F1 - Malaysia

[Qship5]

So for those of you that watched the race, what the heck happened to Lewis and the McLaren team??? Why the heck did they send him out on the harder, option tires twice???

Like the announcers said, the only reason I can think of is that they used up too many of the super softs in qualifying.

That said, it looks like Vettel and Red Bull may just run away with another championship.

[Vandit]

Lewis is hard on his tires, always has been. These new Pirelli tires fall off hard and fast, not good for Hamilton's driving style. He's going to have to learn to be easier on tires, like Button.

[mbowdo20]

Yep, he used two sets during quali, so he only have one new set for the race. He only got like 10 laps out of the new set, so sending him out on the scrubs from quali would force him to pit again in just 4 or 5 laps. Also at the point they sent him out the 2nd time, several people had radio'd in that the hards were actually doing very well. (They talked about this in the drivers meeting after the race) The times for people on new hards was within one second of people running on the softs after just 3 laps. In essence, the softs are horrible tires that only are good for 5 laps before they start to fall off, and then at around 10 laps they just totally stop working (as we saw with Schumacher several times, and they think that's even the cause of Petrov's off).

[UBR32]

I think that unless McLaren or Ferrari pulls something out of their butts, it looks like Vettel is going to walk away with it. That boy is fast and consistent.

[mbowdo20]

Don't worry, they own the FIA they will just make up some stuff again and all of a sudden be back in the race.

[rberg32]

From what I heard during the race, they were to use at least one soft and one hard set.. Here is a quote from formula 1 site:

"If a driver fails to use both specifications of dry-weather tyres during a (dry) race, they will be excluded from the results. If a (dry) race is suspended and can’t be restarted, and a driver has failed to use both specifications, 30 seconds will be added to the driver’s race time."


I agree, those pirellis are trash.. Scrubbing off so much rubber, you could see huge rubber "marbles" in each corner.. It was insane. The temp was in the mid 80's and you would have thought they were driving in 120 degree heat. Look at what happened in Australia when temps were in the 70's and they couldn't even get the tires up to optimal temps.. Compared to the bridgestone tires, these new pirellis are complete junk.

[Mike CLK Black]

.. Compared to the bridgestone tires, these new pirellis are complete junk.

Yeah but, imagine how much they paid Bernie for the contract? Quality is not his concern.

[Silentrun]

I was under the idea (illusion) that Pirelli was told to make the tire wear quicker thereby forcing more tire changes and keeping things "interesting"... Not the case?

[mbowdo20]

They did, but the tires should at least last 5 laps without going off. Webber pitted like 7 times in a 58 lap race... something is wrong there.

The tires are not creating a line over the weekend, they are causing HUGE marbling issues making it hard to pass in the latter stages of the race, and they fall off dangerously seemingly at random based on how the driver is pushing. Shumy did that one stint where the tires only went 4 laps then he almost had an off ON THE SOFTS!