Is the new McLaren a pull-rod suspension up front? Why on gods green earth would they do that after what Ferrari went through with last years car?

Missing Paddy Lowe already, IMO.

 

Quite happy with the result, but very surprised.

You'd think after 15 years, Webber would be able to start a race...

 

There were numerous audio issues too (live in-car audio while a slow mo replay being shown, for example), although it's hard to tell if those are coming from the local broadcaster or if it's NBC.

Overall I'd give NBCSP a B for the first race. Some good things, some not-so-good.

 

+1 There was a bunch of audio issues, the picture not matching the sound. Not sure takes the blame on that one..

 

From my understanding, if the pull rod is done right, you have better shock articulation due to the angles of the arm and a very very slight aerodynamic advantage. Problem is it took Ferrari half a season to figure it out. Now McLaren is going through the same pains.

I do have to say I like NBC's after event coverage, unlike Speed where it just ended.

Bring on Malaysia!

 

hasnt that been the case for a while with the mclarens?

 

As everybody may already have expressed, I was please with the coverage specially keeping the live feed while on commercials. My brothers and I were ecstatic to see for sutil leading most of the race. Then kimi won cant beat that.

As always webber messed up his start, the big surprise for me was Massa. I'm happy to see him to be competitive, a huge improvement from last year. I assume RB will figure things out and will dominate the season and Ferrari will be close also.

Can't wait for the next week.

 

They've always had issue with their front suspension lateral load transfer, leading to excessive lock up on the inside front but it hasn't been this bad in the past. I noticed their front nose bouncing up and down more than other teams.

Could be worse, they could be Williams ...

 

^^^^ Best pre-race call of the week. Nicely done.

I really think Horner screwed the pooch by having Vettel make his 2nd pit stop on the same lap as Sutil. That call right there sealed his fate for not having a chance to win that race.

 

That didn't make much sense. Seems like Vettel could have done a hot in-lap that would be a couple seconds faster than Sutil's out-lap on cold intermediates, and gotten in front of him.

 

Thanks we all get lucky sometimes.

Here's what I find interesting, Fernando, Vettel and Massa were all on 3 stoppers yet Fred was able to pull away from the other 2. Kimi was on a 2 stopper so that gives him about a 20 sec advantage. In Massa's case he got stuck behind traffic a little. But I thought it would be a lot closer between Fred and Vettel. The only thing is Fred stopped a lot earlier than Massa. Thoughts?

 

I forgot to set my dvr to record FP2. I thought I had it set up to record the series, turns out I didn't.


Seems like the teams are struggling with the tires again, with Seb claiming he's not sure if RB have enough tires to last the weekend. I'm sure things will improve.

 

Vettel just didn't have enough straight line speed to get past Sutil and once he realized that, he pretty much put his race on cruise control. Same thing with Massa. With the even higher tyre degradation this year (at least so far), it's going to mean that if a driver can't get past the guy in front of him on the first couple of attempts, then they need to back off and wait for tyre/pit-stop strategy to work in their favor.

l8r)

 

WTF ALONSO?! JESUS CHRIST THAT GUY CAN'T WIN.

Anyone watching malaysia?

 

wow, another great race. love seeing a wet start. webber redeemed himself with that start.

would love to know if that was alonso or the teams decision to stay out. the wing obviously had major damage and anyone could see that coming. if the championship comes down to the wire, they'll look back at this mistake for sure.

so much drama between teammates and pit stops. i was never a big fan of vettle but i have say i lost a little respect for vettle after this race. webber clearly listen to team order to dial the engine back while vettle disobey team order to race and pass webber putting both cars in jeopardy.

glad to see that hami admits that nico should have been on the podium. i think its great when teammates respect each other and gets a long. also nice to see massa taking the fight to alonso this year. would be awesome to see him finish the season ahead of alfonso as long as mercedes is on top of ferrari . com at meh grillpt