Donkey of the Race - Germany

[steveaki13]

Who other than Red Bull Pit Crew sucked today. :p :

[markabilly]

no one except for who ever let a burned out car roll all over the race track.......and Charlie for having the pace car out for far too many laps for no reason except that he could.....(or was it to help someone???)mostly boring race

[Ranger]

Red Bull screwed up that pit stop today and I'm sure that won't be the last heard of it. I do feel sorry for them, given that someone was injured, but it shouldn't have happened.

Ferrari and Massa's suspension. I can almost smell a conspiracy - that was a very strange spin indeed.

Force India screwed up PdR's pit exit and I'm amazed there was not an immediate drive-through penalty for it.

[Koz]

Red Bull pit crew.
To a lesser extent Williams pit.

Massa? What happened there?

Safety Car.

[N4D13]

no one except for who ever let a burned out car roll all over the race track.......and Charlie for having the pace car out for far too many laps for no reason except that he could.....(or was it to help someone???)mostly boring race
Actually, I believe that the safety car rules require him to wait for lapped cars to rejoin the back of the pack before restarting the race...

Anyway, I think that the race was rather engaging. There were so many different strategies and so many fights that I must admit I find it difficult to understand why you'd find it boring.

As for the donkey of the race - well, Red Bull for screwing Webber's race in a race that Mark could have won and wounding a cameraman in the process, who could have been the second F1 casualty in three races. Massa successfully avoided the need to leave one of his tyres unfastened when he decided to spin off in order not to slow down Alonso. :p

[markabilly]

Actually, I believe that the safety car rules require him to wait for lapped cars to rejoin the back of the pack before restarting the race...

. :p

In that case, Mark took forever to make it up....

[steveaki13]

Donkey of the Race - Red Bull Pit Crew. The right rear man clearly had not finished his job, and yet the lollipop man let him go.

Force India - Unsafe release.

Massa/Ferrari - For that strange incident.

Whoever let Bianchi's car roll away down the Hill.

SC Rule and Charlie & his gang.

*Not sure about the Williams pitstops. I mean it suggests there was a problem with the guns or nuts.

[N4D13]

In that case, Mark took forever to make it up....
That's not the case - I remember Antonio Lobato saying that he did a 1:36 or something like that under the safety car, which was the fastest lap at that time of the race or at least was rather close. The problem is that the rest of the field were not stopped in the main straight waiting for him so he obviously needed a couple of laps to catch up with them.

[vhatever]

No force india for the most rdiciulous "safe" release ive ever seen.

Webber's tire was the lolipop guys fault. The tire guy had his hand up indicating there was a problem. what's worse? missing a hand or missing an entire formula one car?

[AndyL]

Force India screwed up PdR's pit exit and I'm amazed there was not an immediate drive-through penalty for it.

I don't understand at all why the stewards decided to postpone the investigation of that until after the race. It didn't look like a difficult decision to make.

[JasonPotato]

It was an interesting race but for all the wrong reasons, somebody could have quite easily died on 2 occasions because of 2 errors.

[wedge]

Ferrari and Massa's suspension. I can almost smell a conspiracy - that was a very strange spin indeed.



He needs to borrow Mario Balotelli's Tshirt

http://worldsoccertalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/mario-balotelli-why-always-me.jpg

[wedge]

Apart from the obvious I think Lotus screwed Kimi again.

As he had good pace staying out and with Seb coming up to traffic that was when they should have pitted Kimi - regardless of what Kimi thinks. Kimi would have noticed this in the debrief by now.

[Eunos]

Jules Bianchi for forgetting to stick the handbrake on :P

[The Black Knight]

Jules Bianchi and the RBR pit crew.

[wedge]

Jules Bianchi for forgetting to stick the handbrake on :P

F1 cars don't have a handbrake.

The drivers leaves the car in neutral or in gear with the steering wheel in place else its a fine.

[RedBullian1]

Webber's tire

[Robinho]

Red Bull for trying to decapitate a camerman. Bianchi for leaving his car on a hill to roll across the track, (special mention to the marshals for not being on the scene before it started rolling) and to Massa, for what he has said is another driver error that has taken him out of the race. Whilst he seems to have regained his speed, his errors have returned with it

[Bruce D]

Apart from the obvious I think Lotus screwed Kimi again.

As he had good pace staying out and with Seb coming up to traffic that was when they should have pitted Kimi - regardless of what Kimi thinks. Kimi would have noticed this in the debrief by now.

So glad someone else noticed that. My definate donkey of the race was Lotus for that strategy. When you're less than a second behind the guy who pits and then gain 2sec on him and you know you want to pit again, you pit! I was so ticked off when that happened.

[Big Ben]

Massa himself said he spun because he made an error :rolleyes: and then his car got stuck in 5th gear. Conspiracy to what? Finish 4th in the WCC :rolleyes: ?

RBR for that tragi-comic performance.

[AndyL]

(special mention to the marshals for not being on the scene before it started rolling)

I think they were - a guy with a fire extinguisher turned up before the driver was out of the car and I think a second marshal arrived just after. After the fire went out, Bianchi returned to the car and put the steering wheel back on, and presumably they all then left it. I guess that would be standard procedure, you wouldn't want to leave marshals so close to the track waiting for a tractor to arrive.
We didn't see the car actually start rolling, I wonder if it got a nudge from the tractor that was there when the cameras cut back to it. Either that or the car went into neutral after the steering wheel was put back on.

[schmenke]

.... Bianchi for leaving his car on a hill to roll across the track, (special mention to the marshals for not being on the scene before it started rolling) ...


To be fair, given that his car was engulfed in flames I’m sure Bianchi wasn’t too choosy as to where he pulled over :p : . And I’m pretty sure I did notice a marshal, extinguisher in hand, promptly at his car. What, if anything, a marshal can reasonably do to prevent a car from rolling down a hill, into oncoming traffic, I don’t know :mark: .

[schmenke]

Oops, sorry, didn't see AndyL's post :up: .

[Robinho]

To be fair, given that his car was engulfed in flames I’m sure Bianchi wasn’t too choosy as to where he pulled over :p : . And I’m pretty sure I did notice a marshal, extinguisher in hand, promptly at his car. What, if anything, a marshal can reasonably do to prevent a car from rolling down a hill, into oncoming traffic, I don’t know :mark: .

my point is that the marshals were on the scene, then ran off once the tractor started to come to pick it up, only for the car to roll away. They should knwo that at that point in the circuit they need to stay with the car to prevent it rolling. These things weight bugger all, 1 man leaning on the rear wing would have prevented the roll off, even an advertising hoarding brought it to a halt. IIRC a year or 2 ago a car in the same portion of the track (on the right hand side) started to roll off, so its not unprecedented.

[kfzmeister]

Grosjean for not wringing everything out of that Lotus when he had the chance.
Having made an aggressive move on Vettel for the lead would have set him apart as a driver and established Lotus as a serious contender. Besides, it could very well have led to a 1-2 for Lotus!

My Donkey goes to Grosjean.

[SGWilko]

my point is that the marshals were on the scene, then ran off once the tractor started to come to pick it up, only for the car to roll away. They should knwo that at that point in the circuit they need to stay with the car to prevent it rolling. These things weight bugger all, 1 man leaning on the rear wing would have prevented the roll off, even an advertising hoarding brought it to a halt. IIRC a year or 2 ago a car in the same portion of the track (on the right hand side) started to roll off, so its not unprecedented.

Are marshalls not a bit sensitive to being around the recovery vehicles since Canada?