Formula 1 General Chat & Discussion

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according to Lauda they forgot to close that gap in the rules.
so they wanted to forbid but didn't write the rules that way.

Red Bulls allowed to start.
Further decisions after the race.

Absolute incredible and shocking news about the RedBulls.

Newsflash !!!! :

Red Bull's engine maps referred to German Grand Prix stewards by FIA :
The FIA has referred Red Bull to the stewards of the German Grand Prix for a suspected breach of Formula 1's technical regulations.
A statement released by FIA Formula 1 technical delegate Jo Bauer said that the matter related to the engine torque maps on both Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber's cars.
The FIA highlighted that the reduced torque in the mid rpm range on both cars was a breach of the regulations in itself, but also because it could offer an illegal aerodynamic benefit as well.
This suggests that the FIA suspects that there could be a benefit related to the exhaust blown diffuser technology that was effectively curbed at the start of the season through a package of regulations that included those covering engine mapping.
"Having examined the engine base torque map of car numbers 01 and 02 it became apparent that the maximum torque output of both engines is significantly less in the mid rpm range than previously seen at other events," said Bauer in the statement.
"In my opinion this is therefore in breach of article 5.5.3 of the 2012 Formula 1 technical regulations as the engines are able to deliver more torque at a given engine speed in the mid rpm range.
"Furthermore this new torque map will artificially alter the aerodynamic characteristics of both cars which is also in contravention of TD 036-11. I am referring this matter to the stewards."
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner sayd: "I'm not aware of any irregularities. The result was declared after qualifying."

Kind Regards
Shaky-Schumi

Does anybody know anything of an investigation to Red Bull?
It seems that something happened in the yesterday qualification.

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Here are the results of the qualification :

1. Fernando Alonso : Ferrari : 1:40.621 -
2. Sebastian Vettel : Red Bull Racing : 1:41.026 + 0.405
3. Mark Webber : Red Bull Racing : 1:41.496 + 0.875
4. Michael Schumacher : Mercedes GP : 1:42.459 + 1.838
5. Nico Hulkenberg : Force India : 1:43.501 + 2.880
6. Pastor Maldonado : Williams : 1:43.950 + 3.329
7. Jenson Button : McLaren : 1:44.113 + 3.492
8. Lewis Hamilton : McLaren : 1:44.186 + 3.565
9. Paul di Resta : Force India : 1:44.889 + 4.268
10. Kimi Räikkönen : Lotus : 1:45.811 + 5.190

Q2
11. Daniel Ricciardo : Toro Rosso : 1:39.789 + -0.832
12. Sergio Perez : Sauber : 1:39.933 + -0.688
13. Kamui Kobayashi : Sauber : 1:39.985 + -0.636
14. Felipe Massa : Ferrari : 1:40.212 + -0.409
15. Romain Grosjean : Lotus : 1:40.574 + -0.047
16. Bruno Senna : Williams : 1:40.752 + 0.131
17. Nico Rosberg : Mercedes GP : 1:41.551 + 0.930

Q1
18. Jean-Eric Vergne : Toro Rosso : 1:16.741 -
19. Heikki Kovalainen : Caterham : 1:17.620 + -23.001
20. Vitaly Petrov Caterham 1:18.531 + -22.090
21. Charles Pic : Marussia F1 Team : 1:19.220 + -21.401
22. Timo Glock : Marussia F1 Team : 1:19.291 + -21.330
23. Pedro de la Rosa : HRT F1 Team : 1:19.912 + -20.709
24. Narain Karthikeyan : HRT F1 Team : 1:20.230 + -20.391

Qual: 1:40.621
Pole : Alonso
Rain : yes

So after this qualifying Grosjean will end up at the 20th place ( 5 place grid penalty ) & Rosberg on the 22nd place ( 5 place grid penalty )


Comment of the qualification :
Fernando Alonso secured his second straight pole position as German Grand Prix qualifying at Hockenheim became a last-minute scramble on a wet track. The 10 drivers in the pole shoot-out were all delivering quicker and quicker times as they acclimatised to the circuit conditions in the final moments, and it was Alonso who handled it best, putting in a 1m40.621s to take pole for Ferrari. World champion and local hero Sebastian Vettel was Alonso's nearest challenger, lapping 0.4 seconds slower than the current points leader as he took second ahead of his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber, who will drop five places due to a penalty for a gearbox change. That will move Michael Schumacher into the top three on the grid on home ground. The German legend was on provisional pole for a while before ending up fourth quickest for Mercedes.
Three of the top four places on the grid will go to German drivers, as Force India's Nico Hulkenberg delivered a spectacular fifth-fastest time to give himself a season-best starting spot on row two. His team-mate Paul di Resta also reached Q3 and was ninth. Pastor Maldonado completed the top six in his Williams, ahead of the two McLarens. Jenson Button was quicker than Lewis Hamilton, as the 2009 champion delivered his best qualifying performance since Bahrain in April. Kimi Raikkonen was the final Q3 qualifier and rounds off the top 10 for Lotus. The rain had arrived just before Q2 began, leading to a scramble to get a quick time in on the one or two laps that were always going to be the fastest of the segment. Among those who missed out were two of the men with five-place gearbox change penalties: Romain Grosjean (Lotus) and Nico Rosberg (Mercedes). They were 15th and 17th respectively. Felipe Massa slithered off the road on his first Q2 lap and rejoined in Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso's path. Being blocked did not stop Alonso reaching Q3, but Massa's error consigned him to 14th. Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo almost made it into the top 10 as the rain he wanted arrived, missing the Q3 cut by just 0.06s. Also out in the middle segment were the two Saubers and Bruno Senna's Williams. Q1 was fully dry and relatively predictable, although Schumacher, Button and Webber all cut it a little fine in either timing or pace terms. In the event, the eliminated midfielder was Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne, for the sixth time in his nine grands prix.
Heikki Kovalainen was nearly a second quicker than Caterham team-mate Vitaly Petrov, while Timo Glock found himself outqualified on home ground by Marussia stablemate Charles Pic, despite the rookie's lack of practice mileage.


