[Race] The GROAT - Round 1 - 1957 Nürburgring vs 2012 Shanghai vs 2008 Silverstone

[crmalcolm]

1957 Nürburgring
At the start the Ferraris of Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins took the lead. Fangio started out cautiously and it wasn’t until the third lap that he passed the two Ferraris. His third lap was a new record as were his fifth, sixth, eighth and tenth. On the twelfth of twenty-two laps Fangio pitted with a twenty-eight second lead. Collins took the lead followed by teammate Hawthorn. During the pit stop Fangio got out of the car to get a new set of goggles. The mechanics made a mess of the pit stop. There was difficulty changing the rear tires and the stop took over fifty-six seconds.

Fangio reentered the race with the two Ferraris close to thirty seconds ahead and on a no-stop strategy. His first two laps were again cautious to run-in the new Pirelli rear tires. This also led to confusing Ferrari team manger, Romolo Tavoni At first Fangio made no impression against the Ferraris, the Ferrari pit signaled ‘steady’ at the end of lap fourteen. Bertocchi in the Maserati pit signaled ‘flat-out’ and Fangio recovered over fourteen seconds on lap fifteen. Not understanding Maserati’s tactics, the Ferrari team was lulled into a false sense of security. The long laps of the Nürburgring worked to Fangio’s advantage. He could make up enormous amounts of time during each of the 14.167 mile laps before the Ferrari team could inform its drivers. The Ferrari team finally woke up, and urged their drivers, but Fangio had gained the psychological advantage.

On the eighteenth lap Fangio completed the first 90 mph lap of the Nürburgring. He would break the lap record ten times. His fastest lap was 9min 17.4 seconds which was 8.2 seconds quicker than his pole time. On the twenty-first lap Fangio passed Collins in the Nordkurve he then caught and passed Hawthron at Breidscheid for the race lead. The young British driver attempted to fight back. He started the final lap three seconds behind Fangio, but would drop another second by the end of the lap.

When he finished the veins were standing out on his head, he was panting with fatigue, but he had shown them why he was Fangio. No one knew it at the time, but Fangio had won his last Grand Prix victory. He would finish in second place at the Italian and Pescara Grand Prix and be crowned World Driver Champion for the fifth time.


2012 Shanghai
In contrast to the previous Malaysian Grand Prix, the race began under mild cloudy conditions with an ambient temperature of 22 °C (72 °F) and a track temperature of 24 °C (75 °F). Massa, Senna, and the two Toro Rossos started on the medium tyre while everybody else had the soft yellow banded tyre fitted for the start. The Rosberg-led Mercedes cars led as they lined up on the grid into turn 1 with relative ease, while behind them Kobayashi starting in P3 was down to 6th by the fourth corner. Button started well and took sixth ahead of Räikkönen in an almost incident-free first lap. Only minor contact was made at the first turn as Bruno Senna ran into the back of Massa's Ferrari slightly damaging his front wing in the process. Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso yet again raced side by side and passed each other three times throughout the first lap - Webber, making a poor start, was scrapping for 9th behind Alonso by lap 5. By the time the DRS was enabled (lap 3) the two leading Mercedes were more than one second ahead of their rivals and therefore out of range from DRS attack from cars behind. By lap 6, Vettel was struggling with straight line speed in 14th position and was 19th fastest through the speed trap, complaining to his engineer via radio. On lap 7, Webber made a strategic early pit stop to change to medium tyres and immediately set a fastest lap time. This prompted a flurry of pit stops by the other drivers. Hamilton and Räikkönen pitted and came out side by side. However, Hamilton had his nose in front, allowing him to rejoin ahead of Räikkönen. Mark Webber slotted in between in Hamilton and Räikkönen, leaving Räikkönen the loser during the pit stop phase.

Michael Schumacher was forced to retire after a miscommunication resulted in him leaving the pit lane before his right front wheel was properly fitted. The wheel-gun man knew he made an error and immediately tried to call Schumacher back, but it was too late. He was subsequently the only retirement of the race, leaving Mercedes to ponder what could have been at least a podium finish. On lap 14, pole sitter and leader Rosberg pitted for mediums tyres leaving an unpitted Pérez in the lead.

Following the pit stops, Nico Rosberg once again emerged as the leader, followed by Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton, Mark Webber, and Kimi Räikkönen. Lap 21 saw everyone in their adjusted positions after everyone had completed one pit stop. On lap 22, Webber stopped for fresh medium tyres, and set a new fastest lap upon emerging. Button and Hamilton followed suit soon after. Räikkönen pitted from 2nd on lap 29, dropping him down to 13th. At this stage of the race, Jenson Button had great pace and was quickly catching the cars ahead who had only stopped once (Pérez, Vettel, Grosjean, and the leading Rosberg). On lap 30, Rob Smedley was heard telling Felipe Massa, "Fernando on a different strategy", essentially telling him to let his teammate through for 10th place at the time. Soon after Alonso moved ahead of di Resta, justifying Ferrari's radio call to Massa. At this stage it was clear that Rosberg, Vettel, and Räikkönen were on two-stop strategies while Button, Hamilton and Webber were on track for three stops. Pérez was third on lap 35, but under huge pressure from Lewis Hamilton and was locking up his front tyres heavily while defending into the hairpin, turn 14.

