Talk:2016 European Grand Prix/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Tisquesusa (talk · contribs) 06:14, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Review started

Under review, Tisquesusa (talk) 06:14, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

The article is not good enough yet to pass to GA. I picked this review because I used to follow Formula One over a decade ago and recently started renewed interest. I haven't been able to watch this race live, but I play Formula 1 2017, the EA Sports game, since a few months, so I "know" this circuit and its challenges. It is a very nice and unique circuit and the first time a Grand Prix Formula One is held here certainly should have a GA status article. At this moment that is not the case; it reads as "just another race", while it is much more special than that. The first time a Formula One race goes around a UNESCO World Heritage Site?! Maybe with the exception of the Botanical Garden in Singapore, but the Walled City of Baku is more of a landmark at the F1 street circuit venue. Also it assumes too much previous knowledge about Formula One, the season 2016, or this very race and due to the special status of this track and debut race, it is appealing to a wide audience, so should be more extensive in that. Tisquesusa (talk) 22:26, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is it well written?
A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

Free practice: "Fernando Alonso managed only eleventh place as he spent considerable time in the garage while his team worked on his car." is not really giving a reason. How many laps was Alonso able to make? Was it the reduced number of laps on the new circuit, the busy circuit at time of his laps or the condition of the car that were the reason for "only an eleventh place" for Alonso?

Rephrased.

Qualifying: "With the circuit being six kilometers long, the narrow roads creating an increased risk of encountering slow traffic and the high probability of a yellow flag – owing to limited run-off and the difficulty drivers faced extracting themselves from escape roads – forcing those on the circuit to abort flying laps, drivers were under increased pressure to set a flying lap early in the session." - sentence is too long and unclear; the yellow flag would only be a problem in case of an accident. Without an accident, there is no problem with yellow flags, the other characteristics of the circuit still persist, but the long length of the track also can reduce the probability encountering slower traffic.

Removed this sentence alltogether since it was unsourced anyway. Will give more info about the circuit in the respective paragraph.

See more points below, described under 3a

B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:
The "nevertheless", discussed in point 3a should be reworded, most of the text is ok.
Is it verifiable with no original research?
A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:
The list of references is ok, but one of the ref titles reads "Sirotkin to make F1 practice debut in Russia" - that information is not listed in the text; who is Sirotkin? Should be mentioned in the parts outlined under 3a.

Those parts did not make any sense. Replaced them with a new sentence actually about Azerbaijan.

B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:
Looks good

C. It contains no original research:
Looks good

D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:
Looks good
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

The article is not yet detailed enough about the first ever Grand Prix in Azerbaijan; how were the preparations to get Formula 1 to Azerbaijan (not about the human rights, but other topics; financing, organisation, when was the initiative drafted, who was involved, etc.), what was done to get it under the "European" Grand Prix flag, while Baku is in Asia.

I have added what I could find now. Also, this is the article about the 2016 race, not the GP in Baku in general, which is where the really detailed info about the Grand Prix and its inception belongs.

In general, an introduction into the track is missing, the article assumes the reader would look up the page on the track itself, but for A) a first timer Grand Prix on this street circuit and B) the application to the GA status, that information should be (in summarised form) included in this article; where is the speed trap, the longest straight of the Formula One circuits of 2016, the length of the DRS zones should be included, the attendance should be included in the infobox.

Qualification:

"It was one again topped by Nico Rosberg, who was the first person to set a time under 1:43.000 all weekend" - should this read "once again"? "the first person to set a time under 1:43.000" read a bit cranky, is it possible to reword?

Fixed the typo. Don't know how I could make the rest of the sentence clearer, but at least I've split the sentence in two.

"Hamilton arrived on the scene moments after the yellow flags in the sector were removed" - maybe better "after green flags were given after the incident of Gutiérrez" or so? The flags were not removed, they were just not valid anymore at that point. Would be interesting to know how much time is "moments", was it seconds, or 10s of seconds or within a second?

Nothing about this was actually in the source, I should have paid a lot more attention about these parts added by other editors. Rephrased now.

"Hülkenberg's elimination was attributed to a miscommunication between Hülkenberg and his engineer" - twice "Hülkenberg" in one phrase is not very nice, what about "between the (German) driver and his engineer"?

Rephrased.

"Felipe Nasr was the final eliminated driver in sixteenth, marking the second time that Sauber advanced to the second period of qualifying in 2016." - the advance to the second round was already set by surviving Q1, the positions of the Saubers marked the "second time that Sauber stranded in Q2" or the sentence should be put earlier, when Q1 is treated.