Kind Regards
Shaky-Schumi

Rain again! Again Alonso!

Here are the times of the 2nd practice session :

1. Pastor Maldonado: Williams : 1:27.476 -
2. Nico Rosberg : Mercedes GP : 1:27.564 + 0.088
3. Sebastian Vettel : Red Bull Racing : 1:27.902 + 0.426
4. Sergio Perez : Sauber : 1:28.402 + 0.926
5. Romain Grosjean : Lotus : 1:28.420 : + 0.944
6. Nico Hulkenberg : Force India : 1:28.495 + 1.019
7. Daniel Ricciardo : Toro Rosso : 1:28.513 + 1.037
8. Jenson Button : McLaren : 1:28.516 + 1.040
9. Mark Webber : Red Bull Racing : 1:28.877 + 1.401
10. Kimi Räikkönen : Lotus : 1:29.327 + 1.851
11. Jean-Eric Vergne : Toro Rosso : 1:29.364 + 1.888
12. Felipe Massa : Ferrari : 1:29.719 + 2.243
13. Kamui Kobayashi : Sauber : 1:29.785 + 2.309
14. Charles Pic : Marussia F1 Team : 1:30.090 + 2.614
15. Timo Glock : Marussia F1 Team : 1:30.220 + 2.744
16. Bruno Senna : Williams 1:30.291 + 2.815
17. Heikki Kovalainen : Caterham : 1:30.331 + 2.855
18. Paul di Resta : Force India : 1:30.437 + 2.961
19. Lewis Hamilton : McLaren : 1:30.617 + 3.141
20. Fernando Alonso : Ferrari : 1:31.207 + 3.731
21. Vitaly Petrov : Caterham : 1:32.241 + 4.765
22. Narain Karthikeyan : HRT F1 Team : 1:32.349 + 4.873
23. Michael Schumacher : Mercedes GP : 1:32.777 + 5.301
24. Pedro de la Rosa : HRT F1 Team : 1:42.566 + 15.090

Info : Nico RosBerg & Romain Grosjean will be put 5 places back on the grid after qualifying because of changing gearbox !!!!

Short Comment of 2nd session :
Pastor Maldonado emerged fastest from the second Friday practice session for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, as rain showers meant the order was largely decided by who was on track at the right moment.
Heavy rain before the session meant a distinct lack of Formula 1 cars on track at first, bar Bruno Senna doing an installation lap in the Williams that Valtteri Bottas had crashed in the morning.
It was 20 minutes in before Jean-Eric Vergne, Charles Pic and Nico Rosberg came out and got the afternoon underway in earnest. Conditions were steadily improving at this stage, and a quarter of an hour later Rosberg switched from full wets to intermediates on his Mercedes, a move everyone else soon followed.
With the track getting quicker by the moment, the top spot then changed hands constantly after the next 25 minutes before the rain returned, ending the run of relatively quick times. Maldonado put his Williams on top with a 1m27.476s just before then, and that stood as the fastest of the session.
Most drivers came back out after the second shower passed, but found the track too wet to improve their times. There was still time for some incident though, as Michael Schumacher crashed the other Mercedes on the way into the stadium section, prompting a red flag with four minutes left that effectively ended the session. Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo also hit trouble late on, sliding into the gravel at the Sachs Kurve and getting beached.Rosberg ended up classified second, ahead of Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull, Sergio Perez's Sauber and Romain Grosjean's Lotus. Everyone managed a reasonable amount of running despite the conditions, with the exception of Pedro de la Rosa, who spent a long time in the garage while HRT worked on his car's brakes, meaning he missed the best of the weather.

