The Official 2016 Malaysian Grand Prix Thread **Spoilers**

[eps]

Maybe it's just that Lewis has been putting his car closer to the line than most - he's had Pole Positions, topped FP sessions and at times has had untouchable blistering pace... Maybe it's just a culmination of all of that?

[KevinCamaroSS]

eps said:

Maybe it's just that Lewis has been putting his car closer to the line than most - he's had Pole Positions, topped FP sessions and at times has had untouchable blistering pace... Maybe it's just a culmination of all of that?

I doubt it, based on his fuel and tyre usage. He is exceptionally smooth, this means fast as well as economic on fuel and mechanicals.

[rdjohn]

I am certain that if Lewis had consistently been driving the car outside of permitted parameters, we would have heard warnings over team radio.

This was a new PU, having only been run in FP at Spa. The oil is tested after every session to detect for unexpected wear. So far Mercedes have only told us that a rod went through the block after sudden loss of oil pressure. Presumably the pump has failed, or there has been a blockage, or the oil level has dropped unnoticed.

My guess is it's probably oil contamination during being refilled prior to the race.

[Disastrous]

Whilst it is of course naive to believe there could be no corruption in F1, previous events have shown that it is much easier to get to a driver and have him throw a race, or spoil someone else's than anything else.

Conspiracies require secrecy and secrecy requires as few participants as possible. Much easier to simply get a driver to bin it (like Piquet) than organise a will it/won't it mechanical failure.

I think conspiracy takes the path of least resistance and having the guy in front's engine explode in flames is not that!

[tommunster10]

You can never rule out corruption in sport for sure, but it just wouldn't stack up in this way with F1 that they would all conspire to ruin Lewis's engines, F1 is such that give Lewis the Manor and he'd never win a race again let alone the WDC so it's an odd sport anyway and really is a full on team sport for sure, so your never just ruining Lewis your ruining the whole team and Brand.
Add to that you'd only need to give Lewis a customer Merc engine and he'd stop wining races and no need to break them.
Quite how Bernie and Toto could ever sit down and agree to ruin Lewis's engines is beyond me and i love a bit of conspiracy and corruption.
It doesn't make the sport more watchable to see Lewis's engine break 15 laps from the end, it's a really rubbish way for races to end.
Compared to some other Motorsport F1 is dull as watching paint dry still.
Corruption generally happens when people have something to gain, so how do Merc F1 gain from having their No 1 driver break down? How does F1 gain from having the most popular X Factor driver break down?
No one gains at all with Lewis breaking down aside from Nico but i'm pretty sure he'd rather Lewis wasn't breaking down as he has the same engines.
If it was all because of F1 corruption then christ why would they even allow one team to dominate for so long each time, thats whats dull with F1, if your going to go to the lengths of that then please do a better job than having just 2 drivers who can ever win unless they crash or break down....

[Driller]

tommunster10 said:

You can never rule out corruption in sport for sure, but it just wouldn't stack up in this way with F1 that they would all conspire to ruin Lewis's engines, F1 is such that give Lewis the Manor and he'd never win a race again let alone the WDC so it's an odd sport anyway and really is a full on team sport for sure, so your never just ruining Lewis your ruining the whole team and Brand.

You use the word "corruption" but the thing is they wouldn't see it as corruption, they'd see it as a way of optimising their investment in the sport. And if the team goes on to win both WDCs, how is it ruining their brand? It's only good for them.

tommunster10 said:

Add to that you'd only need to give Lewis a customer Merc engine and he'd stop wining races and no need to break them.
Quite how Bernie and Toto could ever sit down and agree to ruin Lewis's engines is beyond me and i love a bit of conspiracy and corruption.
It doesn't make the sport more watchable to see Lewis's engine break 15 laps from the end, it's a really rubbish way for races to end.

Why wouldn't it make sense to "ruin" his engines? If it means forcing the WDC to the wire, making it more spellbinding and thus attracting more spectators to bathe in the glow of all the adverts then it makes absolute sense. It's all about shaking it up. Smoke and fire makes headlines!

And if you can't imagine someone like Bernie plotting stuff then you can't imagine anyone plotting stuff.

tommunster10 said:

Corruption generally happens when people have something to gain, so how do Merc F1 gain from having their No 1 driver break down? How does F1 gain from having the most popular X Factor driver break down?
No one gains at all with Lewis breaking down aside from Nico but i'm pretty sure he'd rather Lewis wasn't breaking down as he has the same engines.