Not sourced, removed.

"Verstappen made a pit stop for a new set of tyres..." - during a 12 minute qualifying session with ~1:43 lap times, this is rather peculiar; why did he need to go for a pit stop?

Rephrased.

"Rosberg surpassed Pérez's lap time" - the z-s thing looks a bit awkward, is it possible to reword?

I guess that is just the way it looks with his name.

The exact match of the qualifying times of Vettel and Ricciardo is introduced in the intro section, but here it should be more elaborated, as it is also quite rare to happen. Would be nice to see a statistic included of "when was the last time with qualifications for a race that happened" and "if it happened before on a debut race in Formula One"?

That would be nice on a special F1 website. We are an encyclopedia, not a Formula 1 statistics page.

"Kimi Räikkönen finished fifth ahead of Felipe Massa, who was the last driver out of the pit lane when the session resumed and did not complete his outlap before the chequered flag fell." - after "fifth" and before "ahead", should there be a comma? And also this is quite special; two sentences earlier the time would "just be sufficient", but apparently for Massa it was not, by how much? And what was his lap time he would have made, beating the cars in front?

Comma added, removed the rest, since it was unsourced anyway and I could not find a source for it.

"Bottas overcame the damage to his car received in free practice" - I'd say, because it wasn't clear that didn't happen in the qualifying sessions, I had to read back to free practice.

"damage to his car and lack of running during free practice" already implies that the damage must have been in free practice.

Hamilton finishing 10th, for him a very low ranking, when was the last time he scored so badly in qualifying?

Again, we only give very notable statistics in Formula One articles on Wikipedia. For everything else, there are other websites who provide these services. This follows the guidelines set by the F1 WikiProject.

Bottas broke the record of fastest F1 registration at an amazing 378 km/h, but what was the previous record and on which track was this set?

Done

Post-qualifying:

"Sergio Pérez was demoted to seventh with the application of his gearbox penalty" - "his gearbox penalty" assumes that was already introduced in the text before, which it isn't. Which gearbox penalty? Why?

Expanded.

"necessitating" - doesn't sound right to use here. Maybe a rewording? And what was the motivation for the race officials to allow this? Does this happen more often in Formula One or was this an exception?

I feel the word is quite fitting there, but I explained that it was for safety reasons.

Race:

The start of the race is not elaborated, what were the track conditions (they are shown in the infobox, but it's a debut race on this challenging street circuit, so it would be nice to report those), any problems in the formation lap, any other details to mention?
"At Red Bull's sister team Toro Rosso, Daniil Kvyat retired on lap eight." - the "at" part reads a bit strange, but more importantly; what was the reason for his early retirement from this race?
"Pérez moved ahead of Massa into seventh on lap 20, and Hamilton followed through one lap later, as Bottas pitted and returned to the track in ninth place" - the last part makes it sound as if the pit stop by Bottas has anything to do with Hamilton overtaking Massa (as that is what I get from the first part). Or did Hamilton move into 7th because of Bottas pitting? Maybe a rewrite would be good to solve this confusion.

Put "while" instead of "as".

"Sebastian Vettel, still in second position behind (race leader) Rosberg came into the pit lane at the end of lap 21" - I'd add that info to make clear he was 2nd at that moment. I get it from reading back a few phrases, but for someone not familiar with those races better to spell it out to avoid confusions

Done

"Two laps later, Räikkönen let teammate Vettel pass him for second place" - huh? Vettel retained his 2nd place after his pit stop was written before, but now he is behind Räikkönen? How come? And was this a deliberate action, followed by team orders? If so, please include that. If not, how do you know that Räikkönen "let him" pass?

Corrected.

"Starting by lap 32, Hamilton suffered from problems with his car, but due to the regulations stating that drivers had to drive the vehicles "unaided", the team was not allowed to help him." - I'd say "starting from" or "starting in lap 32", but 1) what were the problems of his car? And this new circuit didn't have parc fermé regulations (also missing that in the introduction sections by the way), so 2) why was the team not allowed to help him? 3) Could Hamilton have adjusted the car himself, with wing options or downforce or something?

I used "by" on purpose here since that is the lap the source first speaks about it but it might have occurred before that, so I think "by" is fairly good here. I added what the problem was here now as well. Your other concerns over parc fermè (which I haven't really understood to begin with), are mute now I guess.

"Another lap later, Sainz race" - Sainz' race or Sainz's race, but better to rewrite "the race ended for Sainz" or so, to avoid the ugly z-s combination (see Pérez above).