Kind Regards
Shaky-Schumi

ps: sorry for the delay ...but i have some private stuff at home to do....so it could be that i'm going to post tomorrow's result also a bit later

FORMULA 1 GROSSER PREIS SANTANDER VON DEUTSCHLAND 2012
free practice1
Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired Gap Laps
1 3 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:16.595 27
2 4 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:17.093 0.498 22
3 5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:17.370 0.775 21
4 7 Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1:17.382 0.787 20
5 15 Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1:17.413 0.818 28
6 12 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1:17.599 1.004 17
7 8 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:17.915 1.320 27
8 6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:17.995 1.400 22
9 18 Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1:18.020 1.425 20
10 10 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1:18.130 1.535 21
11 14 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:18.226 1.631 22
12 1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing-Renault 1:18.339 1.744 21
13 19 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault 1:18.422 1.827 28
14 16 Daniel Ricciardo STR-Ferrari 1:18.709 2.114 30
15 9 Kimi Räikkönen Lotus-Renault 1:18.831 2.236 14
16 11 Jules Bianchi Force India-Mercedes 1:18.972 2.377 21
17 17 Jean-Eric Vergne STR-Ferrari 1:19.039 2.444 34
18 21 Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 1:19.674 3.079 24
19 20 Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 1:19.963 3.368 24
20 2 Mark Webber Red Bull Racing-Renault 1:20.122 3.527 27
21 25 Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 1:20.169 3.574 20
22 24 Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 1:20.539 3.944 18
23 22 Pedro de la Rosa HRT-Cosworth 1:21.138 4.543 24
24 23 Dani Clos HRT-Cosworth 1:21.740 5.145 27

Alex Yoong 20th July 1976
(Former Minardi Driver in 2001/2002)
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Happy Birthday to your 36th anniversary

The German Grand Prix alternates between two famous circuits, Hockenheimring and Nürburgring. This year the race takes place in Hockenheim. In the past the old circuit was characterised by long high speed straights followed by slow chicanes. Unfortunately, ten years ago the track was redesigned and lost much of its character. In the old circuit, the aerodynamic downforce was very low, because was necessary to be very fast on the long straights through the forest. But with that set-up was very difficult to drive in the slow "Motodrom" sector. In this way you could see the skill of pilots. Now instead of long straights, there is a new sector, rather anonymous and not very interesting. The current configuration is shorter(4.5 km instead of 6.8 km), but remain unchanged the Motodrom stadium section and the start-finish straight. In the last one edition(2010) the result was a one-two for Ferrari and in the last three editions of the Grand Prix of Germany, held at Hockenheim (2006-2008-2010) Massa has always been on the podium. This week end the Pirelli tyres will be Soft (option, yellow) and Medium(prime, white). DRS: only one zone, but very long.
A step back, Silverstone Circuit(two weeks ago). Saturday's qualifying: the current Formula One cars are not drivable in heavy rain conditions; it would be necessary a rule to increase the ride height of the cars. Of course even in dry conditions. Sunday's race: strangely the hard tyres proved to be faster than the soft tires. Maybe they were convinced it would be a wet race, with cold temperatures. For that reason the teams have chosen a set up to warm the tyres early, but the race remained dry, with temperatures higher than expected. So, the hard tires (with their higher working temperature) have been more efficient than soft tires. The problem was not the degradation, but the loss of performance, maybe there was an excessive overheating on soft tires. In the last stint Alonso(soft tyres) was 0,5 - 0.6 sec. slower than Webber on used hard tyres.
Podium 2010: Alonso – Massa – Vettel – fastest lap on race: Vettel – pole position : Vettel 1'13''791
Last year the race took place at the Nürburgring
2012 wins: Webber Alonso (2), Button, Rosberg, Maldonado, Vettel, and Hamilton.
2012 second place: Alonso and Raikkonen(2), Rosberg, Vettel, Button, Perez and Grosjean(1)
2012 third place: Hamilton(3) Alonso, Vettel, Raikkonen, Schumacher, Perez and Grosjean(1)
2012 pole: Vettel(3) Hamilton(2), Rosberg, Maldonado, Alonso and Webber(1)
2012 fastest lap: Raikkonen Vettel(2), Button, Rosberg, Perez, Grosjean and Kobayashi(1)

Eric Brandon
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Born : 18th July 1920 - Died : 8th August 1982

Short News :

Marussia rules out car failure in Maria de Villota's accident :
Marussia has ruled out a problem with its car as the cause of Maria de Villota's recent testing accident, after concluding its own investigation into what happened. De Villota lost her right eye and suffered facial and head injuries in the incident at Duxford, when she crashed at slow speed in to the back of a truck as she conducted straight-line aerodynamic work. Alongside an investigation being conducted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and another commissioned by Marussia for an independent forensic body, the team has also completed its own in-depth look at what happened. And although the specifics of what caused the accident have not been confirmed yet, Marussia issued a statement on Monday revealing that the crash was not caused by a failure on the car.
Team principal John Booth said: "We are satisfied that the findings of our internal investigation exclude the car as a factor in the accident. We have shared and discussed our findings with the HSE for their consideration as part of their ongoing investigation.
"This has been a necessarily thorough process in order to understand the cause of the accident. We have now concluded our investigatory work and can again focus on the priority, which continues to be Maria's wellbeing. In that regard, we continue to support Maria and the De Villota family in any way we can."
De Villota is now out of sedation in hospital and able to talk to her family as she continues her recovery.

Kind Regards
Shaky-Schumi