Adam Cooper F1

Martin Whitmarsh insists that McLaren’s improved form in Germany was not purely a result of the change in tyre specification for that weekend – but he accepts that there’s still a long way to go before the MP4-28 is a real contender.

Jenson Button eventually finished sixth after running third for many laps before his late first stop, while Sergio Perez took eighth. McLaren had failed to score a point in the previous two races.

“We worked hard on our car,” Whitmarsh told this writer. “I don’t think there’s a massive change in order on the tyre spec, if you look up and down the pitlane. I’m sure Force India will see it differently, but if you look at all the other cars, despite the protestations of what was going to happen, I don’t think it made any earth shattering changes.

“I’m not going to get carried away, but our race pace was reasonable, I think both race drivers did a good job. Driving to a two-stop strategy took quite a lot of discipline. It was a little bit frustrating at the end, because we were had over by traffic, and also by a fairly unusual safety car arrangement, which helped Mark [Webber] a lot.

“You’re never satisfied in those situations, and we ended up ultimately frustrated by that. But put that aside, we raced well as a team. If we had been flat out three-stopping, then we would have looked quicker in the race that when you’re trying to look after the tyres and run to a two-stop strategy. Overall, a little step forward, but we’re not doing hand stands quite yet.”

Whitmarsh said it was encouraging to be able to race for points after the recent drought.

“For a lot of the race, Jenson could see the leaders, and we were racing. It’s much less tiring than when you climb off the pitwall than when you’re not really in there racing in any way. Jenson was a little bit unlucky with the safety car, unlucky with traffic, it’s just annoying when a team fighting for 19^th and 20^th [Caterham] don’t radio their drivers and get them out of the way.

“That cost him a couple of seconds and meant Lewis was on him. On the other hand, Lewis was in a quick car, starting from pole, so he probably feels a little bit more disappointed than we do in that regard.

“With Checo, he was held up behind Ricciardo in the first stint, then he got held up behind Maldonado in the second stint, so he lost a lot of time like that. But again he drove really well. He went into the race not confident in the balance of the car, but I think he made a good start, and raced well when traffic allowed him to.”

The FIA has reacted swiftly to the Nurburgring pit incident by introducing with immediate effect two rules already approved for 2014.

The speed limit will come down from 100km/h to 80, and pit crews will have to wear helmets.

In addition only officials and team personnel will be allowed in the pit lane in qualifying and races, and approved media will be confined to the pit wall.

A statement tonight said: Following a pit lane incident at last weekend’s German Grand Prix, the FIA has decided to take steps to increase F1 safety and is to institute an immediate ban on anyone other than event marshals and team personnel being present in pit lane during races and grand prix qualifying sessions. Access for approved media will be confined to the pit wall.
 
Last weekend’s incident at the Nürburgring occurred when, following a pit stop, a wheel became detached from the Red Bull Racing car of Mark Webber as he made his way towards the pit lane exit. The loose wheel struck a television cameraman who was hospitalised as a result. He is expected to make a full recovery.
 
In order to reduce the risk of similar accidents in the future, the FIA, on the initiative of its President, Jean Todt, will be seeking to make changes to the Formula One Sporting Regulations. In order to effect this, the FIA today informed teams that the approval of the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) will immediately be sought for two changes to the Sporting Regulations. Both of these changes have already been approved for 2014. However, for safety reasons, the WMSC will be asked to approve their immediate implementation. The changes are:
 
1)    Article 23.11, which will now require all team personnel working on a car during a pit stop to wear head protection.
  
2)    Article 30.12, which will provide for a reduction of the pit lane speed limit during races from 100km/h to 80km/h (with the exception of Melbourne, Monaco and Singapore, where due to track configuration the limit remains at 60km/h).
  
Finally, in relation to the incident at the German Grand Prix, the FIA is expecting a written report from Red Bull Racing tomorrow. This will also be shared with the other teams in order to help improve pit lane safety.

The FIA confirmed to the F1 teams today that the Silverstone Young Driver test will still take place over three days – ending any hopes Mercedes might have had that it would be allowed to participate in an extra fourth day.

Crucially the FIA has also decided to ensure that race drivers can only be involved in Pirelli testing, having contemplated allowing teams to do what they want in terms of car development.

FIA observers will ensure that any changes made to the cars when a race driver is running relate only to the tyre testing, so teams will not be able to swap wings and other parts around and so on.

However a race driver could in theory test new parts if they are on the car in the morning, and remain in place all day.

The FIA today sent the following note to teams, which has also been seen by this writer:

1)  The young driver training test will remain a three day test from 17-19 July.

2)  One specification of tyre will be available for the test. The 2012 construction will be used but with the hard, medium and soft 2013 compounds.

