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      12-18-2012, 03:56 PM   #887
GoingTooFast
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Drives: fat cars are still boats
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: compensating a fat car with horsepower is like giving an alcoholic cocaine to sober him up.

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I can't understand how F1 can loose its most exciting driver today while at the same time Red Bull keeps Mark Webber, Ferrari keeps Filipe Massa, Mclaren keeps Jenson Button and Lotus keeps Romain Grosjean.

Since Kamui Kobayashi has left F1 here it is a little tribute to him :







Driving the Toyobaru:





In fact, if Sergio Perez managed to move up to Mclaren why doesn't Kobayashi deserve to drive for an equally competitive F1 team when the 2012 results difference between the two was, at best, only marginal?!


............................. Sergio Perez ............. Kamui Kobayashi
Points ........................... 66 ......................... 60
Race finishes ahead ......... 6 .......................... 4 (after both complete race)
Qualifying ahead ............. 11 ......................... 9 (after both complete qualifying)
Podium finishes ............... 3(3rd & 2x 2nd) ...... 1(3rd)
Best qualifying ................ 4th ........................ 2nd(2x 3rd)
Best lap........................... 1 .......................... 1


Also, if it wasn't for Romain Grosjean's lack of ability causing the first-corner BIG crash at the Belgian Grand Prix (after which he received a one-race ban), Kobayashi who managed to qualify 2nd on the grid could have VERY well finished that race on the podium. Ironically, Grosjean stays on the Lotus team, which only until the last minute ended up not signing Kobayashi for the 2013 season. Yes, I know... Grosjean is french and Lotus, formerly called Renault F1 team, uses Renault engines...

Kobayashi was also victim of few Sauber's blatantly wrong race strategy decisions for him, namely those which, once again ironically, led to two of the three podium finishes from his team mate Sergio Perez after he has qualifyed significantly worse than Kobayashi both times (4 places down) and even failing to qualify for Q3 - in the Canadian Grand Prix, Perez started 15th, Kobayashi was 11th on the grid, and yet Perez managed to finish 3rd while Kobayashi finished 9th; in the Italian Grand Prix, Perez started 12th, Kobayashi got through to Q3 getting 8th place on the grid, but yet again Perez finishes on the podium with the 2nd place and Kobayashi only gets the same 9th place. Strange coincidence, no?! So, what really happened?!

In the Canadian Grand Prix, Sauber planned two stops for Kobayashi on SUPER SOFT tyres and after his much too early pit stop the team changed his strategy to one stop only and he did a lot of laps, 46 laps, on a set of soft tyres while Perez started on the HARDER compound and it turned out that one stop strategy was possible and even quicker this way - Perez made his one only pit stop on lap 42 and he had fresh tyres for the remaining 28 laps (from a total of 70 laps).

In the Italian Grand Prix, Sauber sent Kobayashi in one-stop strategy with a used set of medium tires while at the same time they have put Perez in the same one-stop strategy BUT with new hard tires. Kobayashi ended up losing precious time in the beginning of the race trying to preserve a set of used medium tires which were meant for one-stop strategy only. Perez, on the other hand, AGAIN was sent with a fresh new set of HARD tires for the exact same strategy meaning that he could push harder from the very beginning of the race with significantly less tire degradation, which proved to be crucial.

Finally, even at the Japanese Grand Prix where Kobayashi was able to finish 3rd overall (his season's best race result) Sauber did it again and made the wrong strategy decision when they called Kobayashi too damn' early (Kobayashi was in 2nd place at that time) for his first pit stop on lap 16 as he was temporarily held up by drivers yet to stop before managing to overtake them, namely behind Daniel Ricciardo's Toro Rosso already being chased after by Jenson Button who has pitted three laps earlier and re-joined in eighth loosing 3rd place to Filipe Massa, thus giving now his 2nd place away to Filipe Massa who only pitted on lap 20 (same as Vettel who happened to have won the race!!!) after 4 solid laps of nearly traffic-free running which were enough for Massa to hold the 2nd position when he re-joined right in front of Kobayashi (3rd) and Button (4th). Moreover, due to this bad strategy, Kobayashi's second pit stop (on lap 31) had to be done earlier than initially planned because Kamui's tyres had gone off, which made him spent more than 20 laps on the last set of tyres which in the end could have cost him the third position to Jenson Button as well. So, instead of third, Kobayashi could have been 2nd on his home Grand Prix.

Kobayashi belongs to F1, no doubt whatsoever!!!

Last edited by GoingTooFast; 01-12-2013 at 12:05 PM..
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