Done

"On lap 42, Pascal Wehrlein joined him in retirement with brake failure." - reads a bit funny, like "retirement" is a nice thing to "join". It's race jargon perhaps, but maybe rewrite it to something else?

Done

"By lap 44, Hamilton had sorted out his issues" - ehh, how? And what were the issues? "and set the fastest lap of the race" 0 that is quite an achievement, especially for a car with "issues" - "while in fifth place." Rosberg was 1, Vettel 2, who were 3 and 4? Räikkönen and who else?

Again, I used "by" on purpose here. Clearly, when he set a new fastest lap on lap 44, the solving of the issue must have been before that, but it is unclear when exactly that was, so that is why I chose that wording. Added the race order at that point.

"One lap later, Fernando Alonso retired in the pit lane, after having been passed by multiple drivers in the preceeding laps." - the "having been passed" suggests he had a problem, what was it? and I think it's "preceding", but maybe better "previous"?

It is preceding, you are right. Also added reason for retirement.

"As Rosberg was comfortably in the lead, 18 seconds ahead of Vettel," - this was either in lap 44 (mentioned in the previous sentence) or 46 (the 2nd part of this sentence), but there was already an 18 second gap between 1 (Rosberg) and 2 (Vettel) in lap 27. This difference of 18 seconds was constant or how is this coincidence explained? Now the reader keeps having questions about what is happening.

The sentence quite clearly speaks about lap 46. I added a "still" for the time gap. Obviously, it fluctuated between that, but I cannot give the gap for every single lap of the race.

"While Pérez would not have needed to overtake Räikkönen in order to take third place due to a five-second time penalty for Räikkönen for crossing the pit exit line, Pérez nevertheless made the move on the final lap to finish in the final podium position." - this sentence reads a bit awkward, it looks like it's cramping a lot of info in 1 phrase. I understand that Räikkönen got a time penalty of 5 seconds, and that Pérez apparently was less than 5 seconds behind him, but then still there would be no guarantee that Pérez would reach the podium. If let's say Pérez would slow down to >5 seconds behind Räikkönen, he would have lost the podium to the Fin.

Rephrased and split into two sentences.

"Meanwhile, Nico Rosberg crossed the line to win the Grand Prix ahead of Sebastian Vettel." - how many seconds difference? 18? :-P

Done

Post-race:

"During the following press conference, Vettel expressed surprise at the fact that no safety car period had emerged over the course of the race." - but why would there be the need for a safety car? Were there big incidents? I didn't read about those in the race report? Or was Vettel "surprised about no incidents and as a result of that no safety car"? - by the way, what was the brand and type of the safety car in Baku, I missed that in the intro (or is it always the same brand and type, then still please include that.
"Fifth-placed Hamilton, who had been stuck in a wrong engine mode for twelve laps and was at first unable to resolve the issue without the help of his team, attacked the revised radio rules, stating: "The rule needs to be looked at again because it is a technical issue." He stressed that the ban made the sport more dangerous. Several drivers, such as Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, joined him in his criticism. It transpired after the race that Rosberg had had the same problem, a couple of laps after it occurred on Hamilton's car, but was able to to solve it faster than his teammate." - ok, so my question earlier on about Hamilton's "issues" is answered with this part, still it comes a bit late. There could even be readers that skip the "post-race" part of the article, being interested in the race and the standings afterwards and that's it. We don't write for readers who will skip parts, I guess, but still it comes late. Also the engine mode doesn't seem a big problem to fix, with a button on the wheel that can be done? How come Rosberg could solve it (and how fast and how) and Hamilton needed 12 rounds to fix it? Surely the extremely long straights could be of advantage, aren't they?
"Following his pit lane entry violation during the race, which handed him a five-second time penalty, Kimi Räikkönen was furthermore given two penalty points to his licence, bringing him to five overall." - what are "penalty points to his licence"? What do they do? When was the last time this happened and why? Räikkönen is a very experienced driver, with just 3 of those points before and now almost doubling that because of 1 pit lane entry crossing, which doesn't seem to me as extremely serious, can you elaborate a bit more on this?
The movements in the general classification are far too limited. We have Sergio Pérez getting one of the few podiums of his career and surely that means a boost for his total points. The classification below only shows the top 5 drivers, and if the others holding points are not to be included in that overview, then describe the changes of the other driver's positions in the text.
The text about the race states that Kvyat "retired in lap 8", but in the classification it shows he only completed 6 laps. Was he lapped by Rosberg before he retired? If so, then please include it to solve the discrepancy between the two.