Did you read the posts above? All of F1 is based on audience figures and investment from advertisers. No audience=no F1. If the WDC is wrapped up half way through the season, audience figures and ticket sales are going to fall/possibly plummet which means less dosh for the organisors which in turn means less dosh for Mercedes.

tommunster10 said:

If it was all because of F1 corruption then christ why would they even allow one team to dominate for so long each time, thats whats dull with F1, if your going to go to the lengths of that then please do a better job than having just 2 drivers who can ever win unless they crash or break down....

Because as much as you could believe they could negotiate/force a team to make it closer between two drivers, asking or forcing a team to forfeit a constructors or WDC is obviously not going to happen. But if they're way ahead in the constructors and obviously going to bag the WDC with one or another driver, why not modify things to make it closer and more exciting right to the end of the year?

For an investor that would make absolute sense and I'd be staggered if it didn't happen.

[tommunster10]

Nope I don't buy it. All they need to do is dial down the power unit and Lewis isn't getting pole, simple clean and save for Lewis maybe feeling engine is under powered pretty fail safe, i mean every racing driver says they have an under powered engine when they lose!
Or in Buttons case under powered and "balance of the car isn't right"

[anonymous-user]

Driller said:

I'm one of those who also finds Hamilton's problems more than coincidental and to add fuel to the fire, no-one seems to have considered the wishes of the F1 organisors to keep the championship battle alive and exciting to draw as many spectators as possible.

People say "how could Mercedes possibly want one of their cars to fail" but what about the organisors? Don't they give money to the teams as well? I wouldn't find it impossible to believe that they would put pressure on a team so as to make the season more exciting for "good television".

I could also imagine that if a championship is wrapped up several races before the end of the season then viewing figures and ticket sales would fall sharply for the rest of the year.

The sponsors would kick up a massive fuss and F1=sponsors.

Plenty of championships wrapped up well before the end of the year, including last year. Don't recall any massive fuss then.

In any case it wouldn't compare to the fuss that would be made should the FIA et al be found to be rigging the championships.

I'm with Paddy on this:

"Mercedes technical chief Paddy Lowe says "anyone with an ounce of intelligence" will know sabotage was not the reason for Lewis Hamilton's engine failure at the Malaysian Grand Prix."

[Derek Smith]

Disastrous said:

Whilst it is of course naive to believe there could be no corruption in F1, previous events have shown that it is much easier to get to a driver and have him throw a race, or spoil someone else's than anything else.

Conspiracies require secrecy and secrecy requires as few participants as possible. Much easier to simply get a driver to bin it (like Piquet) than organise a will it/won't it mechanical failure.

I think conspiracy takes the path of least resistance and having the guy in front's engine explode in flames is not that!

My comment was not directed at Hamilton's engine blow up as much as those who seem to be suggesting that it couldn't possibly be untoward behaviour because of various factors. It could be.

I would point out that there does not need to be a conspiracy. Indeed, one person acting alone is by far the most popular method.

There was a revelation about a team being threatened with withdrawal of an engine contract if a driver did not hold up the challenger to the team's driver. The person who was told to do it spilled the beans in an interview and nothing was done about it. It was just one of those things.

[Driller]

no-one's saying it's systematic and no-one's saying it was definitely the case with all the faults.

I think you'd have to be entirely without imagination to think that nothing could be going on though.

[vonuber]

Driller said:

no-one's saying it's systematic and no-one's saying it was definitely the case with all the faults.

I think you'd have to be entirely without imagination to think that nothing could be going on though.

True. Hamilton did win his first WDC in part thanks to Alonso cheating to a race win.

[coppice]

What is it about conspiracy theorists ? Is it some deep seated need to show their worldly-wise cynicism by stubbornly believing something must be going on , despite the fact that there is not one shred of evidence that there is ? There is no factual basis - is there , anyone ?- for showing that Mercedes (or the tooth fairy , or Nico's auntie ) has caused his car to fail. It has failed - as racing cars do- and chance being what it is the cards have fallen randomly , and that can mean in the same place just as much as 'fairly' spread.

