Rate the Race result: 2012 German Grand Prix

2012 German Grand Prix

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Fernando Alonso held off the challenges of Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel to claim his third victory of the season in the German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring..

F1 Fanatic readers rated the race 7.055, almost the same as the previous race at Silverstone.

The race saw a controversial pass by Sebastian Vettel end in a penalty, Lewis Hamilton unlapping himself from the Red Bull driver earlier in the race, and a fair bit of DRS-assisted overtaking at the Spitzkehre hairpin. Here’s what F1 Fanatic readers had to say about the race.

Chris Goldsmith found the controversies entertaining:

Plenty of intrigue and controversy – this was a race which was exciting hours before it started with the Red Bull fuel mapping issue, and hours after it with the impending decision about Vettel’s penalty. Plus the controversy over Hamilton unlapping himself.
Chris Goldsmith

Estesark employed a mathematical approach to rating the race:

This was two thirds of a great race. In the first stint, Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen put on a good show. In the second stint, it was great to see Button pushing towards the front and eventually taking second place.

But in the third stint, not much really happened. A three-way battle for the lead looked to be on the cards, but it never materialised. Two thirds of the available points, rounded to the nearest point, is seven.
Estesark

An interesting debate sprung up after Fernando Alonso’s team radio was broadcast despite being in Italian:

When a team is talking to their driver during the race they can speak in any language they want. English broadcasters should have an Italian speaker to translate everything Ferrari say on radio.

They should respect you more, since you paying them for a full cover of every Grand Prix.
Stagger

While they’re at it they should hire a dozen translators for all the languages drivers and engineers are speaking.
Anatoly Nechaev

The thorny issue of DRS raised its head again. Was overtaking too easy at the Hockenheimring? Here’s what two people had to say:

As for the DRS zone, well it wasn’t as easy as many expected and there was still that element of out-braking into the hairpin involved.
Younger Hamii

Passing became ridiculously easy and boring to watch. The FIA need to take a very strong look at how DRS should assist overtaking and not be causing it.
MahavirShah

Finally, Bananarama noted that the average F1 race has improved in recent years:

It is interesting that a seven has become standard rating. It was only five years ago that even people interested in F1 fell asleep during races.

Good for F1.
Bananarama

What did you think of the German Grand Prix? Have your say in the comments.

The Rate the Race poll for the Hungarian Grand Prix is still open so be sure to add your rating here:

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Image © Ferrari spa/Ercole Colombo

14 comments on “Rate the Race result: 2012 German Grand Prix”

  1. I expected a higher rating. As I see it, if there is a lot to talk about after a race, then it’s most probably been a good one, and there was enough talking point after Hockenheim: Hamilton unlapping himself from Vettel, Vettel’s controversial pass on Button and the following penalty, RBR’s engine maps etc. In my opinion, the battle for the 1st place was very tense most of time as well. While I didn’t really expect passes for the lead at Monaco and Hungaroring even if the drivers were close, I totally wasn’t sure about that at Hockenheim. There were 64 overtakes in total. I know, it’s always a subjective judgement but I believe the race deserved at least an 8 (I gave it a 9).

  2. How did 2008 only get 7.1? It was definitely in the top 5 races of that season.

    1. @alehud42 A quick look back at the data shows that was above the average for 2008 (6.651). Details here:

      New 2011 rules produced best racing of last four years

  3. I think a 7 was a fair evaluation of the race in Hockenheim, shows the voting works :-)

    1. I don’t think it deserved much higher than 5-6 to be honest. It wasn’t exciting at all really. I mean how aweful must a race have to be if Germany is a 7! 7/10 is a very respectable mark in a school test for example. Germany was nothing special however.

      1. @nick-uk I guess it depends on the school / country you’re in :) As I was studying, 7/10 often meant something like ‘worse than expected’ for me and anything less than 6 was a complete shame. But I guess that explains why remarkably different ratings are sometimes followed by almost identical descriptions of the race, namely, our understandings of what a 4 or a 7 really means, can differ.

        1. It just made me wonder. If Germany was decent enough for a 7, a race that is rated 1 must surely be so aweful that people died of boredem durring it.

          1. Does anyone know what the lowest rated race has been since the ratings were started?

          2. True, Bahrain 2010 was a disaster, I still gave it a 3, I got to see my favourite kind of fast cars going around in circles, and I like that. Some gave it a 1, and some gave it a 5. In the end all that matters is how much YOU liked it. This is just a -for fun- indicator of what other people think, and of course it’s not exact at all because everyone has their own voting system.

          3. Back in the 90’s, Channel 9, the broadcaster of the F1 in Australia made viewers wait up til 2am sometimes for some of the races, even when the races live would have run at 10pm.

            Any of the boring races provided a challenge for fans in Australia to stay awake. This is why my view of the Hungarian GP is quite dim :P

          4. @vettel1 At present it’s the 2010 German Grand Prix. Over one-third of voters gave it the lowest possible rating:

            https://www.racefans.net/2010/07/25/rate-the-race-germany/

        2. If its a 11 point scale (0-10), then 5 is the median, it should be the most common selection since only outlyers (poor and excellent races) are interesting from a statistical point of viewd.

          When the mean, aka” the average”, pops up to 7, it means either there are tons of great races, or the grading system is of lower fidelity because the scope of the statistic becomes skewed. If most races are better than average, its time to expect a “new average”.

          1. The racing has been better, but I think you might be right about the ‘fidelity’ of the grades. 5 should really be quite a decent score (average), but any scoring system out of 10 (e.g. for films, video games) seems to develop so that 5 ends up being the worst score for a ‘normal’ event and anything lower than that requires something exceptionally terrible and out-of-the-ordinary to happen. E.g. Massa let Alonso past in Germany 2010 to get that race’s 3 rating, even though the race itself wasn’t that bad as a contest.
            In my mind, Hungary ’12 would have been an average race, scoring 5, at least before 2011 (little passing on track, but plenty of intrigue through strategy), whereas Monaco ’12 would be a 1 or 2 (no passing or strategic intrigue).
            Maybe the best thing to do if you’re worried about the fidelity is just to assume 5 = 1/5, 6 = 2/5…10 =5/5 etc.

  4. I think I gave it an 8. It was pretty interesting and I don’t think DRS made things too easy. Braking into a hair-pin to over-take, regardless of any assistance requires better timing than normal. I, for one, was not too quick to write-off DRS before the race began.

    Hamitlon certainly through a bit of a spanner in the works, it was quite funny at times :D

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