2010 Formula One Thread

[mithrilG60]

Why? Why should Weber be required to surrender the racing line when he had full rights to defend his position and hold his line? It the job of the overtaking driver to successfully and safely execute the pass, not vice versa. There was no blue flag, nor was it a case where Vettel been significantly faster for an extended period and was being held up by Weber. That was in fact the first opportunity he'd had to pass at all.

Vettel veered right into Weber's path when there was no need to. It wasn't malicious, I think he just lost track of Weber's car in relation to his own (very easy to do considering the lack of peripheral vision in those cars). Had Vettel simply held his line into the braking zone Weber would have been forced to either back off or run extremely wide into 12 and likely go off the track entirely into 13.

The mistake was Vettel's, pure and simple. It just shows that, no matter how good a driver he is, he's still quite inexperienced in F1 and has a lot of learning left to do yet. I have little doubt that Vettel will be world champion several times over by the time he retires, but right now he costs himself a lot of points through small errors that lead to big conseqences. In this case he cost both himself and his team a significant amount of points.

[kgoings]

I still haven't picked a 'favorite' driver or team..but I am having a great time watching the races. I like to see guys coming from behind and making passes! The the maneuvering is pretty awesome too!

[mosesbotbol]

Originally Posted by mithrilG60

Why? Why should Weber be required to surrender the racing line when he had full rights to defend his position and hold his line?

He should not be defending his position if a team mate can pass him and obviously that is the case if Vettel is coming from behind him. Team mates should race as if they do not have side view mirrors.

They should put on a show like Hamilton and Button did, but those two are on the same page- racing for McLaren rather than their own race.

[mithrilG60]

Originally Posted by mosesbotbol

He should not be defending his position if a team mate can pass him and obviously that is the case if Vettel is coming from behind him. Team mates should race as if they do not have side view mirrors.

They should put on a show like Hamilton and Button did, but those two are on the same page- racing for McLaren rather than their own race.

I agree that they should have been smarter, but I still see it as Vettel's fault. As the overtaking driver he had the ultimate responsibility to ensure that his overtaking maneuver is safe. There was only a tenth between them and that difference had only existed for 3 or 4 laps so it's not like Vettel was on a completely different pace.

You're right that they should race as if they had no wing mirrors, and really with the amount the drivers can see out of them they effectivlely don't anyways. Part of that means you make bloody sure you're in clear space before you move over into another drivers racing line. Look at the replay's, Weber made absolutely no move at all.... it was Vettel that swerved into him. Vettel was the one who obviously lost spacial awareness of the car he was trying to pass and Vettel was the one that caused the crash. There is no fault that can be attributed to Weber in that situation, it was 100% on Vettel's shoulders.

[mosesbotbol]

Originally Posted by mithrilG60

I agree that they should have been smarter, but I still see it as Vettel's fault.

There is no fault that can be attributed to Weber in that situation, it was 100% on Vettel's shoulders.

You should be Weber's manager, as Red Bull sees it differently:

Helmut Marko, Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz's right-hand man at Red Bull Racing, sided firmly with Sebastian Vettel in the aftermath of the coming together with Mark Webber that eliminated the young German from the Turkish GP.

"Sebastian was ahead already and there was a left-hand corner coming, so he had to go to his line," said the former seventies F1 driver

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns22312.html

[mithrilG60]

Originally Posted by mosesbotbol

You should be Weber's manager, as Red Bull sees it differently:

Helmut Marko, Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz's right-hand man at Red Bull Racing, sided firmly with Sebastian Vettel in the aftermath of the coming together with Mark Webber that eliminated the young German from the Turkish GP.

"Sebastian was ahead already and there was a left-hand corner coming, so he had to go to his line," said the former seventies F1 driver

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns22312.html

http://www.racefanstv.com/news/open-...mula-one/8858/

Marko's comments were based on incomplete evidence and without seeing full replays and team info. RedBull's Horner is recanting Marko's blame of Weber and taking the position it was an "unfortunate racing accident that should never have happened between teammates". I'm sure that internally they all have their own opinions on who was at fault but from a team perspective there's no point placing public blame on either driver for an incident that was clearly not intentional or malicious. The kind of blame game Marko started in on does nothing to repair team unity.