The Official 2014 Singapore GP Thread ***Spoilers***

[DJRC]

Gaz. said:

Many on this forum had an incredibly low opinion of Alonso

Yes Gaz but as is proven on a daily basis most ppl on this forum are fking morons.

This is not a good basis on which to judge the widespread reputation of Fred.

[andygo]

Forget whose pitstop it was, Massa or Bottas, but Sky showed the crewchief (I assume) smacking the left hand front wheelman on the head and gesticulating at him. Quite bad form really. Surprised Martin and co didn't pick up on it, as the F1 TV feed deffo did as they showed it as a mini clip.

[BigBen]

andygo said:

Forget whose pitstop it was, Massa or Bottas, but Sky showed the crewchief (I assume) smacking the left hand front wheelman on the head and gesticulating at him. Quite bad form really. Surprised Martin and co didn't pick up on it, as the F1 TV feed deffo did as they showed it as a mini clip.

It looked like a fairly decent smack on the head to me but I guess it was in jest as the victim did not react / hit back.

[forsure]

BigBen said:

andygo said:

Forget whose pitstop it was, Massa or Bottas, but Sky showed the crewchief (I assume) smacking the left hand front wheelman on the head and gesticulating at him. Quite bad form really. Surprised Martin and co didn't pick up on it, as the F1 TV feed deffo did as they showed it as a mini clip.

It looked like a fairly decent smack on the head to me but I guess it was in jest as the victim did not react / hit back.

According to Ted Kravitz the official line is that it was 'friendly rivalry'.

[Esseesse]

BigBen said:

andygo said:

Forget whose pitstop it was, Massa or Bottas, but Sky showed the crewchief (I assume) smacking the left hand front wheelman on the head and gesticulating at him. Quite bad form really. Surprised Martin and co didn't pick up on it, as the F1 TV feed deffo did as they showed it as a mini clip.

It looked like a fairly decent smack on the head to me but I guess it was in jest as the victim did not react / hit back.

Meaningless, there's many reasons why somebody might not react even if not in jest.

[F1spy]

One Williams mechanic slaps right wheelman after the pit-stop during the Singapore GP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjgTdepuPAw

Wonder what the right-rear wheel changer at Williams did to deserve this?

[D7Cup]

I feel sorry for Nico, we missed on a what it would have been a good race at the front due to Merc's reliability issues once again. Hey, at least NR wasn't whinging on the radio and didn't want to quit the race to 'save' the engine...

Edited by D7Cup on Monday 22 September 07:30

[Derek Smith]

D7Cup said:

I feel sorry for Nico, we missed on a what it would have been a good race at the front due to Merc's reliability issues once again. Hey, at least NR wasn't whinging on the radio and didn't want to quit the race to 'save' the engine...

Edited by D7Cup on Monday 22 September 07:30

I'm not sure why you should criticise LH for thinking ahead - and that's on the assumption NR didn't put the idea forward that saving an engine is a really good idea. Leaving both LH and NR out on circuit when there was little likelihood of earning anything more than a point or two at a time of the season when the engines and other consumables are getting near their limits for replacement seems to me to be taking a big risk. It is not as if Merc is the most reliable car out there.

Still, I feel sure that dropping the car off the rear jacks with the wheels turning at speed is unlikely to cause any damage to the transmission.

[JonRB]

andygo said:

Forget whose pitstop it was, Massa or Bottas, but Sky showed the crewchief (I assume) smacking the left hand front wheelman on the head and gesticulating at him. Quite bad form really. Surprised Martin and co didn't pick up on it, as the F1 TV feed deffo did as they showed it as a mini clip.

They did pick up on it. In fact, in the after show coverage they specifically asked Claire Williams what it was all about and she said that it as "banter" and that the team of people on each wheel have a friendly competition to see who is best and that the guy doing the slapping was just saying "hah, you were the slowest".

Personally I don't buy it - it looked far from friendly.

[Derek Smith]

And talking about far from friendly, according to the Telegraph:

"Toto Wolff, the Mercedes head of motorsport, suggested last night that Lewis Hamilton’s victory in the Singapore Grand Prix was a suitable payback from “a racing god” after the two team-mates collided last month in Belgium."

[danrc]

F1spy said:

One Williams mechanic slaps right wheelman after the pit-stop during the Singapore GP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjgTdepuPAw

Wonder what the right-rear wheel changer at Williams did to deserve this?

Looks like he didn't raise his wheel gun to indicate he'd finished his job. The other boy took umbrage over this.