Kvyat retired on his seventh lap, while Rosberg had already crossed the line to start lap 8 of the race, meaning that it was indeed lap 8 of the race but Kvyat had only completed 6 laps.

Please include a note on PL (Pit Lane) for Magnussen in the race results table.

Done

B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):
The article is not too detailed, it is not detailed enough on quite some points as noted in 3a. The text doesn't go into unnecessary detail, no.
Is it neutral?
It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:
Not written from a certain fan-perspective
Is it stable?
It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:
Ok
Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:
Images from this very Grand Prix are included, but this unique venue in the city of Baku, a fastly developing city with lots of photos of nice areas that formed part of this street circuit Grand Prix, should have more photos to illustrate how Baku looks like (the Old Walled City as a UNESCO site vs the hypermodern parts). A street circuit is an excellent opportunity to highlight which buildings are passed, which streets are taken and thus against which backdrop this debut Grand Prix happened. Now, the reader would think "this is just another Grand Prix", while it is unique in many aspects. Only the general post stamp collection is included, not the individual images that are quite nice and the background for the post stamp release is not explained in the text.

I could remove the stamps if you think that they are not explained is too much of an issue (which I do not think it is). More pictures of Baku would fail criteria B here (WP:IMAGE RELEVANCE), since they are not relevant to the race. This is not an article about how beautiful Baku is, it is about the race only. I gladly add information about what actually makes this a somewhat special Grand Prix (debut race etc.), but a city that looks beautiful does not play into making this race more special than "any other Grand Prix".

B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
I avoid using periods (.) as much as possible in captions. They should be reserved for full sentences and not appear in captions or lists.

And that is exactly what I did here. The captions as they are now comply with WP:Caption.

Overall:
Pass or Fail:
The article certainly has potential, but at this stage it is not a GA yet. See the many points of confusion, the more detail needed as this is not "just another race". It is:

the first time a Grand Prix in Azerbaijan is held
a street circuit, which makes it special, most circuits are not street circuits
the first time a "European" Grand Prix takes place in an Asian country
first time a Formula One race takes place in a former Soviet Union country, apart from the also new Sochi circuit
longest straight of Formula One
fastest speed registered in the history of Formula One
the other street circuits Monaco, Valencia and Singapore are also special in their own way, but this Grand Prix is extra special due to the contrast of Baku; ancient culture vs modern architecture and city development

The article should reflect these novelties as it should attract the attention not only from Formula One fans or F1 article followers, but should be written for a wider audience. Tisquesusa (talk) 22:26, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Tisquesusa: Thank you for your very extensive review! I've not yet found the time to adress the issues. Could you give me until the weekend to sort everything out? Zwerg Nase (talk) 12:17, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Zwerg Nase:, no problem, the 7 days period is imho just a guideline. It cannot be that articles that take weeks to get to possible GA status to write, stand months in the GAN category and then after a review only a week is given to address the issues and if that week is over; bad luck. The goal is to improve Wikipedia and extend the amount of Good Articles, so time should be allowed in any case. My pleasure and all the best, Tisquesusa (talk) 14:23, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Tisquesusa: I'll get to work on this tomorrow, I promise! Sorry for the very long delay, I've just gotten a new job and was pretty swamped... Zwerg Nase (talk) 09:54, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Tisquesusa: Yet more delayed, I got through a whole first bunch of changes now. Please see my responses here. To be honest, some of the things you demand are a little too much to ask. This is just a GA, not a FA review, there is no need to flesh out every little detail. I'll do my best to address the rest of your suggestions on the race and post-race parts tomorrow and also add more info on the track itself. However, I will add that the latter is not usually required for an article to achieve a GA rating, but rather for FA. Anyway, I'll do my best and would appreciate feedback on my changed so far. Best regards, Zwerg Nase (talk) 23:12, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Pass to GA

@Zwerg Nase:, thanks for the improvements and rereading of earlier added text. I still disagree that the article should contain imaged about the circuit, as this is the first GP at that circuit. If it would be "the umpteenth time at Silverstone" but there has been a thorough revamping of the circuit, that also would be included in the race report of the GP. I included 1 map that was available and useful for the first session of the weekend and the info about the record-breaking speed in the introduction, that should be mentioned there as important fact of this particular race. Thanks for the edits and extra work, cheers, Tisquesusa (talk) 15:00, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Tisquesusa: Wow, I am surprised that the promotion came this quickly now, thank you! I actually made some more adjustments from your suggestions. I agree that the layout of the track within the city is a good addition in terms of images. Zwerg Nase (talk) 15:05, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]