3)  Pirelli will be authorised to provide each team with five extra sets of tyres for this test, bringing the annual total to 105 sets. All of these sets may be used.

4)  Any driver who has competed in more than two F1 World Championship races may take part in this test, provided that the purpose of him doing so is to test tyres for the appointed tyre supplier. In order to meet this requirement, all teams shall, in particular, ensure that any changes made to a car at these times are exclusively related to the tyre tests set out in the run plan provided by Pirelli. An FIA observer will be appointed to ensure the regulations are being followed.

After looking so strong at Silverstone just a week earlier Mercedes once again struggled with tyre management in Germany, as both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg lacked grip.

Ross Brawn admitted that the ban on attending the Silverstone test – where the ‘Hungary’ tyres will be run by rival teams – is even more costly now.

“It doesn’t help, because obviously we won’t be trying the ’12 tyre on this car until we get to Hungary,” he said when asked by this writer. “It would have been nice to at least have had an insight. But it’s what we have to live with.”

Brawn said that with the one-off tyres used in Germany the high temperatures on race day appeared didn’t do Mercedes any favours.

“There were some things like swapping the rears, which was helpful, and that’s disappeared now. Silverstone wasn’t that warm, Montreal wasn’t warm, and we always said we need a hot race. This felt a little bit like some of the races earlier in the year where we struggled until things cooled down a little bit.

“I think the ability to swap tyres before was a good way of offsetting the stress in a tyre, so you could use it in qualifying and then swap it and have it in a different condition for the race. You can’t do that with these tyres, there’s no advantage to doing it with these tyres. And I think we were back into going over the limit of the temperatures of the tyres, and suffering because of it.

“The first half of the race was pretty horrible, and then the second half of the race, the fuel weight went down, it got a touch cooler, and we got back in the window again. And it was respectable. Times weren’t so bad. It just shows how critical we are. But on high fuel at the beginning of the race, trying to push, we just overstressed the tyres. We have to try and find more solutions to resolve that.

“I think it is something you fall over the edge of. The track temperature did take it over that threshold, and the fact that it came back a bit towards us for the second half of the race I think demonstrated that. The fuel weight went down. I don’t think it necessarily did get any cooler in the second half, but certainly when the fuel weight went down, we were in a better position.”

Brawn conceded that it was difficult to get a handle on the change of spec, which will change once again by the next race.

“When we ran the [2013 prototype] tyres in Brazil the newer tyres did seem to run a little bit hotter, but we’re not sure where this tyre that we had today sits in that whole thing, so it’s a little bit difficult to judge. I think the solutions or things that we have to do will be relevant, whether we stayed with this tyre or whether we get the 2012 cars that we’re going to have in Hungary.”

He admitted that the drivers were frustrated, but said everyone was working to improve the situation.

“Lewis wears his heart on his sleeve, but he’s very constructive after the race. We had a very constructive debrief, because we’ve got to look at where we came from. We’re disappointed today because we scored 12 points. Second half of last year we would have given our right arm for 12 points.

“We’re still second in the championship, and we’ve still got a lot of things we can do. They’re healthy frustrations, they’re not negative. Both drivers have given us a lot of good insight in the debrief we’ve just had.”

Christian Horner says that Red Bull feared that Kimi Raikkonen would be able to hang onto the lead in Germany by not making a third pit stop – an alternative outcome that Kimi himself pondered after the race.

In the end the Finn did come in for an 11-lap final stint on soft tyres, and ultimately had to settle for second place behind Sebastian Vettel.

“It was a tough call in some respects and not in others,” he said of Vettel’s final pit stop, made in response to Romain Grosjean coming in. “Obviously the pace car came out when a Marussia started a life of its own, and that was at a very awkward point in the race, because it was still potentially too far to go on a set of the harder tyres. So we elected to fit a set of scrubbed tyres to Sebastian’s car, leaving one new set available for the last stint.

“So we intended to stop, and were thinking that the Lotuses might actually try to brave it out to the end. Once Grosjean stopped then it made perfect sense for us to cover Grosjean. The risk with that was conceding the lead to Kimi if he didn’t need to stop, and he was looking in pretty good shape at that stage.

“We made the stop, covered Grosjean, we then focussed on keeping the gap to Kimi to less than a pit stop obviously, so that when he did stop for the soft tyres Sebastian had just enough to cover him. We saw that the Lotus was very quick on the soft tyre at the beginning of the race, but Sebastian kept just enough up his sleeve to fend him off over the last few laps.”

Horner stressed that the victory meant a lot to Vettel.