[Dr Murdoch]

JonRB said:

They did pick up on it. In fact, in the after show coverage they specifically asked Claire Williams what it was all about and she said that it as "banter" and that the team of people on each wheel have a friendly competition to see who is best and that the guy doing the slapping was just saying "hah, you were the slowest".

Personally I don't buy it - it looked far from friendly.

Ive watched the gif a number of times and I'm still struggling. I'm wondering whether the right rear gun man didn't put his gun up in the air once he was done? Or at least, not high enough up in the air?

[sanguinary]

Just at the end of the link above, you can see the front wheel man's hands coming out towards the slapper (for want of a better word) as if he is calming him down.

I don't believe it was friendly banter, but I can't see what the problem was either.

[JonRB]

I'm sure that the pit crews take their jobs very seriously and that tensions & adrenaline run high. I'm sure that the real story is that the 'slapper' perceived the wheelgun guy to have let them all down in some way and was telling him so.
However, I also think that this kind of, um, "robust debrief" should be done behind closed doors and not in public.

I don't know why Claire Williams couldn't have just come out and said something to that effect - it would have been more honest and plausible.

[007 VXR]

sanguinary said:

Just at the end of the link above, you can see the front wheel man's hands coming out towards the slapper (for want of a better word) as if he is calming him down.

I don't believe it was friendly banter, but I can't see what the problem was either.

looks like he was told off for not lifting his gun/arms when finished...

[Dunit]

D7Cup said:

I feel sorry for Nico, we missed on a what it would have been a good race at the front due to Merc's reliability issues once again. Hey, at least NR wasn't whinging on the radio and didn't want to quit the race to 'save' the engine...

Edited by D7Cup on Monday 22 September 07:30

The reason Lewis is allways trying to save his engine is he is far more marginal on power units than Nico, They have managed to save the engine that caught light but is just now used for practice and he suffered failures earlier in the season in practice of other units involved in the power train.

[IainT]

Derek Smith said:

And talking about far from friendly, according to the Telegraph:

"Toto Wolff, the Mercedes head of motorsport, suggested last night that Lewis Hamilton’s victory in the Singapore Grand Prix was a suitable payback from “a racing god” after the two team-mates collided last month in Belgium."

The interview this came from (unless he used the phrase in another interview) Sky - it wasn't used in an unfriendly manner and certainly none that made me think anything suspicious. The comment was just Toto's usual laid-back manner - something like "If you believed in a god of racing you might see his as somehow redressing the balance". To me he was just saying that luck balances itself out and that people might consider Nico and Lewis equal in terms of bad luck. He certainly didn't appear to be saying that Nico deserved it or that he thought it was a good thing.

I think he's aware that people taken a bit of a dislike to Nico for Monaco and Spa - both unremarkable incidents if they'd involved mid-field drivers. Maybe he's trying to do some gentle pro-Nico PR?

[ajprice]

[Derek Smith]

I've just run the highlights through again and looked at some stats.

Whilst it would be easy to dismiss his drive as one of the easiest wins of his career, LH did everything very well yesterday.

He looked after his tyres in the early stages, was hindered by the PC but overcame that, overtook Vettel with ease and then went on to win.

My interpretation was that he was expecting a pace car all the way through and drove accordingly.

If Rosberg had had no problems (and this is not a conspiracy theory) and had elected to dice with LH from the start, the tyre life would have been a bit of concern. It was possible that Vettel/DR may have had a chance of a win in that case. The RBs would have had to have another tyre stop I think, but this race was their best chance of a top step finish.

Had NR's electronics been reliable, e would probably have had one of the closest races of the season.

[IainT]

Derek Smith said:

Had NR's electronics been reliable, e would probably have had one of the closest races of the season.

Hypothetical, non-failure, scenario:

Assuming LH had got to the first corner ahead of NR (his start was pretty good so likely) he'd have had all the advantages to preserve tyres - same strategy, clean air, pit-stop priority. I'm not sure either driver would have had enough advantage over the other to pass on this circuit.

I think you're dead right about LH not pushing in the early stages, high chance of the SC coming out meant a big lead was not warranted. Just enough to cover a slow pit stop or small mistake. From that perspective LH drove the race perfectly and their strategy to make the extra stop was spot on with out the risk of 'doing a Bottas' at the end. Sure he had to pass SV to win and might have had to pass DR too had the stop been poor but that was never going to be hard with the massive tyre advantage.

The laps Lewis did after the SC pulled in were utterly mesmerising.