The 2009 Spanish Grand Prix Thread

[Ed]

Congratulations to Button for winning the race, he had an impressive race no doubt but one wonders why Barrichello was put on a 3 stop strategy. Barrichello didn't seem to have the pace towards the end of the race.
Mark Webber benefited from a longer second stint and staying on the soft compound allowing him to jump Massa and Vettel. Webber's retaking of his position early in the race from Alonso was crucial as well.
Vettel spent almost all the race behind Massa so we don't really know how much quicker he would have been and how much of a threat would he have been to Button. His final lap of the race was the quickest of the leaders on the hard tyre so he may have had a chance. It is strange that Red Bull didn't vary his strategy to try and get him in clear air.
Alonso finished in 5th, the Renault seems to have improved but not enough to challenge Brawn and Red Bull.
Massa finished in 6th when he had a chance to finish on the podium but had problems at the end of the race with low fuel and following the serious error by Ferrari in qualifying, another error it seems in refuelling!
Nick Heidfeld did well to finish in 7th given the recent pace of the BMW's and good to see Rosberg finishing 8th and in the points although he would have been hoping for a higher finish.

Hamilton finished in 9th and a lap down, the changes for McLaren didn't work here while a dissapointing result for Glock to finish 10th as Toyota appear to have gone backwards!

Your thoughts and the driver of the day ?

[Julian Mayo]

My driver of the day goes to Mark Webber. If he can get beyond half race distance without feeling pain, he is going to be one hungry tiger in a field of lambs plus Vettel and a couple of Brawns. His move on Alonso,and don't those two respect each other and their abilities, was 10 tenths. Buggered if I know how he pulled that thing into the apex, but I reckon the harness straps would have had his shoulder on fire :shock:And that was a long stint on those tyres.
I really feel for Barrichello, and Massa, were I them their race engineers would want to make themselves waaay absent for a a while.
Will Mercedes need McLaren next year? Just a thought

[Ed]

Will Mercedes need McLaren next year? Just a thought

Interesting that you say that Julian, this is what Norbert Haug of Mercedes said in the official McLaren press release:

Thank God the Brawn guys saved our bacon again with our engine in the back. Congratulations Jenson, Rubens, Ross and the whole team, you guys have been the benchmark since the season started

Makes you wonder!

[Julian Mayo]

Will Mercedes need McLaren next year? Just a thought

Interesting that you say that Julian, this is what Norbert Haug of Mercedes said in the official McLaren press release:

Thank God the Brawn guys saved our bacon again with our engine in the back. Congratulations Jenson, Rubens, Ross and the whole team, you guys have been the benchmark since the season started

Makes you wonder!

McLaren are not doing much for the prestige factor of Mercedes.............

[Ed]

News articles related to the Spanish Grand Prix

Button switches strategy to win Spain GP
Barrichello not willing to play second fiddle
Hamilton, Massa, write off 2009 title chances
Spain GP stirs new 'team orders' controversy

[Lloyd]

That was a good race for a change in Spain, usually very boring.
I agree Julian, brilliant driving from Webber & Alonso on the restart and great to see Webber have some good luck. Rubens is a lot Pizzed off.
Cannot wait for Monoco..

[Julian Mayo]

That was a good race for a change in Spain, usually very boring.
I agree Julian, brilliant driving from Webber & Alonso on the restart and great to see Webber have some good luck. Rubens is a lot Pizzed off.
Cannot wait for Monoco..

Yup, very pizzzzzzzed off. I think his race engineer is currently in Sierra Leone

[JayVee]

Well done to Button and Brawn but please don't go denying that there were no team orders. That was absolute rubbish. What happened in Spain reminded me of the days of Brawn and Michael.

As far as I can tell, no one, I mean no one went on a 3 stop strategy except Rubens. Usually the car in the lead goes for the conservative strategy and the car behind can take risks. By Barrichello's admission they pitted him the 3rd time a few laps early .... huh .... what was the point ? By the radio communication I heard, they told Barrichello that Button has switched to Plan B or Plan A meaning that Plan A is the preferred plan.
Sorry Rubens, you are either a fool or you are just playing the game and I'd say it is the latter.

Well done too for Webber, he did well and had to retake his place from Alonso otherwise he wouldn't have finished 3rd but Webber that move wasn't very fair. You forced Alonso on the grass and that isn't how I thought you defend. I am sure Alonso had a word with him after that.

I was pleased to see Button lap Hamilton

Ferrari have major strategy problems

Lucky no one got hurt from that smash, I was really worried that Trulli would be hurt as his car went back almost sideways onto the track!!

Good to see F1 release some worthy radio communications this time. We saw the drama unfold with Massa, that was good coverage and they should do more of it.

My driver of the day would have been Button if he really deserved to win that race. But I voted for Alonso this time as he somehow managed to finish 5th in a car that should finish maybe 10th.

Monaco is going to be very interesting

[F1greyhound]

Team orders? Please dont restart this stupid and boring discussion all over again. JENSON, like MICHAEL, is simply faster than RUBENS. Period, point, full stop. In fact both were on 3 stops which could have been a good strategy given the ridiculous performance in this GP of the prime tyres. They say they switched JENSON to get him clear of NICO - you can watch the replay of the race and you will see this makes sense. RUBENS by the way still had a chance of winning but on his 3rd stint on the option tyre he was not able to go the expected pace, he lost about 8-10secs there.

