the prophecy has being fulfilled once again!!!

Keep in mind that they didn't set up the car properly. Keep in mind that only Hamilton was able to follow Webber. ... and maybe Alonso too.

Keep also in mind that this is the track that is going to favor RBR the most, especially with that new, bumpy, tight Arena section.

As long as McLaren integrates its EBD, and does whatever they planned on doing for Germany (suspension? rear wing? floor?), they are going to be alright.

I'm not McLaren fan, however I must say that they impress me this year (last year as well). They seem to be one level above everybody else in terms of team work, development, race performance. They are just stunning (drivers as well). This race (and whole racing weekend) is another proof for that.

Absolutely loved the end result. To notch driving by Jenson; I didn't expect him to be in the top 5given his starting position. He must have had a brilliant start and he never took the foot off. The question is: how come the car that was so bad yesterday (for him) became so good today. I think our car's race pace is very, very good and with the fuel loads it must have stabilised the car when they were going over the bumpy section of the track.
Now, please, guys (the team) get the EBD working in Hockenheim. Please. I jsut want to see the raw pace of LH with a car that is as fast as the Red Bull. Should be a mouth-watering prospect. And I'm still amazed at how Red Bull is so committed to shooting its own balls off on every race weekend. With the car they have they should have been atleast 70-90 points ahead in the WCC. Oh, well, why am I complaining?

Ferrari put down the fastest lap of the race, and where was Ferrari today? Silverstone was RBR to win, and with the 'old' McLaren's to lose. Still we were able to pull a mayor gap with Webber to the rest of the field.

Sorry, but i cant take your comment about 'being outdeveloped in the development race by RBR' serious if you dont see that McLaren was able today to only lose a few 0.1s a lap to the RBR on 'the' circuit that should suite the RBR the most, and even with a McLaren that doesnt support the blown diffuser.

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What did I say? And the race went even better. The driver of McLaren are the best. And the tema must have owrked wonders to make the car so fast after the problems.

Might be something to do with the weight distribution in a long wheel based car, as suggested by Jenson.

Since the 1st race the car was way better during the race than in qual. No wonder that we were able to pull a lot more performance than yesterday.

Just lost one point to the Red Bulls on a track where they were clear favorites and also the RBR driver that won the race was not the closest one on the WDC before the race started.

And all of this with the test sessions for the EBD on Friday that will make the team improve it so that in Germany in two weeks we will be able to get the max out of it and maybe leapfrog the Bulls in terms of pure pace.

Well that was a 'great escape'! Well done to team and drivers for saving that.
Hopefully things will go more smoothly in Germany...

Do you actually understand what is going on in the races, what the tech regs are and how they effect the races? Alonso's lap was set on FRESH softs, one lap old. Webber was playing with the McLaren, Lewis said he drove every lap like a qualifying lap, and still Webber could put a second into him at will. Webber was not concerned about the gap so much, you must remember that Engines and Gearbox's must last a certain number of races, there is no need to run away from the field if you don't have to, its happened all year. To assume that a car that was nearly a second faster over one lap in Quali is going to come back to the field is ridiculous.

Lewis did drive a fantastic race, but even his absolute best in front of a home crowd was no where near the pace of the RedBull.

Jenson said in post race discussion with the BBC that on heavy fuel the car was fine but as it got lighter it became more of a problem.

Sorry but your whole comment is ill-informed.

Ferrari only got fastest lap of the race because they pit for fresh tyres with 5 laps to go.

McLaren didn't only lose 0.1sec per lap to RBR, RBR could have if Webber wanted to pull away near 1.0secs per lap - this is what I was seeing on live timing.

I'm personally not expecting the blown diffuser in Germany at all. It seems fundamentally flawed because of the throttle sensitivity issue. It's losing us lap time - never mind the 1 sec we need.

Sorry to say Zool, but you're always doom and gloom, hopefully the EBD will be sorted, but we won't know for a while yet. Redbull were faster how much I don't know a lot depends on tyres.

1 second a lap. We are doomed. What did Whitmarsh said about floor problems, I can¨t find it anywhere?

yeah guys another great weekend considering our struggle with set-up and new updates. This race was one of the most important race this seasons because there will be no other circuit that suit red bull that well and we will have our big upgrades which,hopefully, are going to work as expected. Fingers crossed for the new upgrade in Germany, i hope our team will do great job about this because it is very very important stage. Lewis drove superbly here he was almost matching with webber.

Everyone saw how increcibly fast red bull through t11. They are gainint only 0.4sec through abbey chicane so considering that gap btw red bull it was great result.

I laughed to Ferrari guys haha cry babe alonso failed once again ahaha. Vettel was lucky not to crash after puncture and SC. Wtihout SC he would not have scored that 6 points.

Great Job LEWIS & BUTTON and McLaren-F1 TEAM keep pushing guys we believe in you!

