F1 2014 (And fantasy F1)

[kalniel]

Wow, cracking image!

Sadly I don't think it's a race photo, just their photoshop job from when they announced the livery.

[Gerrard]

I believe it was last year's car with a body work modification to look like this year's. As such, they got around the rules to do some filming earlier this year.

[kalniel]

Another GP coming up soon, get your selections in (and please post here with your team name so I can keep it to Hexus users)

[Smudger]

I am NorfolknChance

[Biscuit]

I went for the option of the team being the same all the way through so not much I can do to change mine
I'm BuzzBuzzBuzz
Jenson, Massa, Hamilton, Magnussen... Thought I had bottas actually

[kalniel]

Massa showed some spirit today I thought! Poor Ricciardo though - guy's driving like a champ but has inherited Webber's bad luck it seems.

On the Fantasy F1 front this was a close round with four of us scoring over 700 points for the race. Gerrard tops the pile for the round with good driver selections and a little boost from from bonus point choices, while Andy3536 still leads overall on his fixed team strategy.

[Smudger]

I forgot the bonus questions last race, but I think I got a couple right this time. Does Perez not even coming to the grid count as first retirement?

Edit: No it doesn't, they've got Maldonado as 1st retirement. Immaterial really, I had Grosjean down.

[kalniel]

I forgot the bonus questions last race, but I think I got a couple right this time. Does Perez not even coming to the grid count as first retirement?

Edit: No it doesn't, they've got Maldonado as 1st retirement. Immaterial really, I had Grosjean down.

Yeah they have to start the race to count as retirement for this game. I don't normally like to cheer crashes, but when bianchi and maldonado hit each other the wife and I were hoping that they'd each drop out first respectively.. I was pleased when maldonado eventually retired first.. only to find out I'd actually picked Gorsjean rather than Maldonado who I thought I'd picked. Ah well, schadenfraude bites again!

[Gerrard]

Well, they changed the fastest pitstop from Red Bull to Ferrari, so I lost that bonus but did get the winning margin right; I must admit I was basing that on a wet race.

Got lucky on the first race with Kobayashi retiring first and Ricciardo's DQ meant I got the right amount cars on the lead lap.

[Andy3536]

Massa showed some spirit today I thought! Poor Ricciardo though - guy's driving like a champ but has inherited Webber's bad luck it seems.

On the Fantasy F1 front this was a close round with four of us scoring over 700 points for the race. Gerrard tops the pile for the round with good driver selections and a little boost from from bonus point choices, while Andy3536 still leads overall on his fixed team strategy.

I would have had a few more points if Massa had followed team orders

I thought it was really harsh for the comment over the radio though, it's like they were taking the micheal out of him with the first message sounding almost identical to the infamous one at Hokenhiem. It doesn't suprise me he didn't listen to them.

[kalniel]

I would have had a few more points if Massa had followed team orders

I thought it was really harsh for the comment over the radio though, it's like they were taking the micheal out of him with the first message sounding almost identical to the infamous one at Hokenhiem. It doesn't suprise me he didn't listen to them.

Yeah I thought that was either very insensitive, or his engineer was reluctantly following instructions and put in a way he knew would fire Massa up.

[Biscuit]

Can't believe they have given Ricciardo a 10 place grid penalty. Well excessive! FIA have definitely got it in for red bull this season.

[Gerrard]

Not really. After Webber's and Williams' incidents last year, it is now a standard penalty in addition to the 5 second stop-and-go. By adding a penalty for the following race it should hopefully move the risk/reward towards safety. No point screwing up two races for that extra 0.1s. However, Ricciardo does seemed to have gained Webber's bad luck.

[kalniel]

As above - the dual penalty for the offence of unsafe release was fixed and defined before the season started, so it's not anything new just for Red Bull. The FIA REALLY want to avoid pit lane casualties but still wanted some competitive element to pit stops. I still prefer the idea of limited numbers pit crew like NASCAR.

[Biscuit]

I understand the safety element of it of course, but the mistake was spotted and the car stopped before there was any real risk. There will always be issues with one thing or another and I think such an extreme penalty despite such a quick reaction from the team is cruel on the driver. That's my opinion anyway.
It is a real shame Ricciardo has had so many technical issues, he's such a pleasant chap in interviews and I really like cheeky yet enthusiastic radio messages. Vettels arrogance has given Red Bull a bit of a negative rep and I'm hoping Daniel can pull some results out and help to pull it in.
The whole sensor issue isn't helping with the arrogance of the team although I do wonder how long it will be before another team has issues and joins in red bulls defiance of them.

[Gerrard]

I understand the safety element of it of course, but the mistake was spotted and the car stopped before there was any real risk. There will always be issues with one thing or another and I think such an extreme penalty despite such a quick reaction from the team is cruel on the driver. That's my opinion anyway.

Again, Webber's wheel came off pretty much as soon as he left the pit-box. In this circumstance, I don't think the fact they managed to recover the car safely is reason to skip part of the penalty. TBH, I'm surprised that they didn't get done for pushing the car backwards through the pits and were lucky that there weren't any other cars coming in at the time.

I'm not sure if the penalty includes the other "unsafe release" of releasing the car into the path of another.