Zitat von valuk

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But the important thing from yesterday's race is that Lotus sucks in the wet and that their dry pace was nothing special. A lot of people said that Romain was just looking for excuses when he said that his car was great on friday in Australia but was totally different in the race. Well now the same thing happened to Kimi. I hope they can solve this soon but I'm not dreaming about WDC anymore.

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Lotus obviously sucks in the wet. We have had two weekends now wher eit has been wet, so things have been difficult. How do you really compare the car? On Friday it was dry in Australia, on Saturday it rained and on Sunday it was cold and there were a few rain drops falling during the race. Every day had different conditions.

In Malaysia it rained pretty hard every day. On top of that GP2 was back so they put different rubber on the track. Basically the track changed every single day. To me it seems pretty logical that you're setup might work one day but not the next day.

It is difficult to tell with Grosjean, and Kimi's front wing was already broken on the first lap. But Kimi actually had some really good pace the few times he had a bit of clear space.

That being said the first races were very, very unpredictable there is a lot of work for Lotus. It isn't just about speed.

We might need to start doing anti rain dances, the car is really terrible in the wet, I dont see that changing soon.

Zitat von Ragingjamaican

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Why does Bouillier say it's close between Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and us? No mention of Mercedes, and not sure if I would put McLaren at that tier yet, Malaysia and China, typically suits McLaren.

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It seems like he is just mentioning the best teams from last year. Mercedes started last year at the same place that they in now. Mclaren will improve, they always do.

Zitat von icemaid

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then what is it about Seb that make Kimi open up to him?

Boudica

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but we are not all the same, so we cant all feel the same towards the same person.. " title="dunno" />

Zitat von Denorth

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Boudica, can I borrow a bit of wisdom from you? I am not that balanced in my opinions

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Sure, I am glad it seems balanced.

Zitat von icemaid

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then what is it about Seb that make Kimi open up to him?

Boudica

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Well that is another good question. But I am referring more to public perception, we knew certain parts of them but we dont always see their everyday persona's. Kimi and Vettel are friends around the track, it seems like they enjoy challenging and competing against each other in other arena's.
Kimi seems to get along well with everyone. Of the top drivers you always have these groups who gets along or respects each other. All of the others generally tends to respect Kimi, well at least in public.

Zitat von an1th

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Zitat von Olga

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Zitat von Boudica

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What I was trying to say is that I think they are both as bad as each other.

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d" title="nod" />

it is just that Seb appears to be too nice while it seems hes not....tbh, he never really convinced me...

dont shoot me please!

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Olgs ... i am not nitpicking ... but you see you wrote 'seb appears to be ' ... which means that is how he appears to all of us, means we perceive him to be nice, he didnt force us to like him .AnywaYS We do not know if he is intentionally trying to be someone else . unless we know that , that's his character . Everybody has a dark side , Seb shows his when he is in a difficult situation ( wasnt he arguing with the pirelli guys during spa in 2012 )? .
We see the happy chirpy fun guy when he is relaxed , doesnt mean he is trying to fake it.
Kimi and the others see him in private too, so they are a better judge of character.
Seb is young , people mature with age. ( and experience ). Mark is not , and i feel he still doesnt show the maturity expected

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I also agree with this in principal. People are complicated, it isn't so black and white. We all have good and bad traits. When you get to the strange and high pressure environment of F1 some traits will perhaps come through more pronounced then others, while everyday life is much more balanced.
But as I said the teams in F1 expect a certain set of behavior from their drivers, so in a sense driver do pretend and they do try to create a certain public perception of themselves. Even Kimi does it, although much, much less then most of the others.
Vettel can be very charming, and as you said he is very young some parts of his personality hasn't even been developed yet. But the public are also always looking for more insight into the real personalities behind image they are required to present. And they will make their conclusions from what they get, rightly or wrongly. As I ve also said above I think Vettel's persona might also be linked to much with Red Bull, people see him and they see Red Bull. I think if he actually decided to move to another team he would become more popular.
But at the end of the day we see people differently and we experience things differently, we just cant always like the same things or like the same people.

I am sure on a weekend basis Vettel could be fun to hang out with, but I wouldn't put Kimi and Vettel in the same team, that would surely be the end of the friendship.

Zitat von claudie

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Zitat von an1th

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Zitat von Olga

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Zitat von Boudica

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What I was trying to say is that I think they are both as bad as each other.

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d" title="nod" />

it is just that Seb appears to be too nice while it seems hes not....tbh, he never really convinced me...

dont shoot me please!

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Olgs ... i am not nitpicking ... but you see you wrote 'seb appears to be ' ... which means that is how he appears to all of us, means we perceive him to be nice, he didnt force us to like him .AnywaYS We do not know if he is intentionally trying to be someone else . unless we know that , that's his character . Everybody has a dark side , Seb shows his when he is in a difficult situation ( wasnt he arguing with the pirelli guys during spa in 2012 )? .
We see the happy chirpy fun guy when he is relaxed , doesnt mean he is trying to fake it.
Kimi and the others see him in private too, so they are a better judge of character.
Seb is young , people mature with age. ( and experience ). Mark is not , and i feel he still doesnt show the maturity expected

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Couldn´t agree more!