“For him it’s obviously massively special to win your home race, and he’s for sure extremely proud of what he’s achieved today. He’s always taken the bigger picture. We discussed it before the race and said let’s go for the best that we can, and if that’s second today, that’s second. There’s just as many points attached to this race as the other 18, and it’s approaching one at a time.

“But there was a pretty big grin on his face, and he was pretty excited to cross the line. To win it the way he did, it was absolutely text book from him today, he did not put a wheel wrong, pushed when he needed to, and he was on it every single lap. I think he’s pretty chuffed to have won his home race.

“It was a good race today, it was an exciting race, plenty going on. For us it made up in some way for the disappointment of Silverstone as well, having got so close to winning the British GP. To address that a week later in Sebastian’s home race was a great result.”

Horner admitted that he was surprised to see Mercedes struggle so much on race day.

“Yes, because they had looked strong on Friday, so maybe perhaps the temperature today hurt them more than others. Certainly the Lotuses were very quick today. We were surprised that Fernando stopped so early on the hard tyre, so I don’t know what his issue was, but it was definitely clear early on that initially Grosjean was going to be the major factor after his long stint on the first set of soft tyres, and then obviously Kimi came into play later on in the race as well. They were very strong today, but what happened to Mercedes, I’m not quite sure.”

Despite Vettel’s comfortable lead Horner says that the title fight is still wide open.

“I think it’s very much a four-way battle, I don’t think you can discount anybody. We’re effectively at the half way point of the year, there’s still an awful long way to go, and anything can change. But to have won four Grands Prix in the first half of the year is satisfying, but it doesn’t guarantee anything. We see weekend to weekend different teams have different levels of competitiveness. I’m sure that will continue during the next few events.”

Nico Rosberg salvaged ninth place at the end of a disappointing German GP weekend as – against expectations – Mercedes stuggled with the latest tyres. Here’s what he had to say.

Kimi Raikkonen kept himself in the World Championship fight by finishing second to Sebastian Vettel in Germany by the narrow margin of 1.008s – but it could have been a victory for the Finn.

The race turned on the final pit stops, and indeed Kimi had the possibility to not actually make one and just carry on to the flag. However he was called in for soft tyres for the final 11-lap run to the flag.

Although he ultimately got passed team mate Romain Grosjean and onto Vettel’s tail, he lost time getting past other cars, and ran out of laps in which to attempt a pass.

“After the Safety Car we were pretty OK and the cars, three of us, had similar speed and it’s very difficult to overtake anybody,” he said. “I could run longer and we had a think about it, if we can try to run until the end but we had a massive problem with the radio. I could hear them, but they could only hear me between two corners.

“So I’m wondering if we should have done it, take a gamble and try to go to the end because the tyres were pretty OK, my speed was pretty OK, so it was hard to know what happens in the next 10 laps. We decided to come in and put the soft tyres. We had good speed. Obviously I got some help from Romain to get past but we would have had a big fight, anyhow. I could have probably passed him in a normal situation but obviously it would have cost me a lot of time.

“I caught up with Seb but, like I said before, everybody was behind each other but we are too close on speeds and it’s so difficult to overtake then. We tried everything that we had and failed to win, but I think for the team we did a good race, and got both cars on the podium, so as a team we’re happy. But obviously I lost some more points to Seb in the championship. We keep trying.”

Kimi insisted that second was better than nothing: “Obviously we are here to try and win races. We couldn’t today because we were not fast enough but for the team it was a good result after a couple of quite difficult races, so obviously for my championship it was not ideal, we lost some more points but it’s still a long season, and if we keep putting ourselves in a position for at least fighting for first place then I think we can do it again. But as I said, it’s good for the team, and not so good for my championship.”

Red Bull was fined €30,000 for an unsafe pit stop release after a lost wheel from Mark Webber’s car injured TV cameraman Paul Allen in Germany.

Webber was erroneously given the signal to leave the pits after his first stop, despite the right rear not being secured. The wheel immediately detached and rolled down the pitlane. It narrowly missed some Lotus mechanics and headed into the Mercedes pit, where two FOM TV pitlane cameramen were stationed.

The first was facing Webber and crouching down. Having seen the wheel, he moved out of the way, leaving his camera on the pit road. The wheel continued move along at ground level – until it struck the abandoned camera.

It then bounced upwards, hitting Allen – who was facing the other way after panning around to get Webber’s exit – squarely in the back. He was knocked to the ground, suffering broken ribs and a broken collarbone.

Red Bull initially thought that the man struck was a Mercedes mechanic, but the team was later informed that he was an FOM crew member, and kept informed of his condition.

Christian Horner chose not to inform Webber until after the race.