Do you watch with live timing? then you will know how much faster. You will see exactly which laps Webber decided to put the hammer down and light up with purple sectors. You would then see how the following lap he would back off by around 0.8 secs. Toying with the gap to Hamilton.

I am happy for track position result today. But I am gloomy because the lap time delta was massive today.
I am gloomy because I don't see McLaren genuinely overhauling RBR on pure pace this year.
I am gloomy because McLaren have a problem with the most fundamental characteristic of the EBD, throttle sensitivity and losing downforce off throttle when entering a corner (hence Lewi's 7 spins in FP2). Do you appreciate how much of a BIG ISSUE this is?
(The other issue of components getting too hot is more easily resolved so I'm not worried by that particular aspect).

What is there really to be happy about if you know the only time you can win is with others misfortunes?

Sure I'd take it - but it ain't pretty, and nothing to gloat about.

You by the way was too optimistic last night thinking they would not take the upgrade off the car.

Regarding the floor - the exhaust was melting it. They got their cooling calculations wrong. That particular issue is easily fixable though by adding more heat resistant material.

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We really do have the best TEAM in F1 right now.

It's possible that we could win both the WC and CC by having a good car (but perhaps not the best), driven by one exceptional driver in Lewis and one really good one in Jenson. How many points is their consistency costing Red Bull and Ferrari?

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I think I read (was it Whitmarsh?) that they now understand the shape of the exhuast plume better, which possibly suggests they had got it a little wrong?

Also based on the comments over the weekend I got the impression that they know it brought (some/all of) the expected downforce, yet it made the car really unstable. Which is one of the reasons Lewis wanted to continue with the update because he thought (with a set-up tweak) that he could drive round the instability.

Lewis at the PR:
I think this weekend I've had an incredible amount of optimism, regardless of when they took the floor away - which I actually thought was... I didn't actually want to change the floor, I wanted to stay with it but there were a few... the results on the data and all these kind of things. They had to make a team decision to take it off just in case. We didn't know if it was delivering a little bit less or just about the same. It should have been giving a lot more downforce. It felt good in certain areas for me. I was a bit cautious and a bit nervous about taking it off and then going into Saturday, not knowing just how quick we would be and then on Saturday morning we really were nowhere, we didn't have the pace of these guys. Like I said, we looked like we would be seventh or eighth but pulled out a stonking qualifying lap and that really changed the whole race situation. And then into the race, my race pace this year has always been strong, so that's never been a real struggle for me.

Ouch.

Sounds like it made them go backwards

He said they weren't sure if it even made them gain anything, but then on Saturday they were nowhere so I guess it was an improvement. They just underestimated everyone else at Silverstone.

unusually at this race the softs were very durable and significantly faster, and it was better to stay out longer (as JB did) than come in earlier for the hards...

they should have pitted LH and put him on the softs just as the safety car came out

under new rules, the pit lane exit would be open

he had enough of a gap to Rosberg to remain 2nd

the softs were faster and could easily have lasted the remaining half distance with only half a tank of fuel in weight and the track had rubbered in a lot more

a decent shot at the win was lost today

PS Alonso nil points - I'm starting to feel sorry for the cry baby

I was under the impression the problem was more with the overheating, than with the loss of downforce when going off the throttle? Anyway it seems from Hamilton's comments it wasn't straight away the five tenths people have been talking about.
I feel it represented an improvement, 'cause afterall Hamilton was just four tenths off in Fp1. (He didn't improve on his time in FP2 as they probably switched to a higher fuel load as obviously they had to get a read on the updates running Q-fuel and race-fuel.)
With further refinements I'm expecting them to push Red Bull very, very hard in Hockenheim qualifying.

There are certain corners where Red Bull's exhaust system gives them a sort of positive feedback loop, where the longer they can stay on the throttle the more downforce they have, to the point where they can take the corner flat and others can't get close. On a track without that type of corner, I think we're only a few tenths off (pretty much level in the race).

Hockenheim has two fast corners that might be like that (1 and 8), but at least there aren't long straights after them where the speed loss compromises you even more.

If McLaren somehow get their system to work almost as well as RB, then it will be interesting.

Totally agree. This is my perception of how things stand as well.

Lewis on Friday,
"Today we put on the new components, and I was well excited this morning. The feeling in the car was positive.
"I was actually surprised at the pace we had this morning....
I had a big grin on my face when I got to full throttle. It makes a nice difference. I don't know whether it makes as big a difference as perhaps they thought, but it's something that you have to tweak.
(PF1)
&Lewis disagreed to put the upgrades off the car
"We took it off but I still wanted to try it"
while Button said, it was the right decission to take it off

I think it was an improvement, but McLaren didn't want to take the risks of overheating

the new blown defuser may have given the performance, but if your really unstable you lose that, and bags more time if you end up rally crossing...

hopefully they turn up in germany with a few variations or extra add on bits, so they have a better chance to fix it

That sounds 100% correct to me, but the Red Bull system doesn't seem to give them a lot of instability, even when they do have to get off the throttle. There must be something they are doing which avoids this problem, and gives them a net gain in almost all situations. I just hope Macca can figure it out.

