77 replies to this topic

[Icewolf]

Why on earth is Maldonado still allowed to drive a car? Does he actually have to kill someone before they ban him from driving?

[Wolfpacks]

forgot who he took out but did you hear what he said, "what was that" after maldonado hit him 

[Dodoei123]

esteban guitierez however you spell that name.

It was absolutely rediculus, I had exactly the same sentiment when i saw the crash. That Maldonado is by far the worst driver on the field, he really hasn't got a clue how to contain himself. I've had that feeling about him before and he managed to confirm it now. He got away very lightly in my opinion, the 10 sec stop and go, the 5 place grid penalty and only 3 points on his license... Freaking take it away. Maldonado is one of THE worst products the era of pay drivers has brought. He bought his way into various teams and wel... Lets stop this tirade

Apart from that, it was a spectacular race! Looked like a GP2 race in fact with everyone staying as close to each other as they did. It became abundantly visible what performance every car had today. I'm surprised by RBR's pace and thought williams would have been better. But mercedes.. holy shit in the end they just drove away from the pack like that :|.

[Icewolf]

Yeah....looking at the replay it was classic Maldonado-his stupid reckless tactic of braking far too late to try and get ahead of other cars and claiming to be leading on the entrance then using the entire track around it. He was a good car length behind on the inside line-no way he should have caught up to Guiterrez without recklessly late braking for the corner. 

 

EDIT: And a Quarter of a race ban? I always compare incidents to Grosjeans at Spa which got him a race ban. Comparatively a nudge on the start straight, although it had a huge chain reaction, compared to a full on ram into the side of a car is not that big. 

Edited by Icewolf, 06 April 2014 - 07:22 PM.

[Wolfpacks]

he was coming out of the pits, can't understand how he could have missed him, its not like the pit exit is on the racing line, on RBR i bet Vettel is thinking, not another Australian lol 

[Theophilos]

Yikes but those Mercs were almost flying compared to the rest :3

[Dodoei123]

for those interested the crash footage: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nascar-from-the-marbles/esteban-gutierrez-flipped-after-contact-from-pastor-maldonado-in-bahrain-f1-race-172245883.html

 

Just read pastors commentary on the race and wanted to double check to see if he was lying or not (he was bigtime):

 

Pastor Maldonado: "As we expected the pace was much better in
the race than it was in qualifying. We were using quite an interesting
strategy and were running on two stops which was working well until the
incident. We will need to have a look again at what happened as Esteban
seemed to be off his line coming into turn one - maybe he missed his
braking point, I don't know - and by then I was in the corner with
nowhere to go.

"For sure it's difficult to understand and I was coming out from the
pits and with cold tyres. I think he was very unlucky and it's good he
jumped straight out of the car. As a team it's a plus that we finished
with two cars which is very important and now we need to learn from this
race and push hard for Shanghai."

 

"Maybe he missed his braking point" Interesting comment, shows how little he knows about F1 . Missing a breaking point will generally run a car wide... Anyway Guitierez was on the racing line and well ahead of pastor.

[Icewolf]

Crashed into a pitwall. 

 

In a practice session. 

 

Shortly after spinning a car because he wasn't paying attention at a corner. 

 

 

wow

[Icewolf]

ANyone else getting the feeling that this season will be race after race of teams promising that they will be better in one or two races?

[Dodoei123]

Thing is, if every team is faster it still doesn't matter much And yeah Merc could definitely do it! They keep lapping almost the entire field every race. It's too big a gap for the other teams to make up.

Also, maldonado crashed during training/qualy and during the race again... Whats wrong with that idiot?

[Icewolf]

It depends-if they go into all out war at the end of the season I could see a Turkey Red Bull Scenario happening and allow another win. I feel bad for Rosberg-its a case of he would be world champion if he wasn't in the point in history when Hamilton was in a Mercedes. He might come back though-at the moment he is faster in the car than Hamilton and seems less stressed in the race, so all it needs is him to manage an overtake or Hamiltons difficult temperment to bite back he could get some better results. 

 

Hamilton is a blindingly fast racer but I still feel he lacks the mental hardiness that the other best drivers on the grid manage and I suspect that will hurt him later in the season. 

 

For Maldonado I think he is a very hard racer in that he will always drive with as much power and as hard on the brakes as he can. This works when the car works and is why he has a reputation for occasionally being fast. But there is no ability to feel the limits of the car and no ability to ease back when the car is unbalanced or it is not working well. I suspect this also means that he can't set up a car well as he doesn't know which limits need moving to make it work. So in a car with inconsistent power, a lack of stability, and inconsistent brakes he is totally unable to deal with the fact that it is unpredictable, and is always running over the edge of its performance. 

Add in that his race craft consists of using his car as a battering ram and relying on other drivers now being to scared to challenge him as he always cuts across lines or runs wide into other cars, and because they know he cannot actually control a car wheel to wheel (seriously, never seen a good overtake out of him, its always just ramming his way through), it leads to a dangerous package. 

[Icewolf]

Monaco. ..time to get some popcorn and watch some carbon smash

[Dodoei123]

yeah looking forward, why was the free practice on thursday by the way?

[Icewolf]

It means they only have to close the road for 1 day, then two days, rather than three days in a row. It aims to ease the disruption. 

 

On another note, did we just witness the end of the Hamilton-Rosberg friendship?

Edited by Icewolf, 24 May 2014 - 05:46 PM.

[Icewolf]

Have to shake my head at Force India-not cool to let a driver keep racing with failing brakes. Oversteer at that speed is stupidly dangerous.

[Dodoei123]

Well it can't have been too serious or he would have gotten the orange and black flag considering the FIA is listening in and i haven't seen any fines handed to them. I'm more worried about perez pulling the same stunt again, i had hoped he learned at some point but again all he does is blaming massa and being an idiot about it. He will again not have learned to stay on the racing line.

 

So austria this weekend, i wonder how the red bulls will do here

[Icewolf]

Not well currently.