Me , I'm still fretting about Mansell's back tyre in '86 - ok , it may have looked like a puncture but I suspect a masonic conspiracy.

[Gary C]

coppice said:

Me , I'm still fretting about Mansell's back tyre in '86 - ok , it may have looked like a puncture but I suspect a masonic conspiracy.

Noooo, it was ISIS !

[johnxjsc1985]

Gary C said:

Noooo, it was ISIS !

it was the bloke behind the Grassy Knoll with an air rifle.

[Driller]

coppice said:

What is it about conspiracy theorists ? Is it some deep seated need to show their worldly-wise cynicism by stubbornly believing something must be going on , despite the fact that there is not one shred of evidence that there is ? There is no factual basis - is there , anyone ?- for showing that Mercedes (or the tooth fairy , or Nico's auntie ) has caused his car to fail. It has failed - as racing cars do- and chance being what it is the cards have fallen randomly , and that can mean in the same place just as much as 'fairly' spread.

Me , I'm still fretting about Mansell's back tyre in '86 - ok , it may have looked like a puncture but I suspect a masonic conspiracy.

What is it about people who are absolutely unwilling to accept the possibility of any other truth than the official line?

Not even a polarised truth just a mixture of the two? And anyone who is prepared to even consider the possibility of any other effect on the outcome is rubbished with the old "tin foil" epithet, an awful unimaginative term which destroys all possibility of debate much in the same way as using the term racist or islamophobe.

[coppice]

Didn't mention tin foil hats once , my dear chap. Such a lazy insult.But just because something happens unexpectedly , especially when jeopardy is a guest at the party, I don't automatically assume that there is a conspiracy. It may seem terribly worldly wise blithely to assume there must be one but without any evidence whatsoever that it's all fixed why should I not accept the fact it was just another F1 engine breakage? Facts are welcome- less so guesswork and conjecture.

[Driller]

coppice said:

Didn't mention tin foil hats once , my dear chap. Such a lazy insult.But just because something happens unexpectedly , especially when jeopardy is a guest at the party, I don't automatically assume that there is a conspiracy. It may seem terribly worldly wise blithely to assume there must be one but without any evidence whatsoever that it's all fixed why should I not accept the fact it was just another F1 engine breakage? Facts are welcome- less so guesswork and conjecture.

Your discourse above would be fine if it was some"thing" as you say. But it's many somethings which is the problem and it's at that point and that point only that one starts to wonder.

I didn't "automatically assume there was a conspiracy" either after the first few.

You say I have no evidence, well you don't have any evidence for your line either do you? It is all conjecture

[coppice]

But it isn't ; a sensible starting point in life is to assume that most things are as they seem most of the time , and that nearly everything we witness is not conspiratorial . But if there is real cause for suspicion perhaps some cynicism is in order.So ,is it in order here ? No - quite why Mercedes would choose to destroy the chances of their star driver who it pays gazillions to is unfathomable . And even if it were so- then why so publically wreck his car by making the key component fail- the bloody engine- when aren't Mercedes ...err..sort of trying to advertise their technical prowess ?

[Driller]

coppice said:

But it isn't ; a sensible starting point in life

is to assume that most things are as they seem most of the time

And? That's just another way of stating your POV. To me, the situation "seems" to be different from what you think.

coppice said:

and that nearly everything we witness is not conspiratorial

Again, by using the word conspiration you are just closing down the discussion. I don't think you did that purposely above but that's the effect it has.

coppice said:

But if there is real cause for suspicion perhaps some cynicism is in order.So ,is it in order here ? No - quite why Mercedes would choose to destroy the chances of their star driver who it pays gazillions to is unfathomable . And even if it were so- then why so publically wreck his car by making the key component fail- the bloody engine- when aren't Mercedes ...err..sort of trying to advertise their technical prowess ?

Have you read the reasons above about sponsors and investors? Look, I"ll admit that I have a tendency to overthink stuff but I'd much rather overthink and come across as a "conspiracy theorist" than under think and walk around like one of the many Sheeple swallowing whole every little bit of info that is fed to them. Have your say in return, I'm going to agree to differ thanks

[p1stonhead]

A great onboard video from Malaysia Lewis is clearly quite angry when his car dies (around 9.51) and he comes to a stop- 'fk, fk!'

Must have been so frustrating.

https://youtu.be/uC-lTSqrOrs