Rosberg, having continued running on his hard tyres for 21 laps, finally decided to pit on lap 34 for his second and final stop - meaning he would need 22 laps from this set of medium tyres. This allowed Button to take the lead, followed by Rosberg and Hamilton, who was closely pressed by Alonso for third. At this stage of the race, a 'train' of cars started to form (seen clearly down the back straight). From Massa in 5th, who had only stopped once, the next three cars all had their DRS open, meaning they were all within one second of each other and it appeared Massa was fast enough not to be overtaken, but slow enough to keep everyone bunched up behind him. Replays were shown of Mark Webber, prior to the long DRS back straight, going wide and hitting a bump to ascend both his front tyres off the ground by half a metre. Luckily, he handed the car without damaging the suspension of front wing allowing him to only lose a second of lap time.

The train continued to grow by lap 38 as Grosjean in 10th joined Massa, Räikkönen, Kobayshi, and Vettel in the battle for 5th. Jenson Button asked his engineer "what time is Rosberg doing?", to which his engineer replied "Rosberg is seven-tenths slower than us". However, this was before Rosberg pitted for new tyres, and now Rosberg was six-tenths a lap up on Button.

Lap 38 saw Hamilton pit from 3rd, closely followed in by Alonso, dropping them to 10th and 11th respectively. Button's final pit stop while 7 seconds ahead, on lap 39, was delayed due to an error on the left rear wheel and allowed Rosberg back into the lead. Following Button's pit stop, Rosberg now led Massa by 19.1 seconds in clear command and within sight of victory as highlighted by his engineer saying "most important thing is your looking after the tyres". Finally Massa pitted from second place, but he now released a Räikkönen-led train of cars. On lap 43, eleven cars could be seen from one end to the other of the long back DRS straight. Alonso went wide on turn 7 onto the discarded tyre marbles while trying to overtake Maldonado and nearly collected the Sauber of Sergio Pérez on the way back onto track. Grosjean who was a part of the train went wide in turn 7 (like Alonso) and lost grip on tyre marbles while trying to overtake Vettel, consequently losing some positions. By lap 49 Räikkönen's tyres appeared to hit the 'cliff' and lose effective tyre performance. In the space of 2 laps Räikkönen went from 2nd to 12th.

The 'train', which was started by Massa and continued by Räikkönen, led to 2nd to 14th positions being separated by just 15 seconds (rare to see so late in a race without a safety car). With 5 laps remaining, Rosberg had a 20+ second lead while Vettel, in 2nd, finally succumbed to the 3-stopped Button. Vettel, who had gone with a two-stop strategy, was now struggling like Räikkönen a few laps earlier. Hamilton and Webber were right on his rear wing now and it was only a matter of time before he dropped back. On lap 54, Hamilton took 3rd position from Vettel at the hairpin and a lap later, Mark Webber did the same for 4th.

On crossing the chequered flag, Nico Rosberg won his first ever Formula One grand prix from 111 races. He was the 103rd different winner of a Formula One grand prix since 1950, and the 12th different Mercedes powered winner in Formula One. Button finished 20 seconds adrift in 2nd after a pit stop error robbed what little chance he may have had at taking victory (although unlikely given Rosberg's pace and the difficulty seen when overtaking on this track). Locking out an all Mercedes-powered podium was Hamilton, followed by Red Bull's Mark Webber in 4th. Both Hamilton and Webber have now finished 3rd and 4th respectively for all of the three grands prix this season. Webber's Red Bull teammate, Sebastian Vettel, finished 5th on worn tyres and Romain Grosjean finished 6th in his best ever result in a Formula One race. The Williams cars showed good race pace and earned solid points with Senna in 7th and Maldonado in 8th. Ferrari continued their struggle in dry conditions, with Alonso finishing 9th and teammate Massa in 13th. Kamui Kobayashi took the final point in 10th ahead of teammate Pérez in a disappointing grand prix for the Sauber team after having such a great qualifying performance. Of note was 2007 world champion Kimi Räikkönen who finished a disappointing 14th after his tyres were too worn. Also, of note was the fact that 17 drivers completed the race on the lead lap, with Daniel Ricciardo in 17th just over one minute behind the leader in a highly uncompetitive Toro Rosso (teammate Vergne was 16th). This race was the first win for the Brackley-based Mercedes GP team since the 2009 Italian Grand Prix when Rubens Barrichello won when the team was known as Brawn GP.


2008 Silverstone
There was persistent rain in the morning, leaving standing water on the track, although it had abated by the time the race began. The track temperature was 16 °C (61 °F) and the air temperature was 15 °C (59 °F). All drivers chose to start on the intermediate wet tyres. Rosberg started from the pit lane after a number of set-up changes.

The front three drivers (Kovalainen, Webber and Räikkönen) all struggled for grip off the start, allowing Hamilton to edge ahead into the first corner. Kovalainen who had the better line, however, retook the lead after brushing tyres with Hamilton, who tucked in behind his teammate. A number of drivers struggled with the standing water on the first lap: Webber spun coming onto the Hangar straight, falling from fourth to last place; Massa spun going into Bridge, where he was passed by everyone except Webber; and Coulthard and Vettel ended up in a gravel trap after a collision, forcing them both to retire.