Apart from all that, being ROSS I would definitely favour JENSON now. What does the guy have to do to show he is the real deal as WDC material? And what does RUBENS have to do to prove he is just that bit short of? Being a team manager you have to make sensible decisions and principally favouring the better driver is plain common sense.

I think the situation at REDBULL is similar, SEBASTIAN being distinctively quicker than MARK who seems back to his best and does a great job. Oh, and in this case there were no team orders either...

Apart from that, it was good to see FERRARI regain some serious pace, same applies to slightly lesser degree for the redesigned BMW. Biggest disappointments were MCLAREN and TOYOTA, the latter being surprisingly slow after their great Bahrain showing.

No driver of the day for me, could have been almost anyone including LEWIS, KIMI or TIMO who didnt show up in the points.

I was shocked by Julian voting for MARK.. and by Jayvee voting for FERNANDO..

Extremely original and surprising..

The 2009 WDC will be definitely between just 2 drivers - JENSON and SEBASTIAN, while the Constructors will be between BRAWN and REDBULL with the leader in both being at a significant points advantage.

Monaco will be great...

[Julian Mayo]

My reason for voting for Mark, I thought, was quite well explained. If not, it was for his courage and fortitude, as well as his skill and race nous. Most people, when pouring a drink from a carafe, or water jug, will move the glass to it with one hand whist picking up the aforementioned container with the other. Quite clearly Webber was very reluctant to do so, which suggests to me that the shoulder pain was acute, whilst his leg was no doubt providing an accompianment. As for your assertion that "Sebastian is distinctively quicker than Mark", I do find myself preferring the description by the RedBull Team Principals who have publicly stated that Vettel was quicker to start with, but there is now nothing split them.

[GhoGho]

Ferrari have major strategy problems

Yep, their strategy is sitting on the pit wall under the Brawn canopy..

[F1greyhound]

Re.FERRARI strategy Im not sure they had an issue in this GP unless they had KIMI deliberately missing Q2 which I doubt. They certainly didnt plan for FELIPE to run out of fuel...

Re.MARK being on equal terms, well what would you expect from the team to announce? He is fine but I can see SEBASTIAN being that bit special....but then Im not Australian....))

Anyway, MARK deserves a superb package finally just like JENSON. They both show how much its worth(for RUBENS its not the first time and SEBASTIAN is quite fresh even though he showed more than all 3 in inferior models...).

Im sure though MARK will challenge for pole at Monaco...

[JayVee]

Stupid and boring ..... really, one is supposed to not think or speculate about how ridiculous some strategy decisions were

My stupid and boring thought I believe is shared by many people who wouldn't mind speculating.
In my opinion, it was very clear that Barrichello was disadvantaged by the 3 stop strategy. Why would the Brawn team call the 2 stop strategy, Plan A if it was inferior ?
Plus if it was the optimum strategy then why didn't any other team opt for that strategy, perhaps they are all stupid huh ?

I looked up the lap data from the FIA site and found the following:
Rubens first stop was on lap 19
His second stop was on lap 31 (12 lap stint)
His third stop was on lap 50 (19 lap stint)
Then a 16 lap stint to the end

Why was his second stint so short ????? According to the prediction on TV it said he was filled for 18 laps. Why was he told to pit a whole 6 laps early ????? Before he stopped he was lapping faster than anyone else by around a second
The team simply saw him going too fast so they called him in to slow him down.
If that isn't compelling enough and I am still stupid in my thinking, then explain your own theory that given the ridiculous performance of the prime tyre, Brawn still put him Barrichello on them for a whole 16 laps yet chose to put him of the option for just 12 laps
Brawn isn't stupid

I do agree though that overall Button is quicker than Barrichello but that doesn't mean that Barrichello's should be stuffed up

As for Button being championship material, well I have never heard of a 'championship material' driver who was thrashed by Ralf Schumacher and Giancarlo Fisichella in his first two years of his career and those two are not 'championship material' drivers.
Button can win the championship only if he is in a superior car and at the moment he is.

Voting for a driver of the day is better than not voting at all. Kimi had a very poor race and couldn't pass the BMW, Hamilton chose a strategy that stuffed up his tyres and I am not sure, was Glock atually in the race

Oh and Kimi deliberately did not go back out in qualifying, just read what he and his team said after qualifying

[Julian Mayo]

Kimi publicly stated that he did not want to do any more laps.
Unless there was a problem with the car that they did not want to reveal, then why the hell would a RACING driver, who loves the sport enough to fight into F1, then not want to do any more laps?????
My personal belief is that Kimi, unless the car feels just right, and he is "on it", just can't be bothered any more, not since early last year.
Had he managed a bag full of points by now, it would be different, but he knows the title is gone, again. That is why, despite his 2010 contract, I will be mildly surprised if he finishes this season. It is easy to have oneself booted from the Scuderia, any time one wants, its simply a matter of roughing up the Italian temperament for about 60 seconds.

[RE30B#16]

In my opinion, it was very clear that Barrichello was disadvantaged by the 3 stop strategy. Why would the Brawn team call the 2 stop strategy, Plan A if it was inferior ?
Plus if it was the optimum strategy then why didn't any other team opt for that strategy, perhaps they are all stupid huh ?

I like Rubens, but he needs to stop making excuses. Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Nelson Piquet (Sr), or Niki Lauda would have known which strategy was best. They would have told their team what strategy to use. If Rubens realized Button was gaining by switching strategy during the race, he should have instructed his team to put him on the same strategy. Drivers should control races, not team managers sitting on the pit wall!