fair.

Call it what you want, it certainly wasn't fair.

Bullseye1

Call it what you like it certainly wasn't unfair. Perfectly safe overtaking.

v10

Don't agree with team orders, I'd much rather see them race but as long as they exist both drivers need to obey. Vettel did the wrong thing today, Rosberg in exactly the same position did right.

hoodwinked

v10 wrote: »

Don't agree with team orders, I'd much rather see them race but as long as they exist both drivers need to obey. Vettel did the wrong thing today, Rosberg in exactly the same position did right.

that said, points wise who has raked them in and who was left languishing in 4th

regardless of honour the intent is to get on the podium.

counterlock

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Call it what you like it certainly wasn't unfair. Perfectly safe overtaking.

In my opinion it was. If you have an agreement before the race that you will not race each other beyond the last pitstop - and this has been reiterrated after the stop, then you are obliged to obey your team, if you have any respect for your team/teammate.

I don't think Webber had the pace to defend the position for 10 laps, but I do think that he was racing Vettel to the last stop in the thought that positions would be maintained after that. After the to-ing and fro-ing it looked to me like he gave the position up.

v10

hoodwinked wrote: »

that said, points wise who has raked them in and who was left languishing in 4th

regardless of honour the intent is to get on the podium.

Yes but that's what it comes down to .. It would have been very easy for Rosberg to do the same to Hamilton so I guess you must think Rosberg was wrong to do what he was asked from the team ?

hoodwinked

v10 wrote: »

Yes but that's what it comes down to .. It would have been very easy for Rosberg to do the same to Hamilton so I guess you must think Rosberg was wrong to do what he was asked from the team ?

i don't even consider the team orders, he lost himself a podium finish which could have ramifications at the season end for his championship

either way no one will remember this but he will always be missing the trophy that should be his.

hoodwinked

hoodwinked wrote: »

i don't even consider the team orders, he lost himself a podium finish which could have ramifications at the season end for his championship

either way no one will remember this but he will always be missing the trophy that should be his.

Well not obeying team orders could have ramifications as well. If Rosberg finds himself in a similar position later in the season, with Hamilton behind, he would expect the favour to be returned.

In the case of Red Bull, the gloves will be off, and Vettel has possibly alienated the only ally he has on the grid (except for the Toro Rosso drivers of course )

Sheeps

Vettel is a snake..

Sheeps

Even more so given the fact that Webber eased off at Silverstone last year for Vettel. Thats absolute bull****.

v10

But the teamorders is what its all about in this case .. if there were none then obviously its fair game and webbers victory to fight for. But the whole point is that vettel ignored team orders. Any driver could take take a place from a teammate who has turned down his engine and been reassured twice on his radio that his position was safe. As for ramifications towards the end of the season .. I'd rather have a teammate who might be willing to support me than a few extra points 2 races in.

hoodwinked wrote: »

i don't even consider the team orders, he lost himself a podium finish which could have ramifications at the season end for his championship

either way no one will remember this but he will always be missing the trophy that should be his.

Mental Mickey

lau1247 wrote: »

if he know he has to issue an apology, surely he would know not to do it in the first place :rolleyes:

Team "orders" are a load of crap! It's supposed to be racing

oceanman

i lost all respect for vettel after this.......he really showed his true colours today

Mental Mickey

oceanman wrote: »

i lost all respect for vettel after this.......he really showed his true colours today

What? By having the desire to win???

oceanman

Mental Mickey wrote: »

What? By having the desire to win???

team orders are there for a reason, if nobody obeys them whats the point in having any rules at all!!!!

GTE

Mental Mickey wrote: »

What? By having the desire to win???

Nope, by losing the race to the final stop, ignoring team wide orders to stay in formation due to tyres and disobeying the same agreements which are made pre race for this type of situation.

Very similar to the Mercs today though their worries were fuel related.

I am not a fan of team orders but the race is so dictated by fuel and tyres that only the team really knows better about how far the race should be run given a reasonable gap to any opposing teams.

In a plenty of fuel and reasonable tyre degradation situation then it would be VET, WEB and ROS. Or would it? All of the top 4 had troubles with fuel and or tyres and we know Webber could pull out a half second when needed etc etc.

Team orders are not the issue for me, it's more reality that at times the race is only from Lap 1 to final pit stops.
Vettel and Rosberg didn't realise this in the race, and one snapped and dicked his way up a position.

SilverScreen

Would have loved to have seen Vettel make a mistake battling for the lead and off into the gravel. Webber deserved to win that one.