Then again I dont understand why Seb apologized after the race and said that he is sorry. I mean if he was why didn´t he let Webber by again?

And also agree with Valuk! When it was RoGro who complained about that something was wrong with his car nobody believed him and all the "Kimi is in the form of his life bli bla blub" after just one race. And now that Kimi also had problems with the set-up everybody understands him.
Sorry I just dont like that "Kimi is the best driver in the world", "if he has a bad race it´s coz the car is shit/Lotus did do wrong", "Kimi cant do anything wrong", "if someone says bad things about Kimi he is an asshole" attitude

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I think you might be confusing this place with Autosport. No one practically even mentioned Grosjean around here after Kimi's win.

I dont mean this to be condescending or anything, but really you can read it and see it for yourself on the Australian GP Thread:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=402


But I do know what you are referring to, and I do think some people took it a bit to far. The truth is you can never be to certain about the future, so it is better not to look to much ahead. But when you really look closely at it you would also see that it was basically only 3 or 4 people who really went on about Grosjean (and it wasn't around here).

No one has said Kimi had a good race or anything.
And there was a bit of a difference with what Grosjean said, all Grosjean said was that there was something wrong with his car, as if his car was broken. Now the car is properly a bit flawed in the rain, but I dont think there is enough information to conclude that the car is somehow flaw in the dry or that the car was indeed broken.
Kimi himself said they went with the wrong setup direction and that they understood where they went wrong, whereas Grosjean just said there was something wrong with his car. Kimi took a little bit of responsibility for his own results, where as Grosjean didn't really do that. Now I am not saying there is anything wrong with what Grosjean said or did. Kimi just looked at the situation in a more logical manner, so thus it is easier to discuss.

There was indeed something broken on Romain's car. Boullier said that there was a problem at the suspension and this plus wrong setup led to his slow pace.
I really hope they found the reason in Kimi's case and that it's not that the car is only good in a small setup window.
Sure Lotus' pace in the wet is bad, maybe the reason is that as the car is so easy on tyres, they don't get enough heat in and have no grip. Kimi said that afterwards the tyres look like new.
Dry pace wasn't bad this race, if they could have started a bit higher up and wouldn't have been behind others so long, much more would have been possible. again they were able to do one stop less than others.

Zitat von valuk

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Zitat von Boudica

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But I think part of the reason why Vettel doesn't have so many fans or why people struggle to connect with him, is because of this perceived duel quality in his personality. People see it as Vettel purposely deceiving them, he says one thing but his actions say something else. You cant be wishy washy, and then seek people's approval at the same time, they will just end up judging you.

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Totally agree but it's the same with RB team. Now they are again the "evil" team in the media so they put statements like "RB plans further talks with Vettel" like this will help them. In the eyes of many fans they are just as bad as Ferrari (or worse) but are they really? Do you really think Ferrari would let slower Massa to stay in the lead and use team orders to keep Alonso behind? I really don't see that happening. Just imagine if Vettel would be leading and Webber would be told the whole race to keep a 3s gap and in the end they would tell him not to attack Seb. What would happen? If Mark would overtake Seb he would be the hero who ignored team orders, true racer... and RB would be again the "evil" team. If he would follow team orders, the team would be again attacked because they favour Seb. So they just can't win. Sooner they realize that the better.

Zitat von Boudica

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But at the same time Kimi spoils me, he is top driver but he usually does the right thing on track, he admits his mistakes and he doesn't complain. You would never see Kimi landing up in the position that Vettel now finds himself in.

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True. I think he would honour the agreement to not attack after last round of pit stops... or he would pass Webber and when they would ask him "do you feel sorry for Mark?" he would just say "I don't care about anyone else" But I think he showed in the past that he can be a team player.

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As I said above I do think Red Bull shoots themselves in the foot with how they handle these situations. Mclaren has a way of doing similar things. Looking at it purely from a team's perspective in other words from a business perspective. I do think Ferrari is the team that handles these situations in the best manner. They dont seek approval from anyone and everyone knows where they stand, no one thinks Massa will ever come out on top. Not even Massa himself. The team just doesn't stand for it, and they also dont allow Massa to discuss it. So in a way one could say that they have the formula figured out.
As I ve said before personally I dont particularly care for any of the teams. All of them just have their own little agendas.

If it was purely up to me I would change the teams so that their cars are sponsored by different companies. This would give them a much bigger intensive for racing without team orders. If they disadvantaged one car or driver, then the sponsors from that car would call them to order.

It is always tricky when things are done in half measures. Team orders is somewhat allowed for Red Bull, Lotus and Mclaren while we have full on team orders at Ferrari. It obviously creates conflict. If there has to be team orders then I would rather see every team just be open about it, like they do in rally for example.