Alonso showed good early pace, passing Piquet and Heidfeld on laps two and three respectively, and setting the fastest time of any driver on laps four and five. Massa spun for the second time during his third lap, dropping him to the back of the field. Hamilton shadowed Kovalainen closely for several laps, and passed him going into Stowe on lap five. Hamilton quickly extended his lead over Kovalainen, and there was already a six-second gap by the tenth lap when Kovalainen spun and was passed by Räikkönen. However, as the track dried, Räikkönen showed the better pace—particularly in the last two sectors—and the gap was under a second by the time they both pitted on lap 21.

Rubens Barrichello took Honda's first podium finish since 2006.
McLaren gave Hamilton a new set of intermediate wet tyres; in contrast, Ferrari gambled that the track would continue to dry and refuelled Räikkönen without changing his tyres. Despite his pit stop being longer by half a second, Hamilton exited just in front of Räikkönen (Heidfeld briefly took the lead until his pitstop the following lap). McLaren were vindicated in their decision almost immediately: the rain returned and Räikkönen was unable to find grip, falling back from Hamilton by up to eight seconds a lap. By lap 27, Kovalainen and Heidfeld had caught the struggling Räikkönen. As Kovalainen overtook Räikkönen, Heidfeld passed them both to take second place. On the same lap, Fisichella spun out and retired; his Force India teammate Sutil had already retired after a spin on lap 11. After being passed by Kubica and Piquet, Räikkönen finally pitted for fresh tyres on lap 30, dropping him to eleventh place.

Kubica overtook Kovalainen for third place, shortly before Kovalainen pitted for the second time. Despite the rain getting heavier he opted for a new set of intermediate tyres. Both Kubica and Glock left the track and rejoined; however Glock lost a place to his teammate Trulli. On lap 37, both Hondas elected to change onto the extreme wet-weather tyres, Button queuing behind his teammate in the pitlane while waiting to be serviced. Nelson Piquet Jr. spun off the track and beached his car in a gravel trap, ending his race, while in separate incidents within a few moments of each other Hamilton, Kubica, and Massa all lost control of their cars and travelled over the grass before rejoining the track, without any damage. Räikkönen also spun off on the same lap again rejoining the circuit without damaging the car. Hamilton, leading the race by around 30 seconds, made a pitstop to change tyres and take on fuel on lap 38, opting for a new set of the intermediate wet-weather tyres, as the weather forecast predicted the rain would ease. Second-placed driver Heidfeld pitted the following lap, opting for the same tyre choice as Hamilton. The gap between the two leaders was 36 seconds. Kimi Räikkönen spun off in his Ferrari for the second time in as many laps, again though he avoided contact with the barriers and was able to rejoin the track.

With 20 laps of the race remaining, Rubens Barrichello on the extreme wet weather tyres was around nine seconds a lap quicker than the majority of the field and quickly moved his way up to fourth place by passing Kovalainen and Alonso. Robert Kubica retired from the race after losing control of his car and ending up beached in a gravel trap. Nico Rosberg ran into the back of eighth-placed Timo Glock as he attempted to overtake. The collision damaged Rosberg's front wing, and he was forced to make a pit-stop to change it. By now the rain had stopped, but the track surface was still wet. Barrichello caught and passed Trulli and Heidfeld for second place, however a refuelling problem at his earlier pit stop meant that he would need to stop again. He built up a twenty-second gap over Heidfeld before making his pit stop on lap 47, opting to change to the intermediate wet weather tyres. He rejoined in third place, behind Heidfeld. Kovalainen passed Alonso for fifth place at the Bridge corner. Trulli then pitted, promoting Kovalainen to fourth. Felipe Massa spun on the exit of Woodcote corner, managing to recover without any damage. A few moments later Mark Webber made a similar error at the same location. The following lap saw a spin from Kovalainen, which allowed Alonso and Räikkönen to get past while he recovered to the circuit.

Massa, the last car on the road still running in 13th position, spun for the fifth time during the race. He continued without any damage, and made a pit stop the following lap for new tyres and fuel. The final few laps saw a battle for fourth place, as first Räikkönen and then Kovalainen passed Alonso. Hamilton crossed the finish line on lap 60 to win the Grand Prix by 68 seconds from Nick Heidfeld in second. The margin of victory was the largest since the 1995 Australian Grand Prix. Rubens Barrichello finished in third position for Honda's best finish of the 2008 season. Kimi Räikkönen finished in fourth ahead of Kovalainen and Alonso. Räikkönen had also set the fastest lap in the early stages of the race, the sixth consecutive race in which he had done so. Jarno Trulli finished in seventh position, and Kazuki Nakajima finished the race in eighth.

[S griffin]

Ooh tough one. 2008 British GP was probably the best race I saw in my lifetime in terms of a legendary drive. But it's hard to look past 1957 German GP, which saw another legendary drive from another all time great of the sport. What the hell, I'll go with 1957 Germany