“Obviously we need to fully understand what’s happened and why the wheel wasn’t located,” said Horner. “The wheel has obviously then detached itself from the car with quite a bit of energy, and knocked a cameraman, Paul Allen, over. Most importantly he’s fundamentally OK. Obviously that was our primary concern, but it’s a timely reminder that the pitlane is still a pretty dangerous place to be.

“It’s a horrible feeling, because your immediate concern is for that individual, that he’ll be alright. Initially I thought it was a Mercedes mechanic, but very quickly I was updated by FOM that it was one of their cameraman, and he was on his way to hospital.

“All the initial signs looked OK and they kept me updated during the race with what their findings were. The important thing is that he’s OK. It must be shocking for his family as well to see something like that. The most important thing is he’s fundamentally OK.”

Regarding Webber, he said: “We chose not to inform Mark at that point, we didn’t see that it was relevant for him to be racing with that on his mind, so he was informed after the race. He was obviously very concerned for the wellbeing of the camera guy and pleased to hear that was OK.”

Horner said that it perhaps people working in the pitlane should be better protected.

“The mechanics have to wear safety gear and helmets, and maybe it’s time that we look at perhaps some of the other operational working people having to home some safety equipment as well.

“Head injuries in particular are pretty nasty, so maybe it’s something that needs to be looked at.”

Sebastian Vettel finally won his home Grand Prix in Germany after holding off the challenge of Kimi Raikkonen in the closing laps.

It was also his first win in July, an unusual statistic that has followed him around in recent years.

“To be honest, for sure, there are a lot of expectations,” said Vettel of the pressures of racing at home. “Especially when you have a good car and for a couple of years you’ve had a good run, when you come to home soil people expect you to win. I think the whole team, including myself, we never ever let that get to our head but it just feels very, very sweet now to have succeeded after a couple of tries. Sometimes we were close.

“I think we had good races in the past in Germany as well, finished on the podium, which was a great experience but today, to win here – both tracks, Hockenheim and Nurburgring mean a lot to me. To race in Germany I think is a privilege. I think it take some little while to sink in but I’m just incredibly proud today.”

Vettel said in general the race had gone to plan.

“The team did a fantastic job for strategy and for the pit stops. On the track it was so difficult. I pushed every single lap but it’s so tough when you’re on the edge and you know that you can’t go over the tyres too much because then you will not reach the end of the stint. Equally, passing people, you know that you have to get through traffic as quick as you can, so not an easy race.

“The Safety Car didn’t help us. We had a little bit of a cushion but Lotus was incredibly quick today and gave us definitely a big run for our money. I’m just very happy that it worked out. Last but not least our compliments to Pirelli.

“They did a very, very good job within a couple of days to react and bring a different rear tyre to this event. I think we didn’t have any failures throughout the whole weekend. They had a lot of criticism after the last race, but it looked like they made up for it this race, and hopefully for the next races we continue to have racing like that.”

The critical time for Vettel was around his final pit stop, when he pitted in response to Romain Grosjean coming in.

“Tyres were holding up OK and the gap to Romain was increasing a little bit again at that time. Just before the stop, a couple of laps, I lost KERS and I was able to switch it back on and pull away again. But obviously I think we try to cover him to make sure we stay ahead and we defend the lead because we saw that overtaking is quite tricky here.

“It’s possible. I went through traffic pretty quickly but obviously there was a big delta in speed, in pace at that time. So in order to make sure we stayed ahead, we tried to cover him.”

Sebastian Vettel says he’s satisfied with second place on the grid in Germany, despite being eased out by Lewis Hamilton at his home race, and at the very last minute.

Vettel was briefly fastest after his second run, but Hamilton went quicker right at the end.

“I think it was quite close,” said Vettel. “I think I tried everything I had, the car felt fine. I think we were struggling a little bit this afternoon in the first sector, losing a little bit of time there and then trying to catch up. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough but it looks like we are much closer to them here than we were in Silverstone.

“So, I think we’ve made some progress and have all confidence for tomorrow. We had a good run yesterday, looking at the race. I think we did our homework and now obviously it’s up to us. We put the car in the first row. It wasn’t quite enough for pole position but we should have a good race from there. I’m looking forward to the race tomorrow.”

Vettel admitted things hadn’t quite gone right for him today.

“I was very happy in FP3 this morning. I was very happy with the car, so we didn’t change much. And this afternoon, I was struggling to bring it together, especially in the first part of the track, it was quite windy, we had wind from the back and the track was a little bit warmed.

“Still, the car wasn’t bad; it wasn’t awful through the first sector. So I was pretty happy but the time didn’t come. And I tried to do the best I could in the next two sectors but it wasn’t enough to get Lewis today.”