Worst case scenario is that more Fridays might be lost, same as at Silverstone, while the problem is sorted out.

A great result today, but maybe a bit lucky really, losing so much setup time will normally cause a big loss of points.

Like in Turkey you mean?
I have no doubt the Webber had something in hand today from lap 10 or so onwards but I don't think it was a case of 'cruise control'.

Mixed feelings for me after this weekend.
On the one hand we got the best result we could following the problems on Friday and Saturday, in the process strengthening out championship position. The updated exhausts did increase ultimate downforce by all accounts, so I am sure that more progress will be made on the EFD in time for Hockenheim.

On the other hand, the Red Bull pace in qualifying shows that we still have a big bridge to gulf and even though Silverstone suits the RB6 very much, a 0.8 deficit is a lot with circits like Spa and Suzuka still to come. Can we continue to count on the continually shooting themselves in the foot?

Well no. Ignoring the point of discussion presumably is making you happier, or at least giving you the reassurance you need.


Repeating it won't make it true. The point of discussion was about why 'race pace' is not an accurate benchmark of where McLaren really need to be because races are endurance events where any pace certainly RB have over McLaren is masked as they conserve fuel, the engine and gearbox and tyres. We saw that today when Webber pulled out the best part of a second whenever he felt he needed it as he maintained a gap of between five and ten seconds.

You've addressed none of that point of discussion simply because people get upset by it.

McLaren are sure speedy in the race

I am happy

In Turkey McLaren had a sizeable straight line speed advantage from using the F-duct that kept them in play - an advantage they spent all winter concentrating on and an advantage they now don't have. Strangely, it's only a real advantage when you have the car generating downforce because you're trying to get it with a reduced drag penalty.


I think you'll find it was whenever you saw Webber merely respond to anything Hamilton did. Hamilton himself as well as Martin Whitmarsh don't agree with you. Races are endurance events which is why it is so difficult to judge whether a car really has gone as fast as it can.

Red Bull might well muck quite a few things up, and their drivers are questionable as far as I'm concerned, but McLaren are simply no closer when it comes to where their car needs to be. They alluded to that after the race.

I don't see McLaren running two types of car, I believe it will be one or the other. That is a fair whack of parts to swap and change 'just incase' they dont work, now they aren't in Britain anymore theyre in Germany so I don't think that will be possible "for logistical reasons' but we will see. In my mind they wil have to commit to one and bite the bullet. I think they will stick with the old spec car for Germany for the simp-le reason that aero is not a massive factor there. And they may bring the new spec for Hungary or even delay it further for Spa, but I hope not because they have that 1 week shut down thing in that break.

I don't really disagree with most of what you have said, Red Bull continue to have a significant advantage in terms of outright pace and McLaren have their work cut out to close it.
On the bolded part though, it seems that you do feel able to judge that Webber had lots in hand. My impression was slightly different notwithstanding he did have something in reserve.

The part about the F-Duct only being useful when the car is generating downforce is somewhat confusing (read wrong), it is only activated at all when the car is no longer traction limited. Stalling the wing in a corner would spin the car immediately.

A Really tough weekend, having to remove 75% of the package on Friday really put the team on the back foot, however the drives pulled off a massive save and did a superlative job. Although Friday looked to be a big loss this is not the case as the data and telemetry received was absolutely invaluable and the guys already are working on modifications for Hockenheim.

Brilliant job Andy. We're all looking forward to Hockenheim.

Thankyou Andy, this will put some minds at ease Great race by the drivers and the team as a whole. Well done.

I can't wait, you guys did a sterling job to try and get the package to Silverstone, but it didn't work out. The team really turned it around after such a set back. Which is why I love this team.

Can I just say, the car is even more beautiful with the updates.

+1

Fantastic job by the team and the drivers, just brilliant !

But could you tell us what the main problem with the new upgrade was? Was it that it made the car slower, or that it made it too unstable, or both? Either way are you confident that you will be able to refine it or modify it to work in time for Germany?

I judged it on Webber's ability to respond to anything Hamilton did, which usually ended up being the thick end of a second faster.


I'm afraid you're either confused or don't know what you're talking about at all I'm afraid. The real advantage from the F-duct comes from adding downforce with little if any drag penalty. The more downforce you are able to generate for free effectively with the system, the bigger the advantage. What you've written has nothing to do with that and it doesn't have anything to do with stalling the wing in a corner.

Brilliant job Andy. Hopefully the reworked updates will deliver in Germany.

Probably in the latter part of the race yes but during the first stint the gap seemed to be around 0.5s when both drivers were pushing.