F1 - Season 2013 *Spoilers*

[The Noose]

Well this is interesting turn of events!

Caterham F1 Team restructures driver line-up

[1nsane]

"After Ma’s successful run in FP1 in China a number of new opportunities have arisen for him..."

The traditional "get the money and kick them out" strategy. Well, it's kind of cool to see Kovalainen in there again.

[1nsane]

Marussia have decided to move their own logo from the engine cover to the sidepod. The other logo next to it has also disappeared. That car looks empty right now... Hopefully they'll gather at least some sponsor during the year or that team is gone after this season.

[bduddy]

Marussia have decided to move their own logo from the engine cover to the sidepod. The other logo next to it has also disappeared. That car looks empty right now... Hopefully they'll gather at least some sponsor during the year or that team is gone after this season.

Hopefully that means they have an upcoming engine-cover sponsor that isn't ready quite yet... but I fear you may be right, the financial situation in racing around the world is just not good right now

[DuklaLiberec]

That race was quite an enjoying one to watch, aside from Perez' misdemeanour in several overtaking attempts. I was especially upset with his collision on Kimi, which could have almost cost the latter a top ten spot.

Otherwise, I was pleased to see Mercedes back on track.

[1nsane]

I have to watch the race after the red flag again as I started playing during it and only saw the action every now and then.
Luckily the first safety car didn't cost Rosberg the victory. It looked like it was coming out just perfectly for Vettel to grab the victory, Rosberg still had enough of time to do the pitstop first.

A couple of drivers are going to wake up with sore necks tomorrow.

[The Noose]

Kimi's opinion on Perez...

[Lukeno94]

I remain of the opinion that Perez went for a risky but feasible move, and that Raikkonen turned in on him. You cannot 100% blame either party, that's for sure. No idea what the hell Max Chilton was doing though... that one was absurd.

[DuklaLiberec]

Romain Grosjean receives a ten-place penalty for the next race, due to his collision with Daniel Ricciardo.

[Flaming_Wuzzle]

My local NBC affiliate (Houston) decided NOT to show the Monaco GP, instead wanting to air infomercials and morning news programs

You'd think that NBC would have made absolutely sure all of their affiliates, especially the largest ones (Houston is the fourth-largest TV market in the country) would be showing the race before advertising as heavily as they did.

[Trigger Happy]

At least some they broadcast, right? Elsewhere it may be even worse in some cases, e.g. only chance here to watch on Indy 500 today was a switching between various randomly banned streams of ESPN and NBC (?) and filling deaf gaps for ads by switching on a lagging stream of brazilian tv ... And I must say no matter that F1 in CZE in on a free-to-air broadcaster, the best way to watch on is to find a Stream of SkyTV anyway.

[Herbal]

And I must say no matter that F1 in CZE in on a free-to-air broadcaster, the best way to watch on is to find a Stream of SkyTV anyway.

I can just second your words, I'm also more happy with Sky's broadcast compared to M1 (Hungarian national tv broadcast). ^^

[Crowella]

I remain of the opinion that Perez went for a risky but feasible move, and that Raikkonen turned in on him. You cannot 100% blame either party, that's for sure. No idea what the hell Max Chilton was doing though... that one was absurd.

Coming from someone that loves Kimi for some reason, I thought Kimi closed Perez off too dangerously. Ultimately he paid the price for it in the end but did an amazing comeback to get into the points.

[Flaming_Wuzzle]

Most of the GPs are on paid networks (so we get all of those, at least), but four races have to be on a free-to-air network by FOM rule, and all of ours run on affiliate systems....so it's possible that one of the affiliates can decide that running beauty product advertisements will make them more money than the programming they were meant to show.

[1nsane]

So, I watched the second half... I'm surprised Perez didn't get any penalties. Not just for the crash but for the fact that he did the similar kind of dive bombs many times before. He also partly exploited the rules by pushing Alonso off the track so he would get the position. Obviously tried to do the same for Räikkönen but failed at it. Also did some pretty bad moves against Button. He won't be gaining much of respect from the other racers at least.

Grosjean chose the best place to be just completely out of it for the whole weekend. That was an expensive weekend. Chilton also showed his best skills today.. But it's funny how Chilton got away with just the stop and go/drivethrough penalty thanks to him being able to continue the race. So in a sense he lost nothing since he was going to be dead last anyway. But Grosjean got a 10 place grid penalty for the next race simply because he couldn't continue the race.
Good races for Rosberg and Sutil. Nice results for both of them.

[Lukeno94]

Perez made perfectly legitimate moves, especially since there is basically nowhere else to pass there.

[Bouncebackability]

There's been a lot of criticism for perez around much of the Internet, but at least someone was having a go.

[Mad Dan]

I really miss retirements and crashing in todays F1 so Perez is a nice change . Though I still miss start crashes.

in 1999 with 11 teams 16 races it was 155 retirements from 352 entries. 12,3125 cars finished an average race.
in 2002 with 11 teams 17 races it was 153 retirements from 364 entries. 12,41177 cars finished an average race. (10 teams after Arrows left after 12 races)
in 2012 with 11 teams 20 races it was 77 retirements from 440 entries. 18,15 cars finished an average race.

[Doorslammer]

Romain Grosjean receives a ten-place penalty for the next race, due to his collision with Daniel Ricciardo.

Martin Brundle said it best. "I worry about that boy..."

Alan Jones also offered an interesting take on Maldonado/Chilton. He was very adamant that Maldonado should have taken a lot more care around the rookies, especially around Monaco. I think very few folks carry that opinion, but that did raise a good point too...

Let's not forget Sutil. A worthy performance not unlike Stefan Bellof (except in the dry this time of course) with some ballsy passes of his own.

[Lukeno94]

Maldonado should've taken more care in some of the incidents, but when Chilton does something as stupid as that, there's nothing you can do. And yeah, Sutil drove very well.

[DuklaLiberec]

Bottas is a pleasant surprise for us, it seems.

[Lukeno94]

Yes, if he'd been in one of the top cars, I reckon he'd have been on pole by about half a second. Incredibly impressive, given the conditions and his lack of experience in Montreal.

[Mad Dan]

too bad he is in bad era for Williams...but he is nice surprise .

[1nsane]

Bottas still continuing the class act. Too bad the pure pace of the car seems to be so horrible even a good drive isn't going to be enough for points today. Räikkönen and Massa very likely to still pass, so Bottas would be 9th. After that it might be possible to defend it, but it requires some top level pit stops and perfect strategy.

Edit: And there's the pitstop... Which was... Slow.
Edit2: Ok, it wasn't even close to being possible.

[Lukeno94]

Williams had precisely no pace whatsoever in the dry. A shame, really. Vettel dominated, despite bumping into the wall and falling off, can't really argue about him deserving this one. Great drive from Di Resta though!