[Round 5] Barcelona 2009

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MaxX
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[Round 5] Barcelona 2009

Post by MaxX »

Well, the BGPs and RBs are ahead, but what can Massa do here? I would be nice if Ferrari could come a little bit close, but I think the victory will be matched out between BGP and RB. McLaren and Raikonnen dissapointed so far, let`s see how far they will make it
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Re: [Round 5] Barcelona 2009

Post by Klon »

Why do I even bother watching those races if they always end the same f'n way: Button scores a (mostly) undeserved victory, because all other race strategists are as stupid as monkeys and Vettel gets stuck behind a KERS car... ](*,)
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MaxX
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Re: [Round 5] Barcelona 2009

Post by MaxX »

Letting score the "number 1"-driver 2 additional points is not silly at all, allthough i also feel very sorry for Rubens. I would have liked to see him beeing the well deserved champion in his last season but the Ferrari-stories seem to repeat. Nevertheless drove Button a great mistakeless race but the obvoius teamorder overshines his victory a little bit.

Webber with great strategy on P3 is also great, maybe the Red Bulls can make the BGP orders obsolute by beeing between them ;) (I hoped for that case before the start...)

Ferrari beeing more competitive was really nice to see, Massa would have had deserved P4 but at least he finished. Pretty much work for McLaren to do on the other side....
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AD
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Re: [Round 5] Barcelona 2009

Post by AD »

"Obvious team orders", I think I'd go a bit easier than that. Barrichello lost too much time in the middle of the race, although he was on a comparatively light fuel load, because apparently, that set of the softer tyres didn't work properly. Otherwise, he would just have been in the position to push for low 1:23-ish lap times that would have allowed him to keep the lead - especially because he would then switch to the harder and slower tire later than his teammate, so he could have made up some time there even if it hadn't worked out immediately after the stop.

The only thing you could say is that the team could have decided to switch both cars away from the 3-stop strategy they had apparently originally planned for both of them. In terms of risk assessment, it was the wiser decision to keep one of them on 3 stops, however, because otherwise they would've lost the victory either way if 2 stops hadn't worked as anticipated.

Also, it wasn't only the poor, evil KERS Ferrari in front of Vettel that "unenabled" him to score a higher result. Both times, RBR stopped on the very same lap, for the final stop, Vettel pitted a lot earlier than Webber did, so Webber could run longer with the softer (and faster) tires. If the car clearly was faster than the Ferrari, it seems rather incomprehensible that with Vettel, they apparently didn't even make an attempt to really take advantage of that.

I wouldn't assume Ferrari back up there, anyway. Granted, they did apparently make the car quicker, but reliability is still an issue, there still was some overconfidence leading to another major goof in qualifying and the fuel problem with Massa in the race now. They would have to start closing the gap in both championships right now, in a major way, these kinds of unsteady performances will not make them succeed in doing that, even if they would have the car now to score a few better results.
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Greyhead
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Re: [Round 5] Barcelona 2009

Post by Greyhead »

Yeah I couldn't quite work out what RBR were doing either, not trying to leapfrog Vettel ahead of Massa at the stops. That was a no-brainer, surely...

I also couldn't quite work out why Ferrari told Massa just four laps from the end that he needed to save a whole lap's worth of fuel. Surely they should have told him to let Vettel past with, say, ten laps to go, then he could have had a better stab at keeping in front of Alonso instead of having to lose so much time in those last few laps. Indeed, he only just finished in front of Heidfeld!

Looking forward to Monaco, Button v. Vettel should be a hell of a scrap.
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