2014 Bahrain Grand Prix

[astracrazy]

But i have noticed now Vettel has an excuse for anything now. Ricardo beats him in quali - he has a downshift issue, Ricardo overtakes him - he has a straight line issue (although i don't recall anyone else overtaking him)

Vettel is now Mr Excuse

[lewishamilton90]

lewis hamilton :I struggled from P3 onwards quite a bit," he said. "We had a problem with the car with the braking system in qualifying. It got worse, as there was a leak, which they fixed for the race.
"But still in the race I was towing him around for a while but he generally had a similar pace to me.

[xDama]

But i have noticed now Vettel has an excuse for anything now. Ricardo beats him in quali - he has a downshift issue, Ricardo overtakes him - he has a straight line issue (although i don't recall anyone else overtaking him)

Vettel is now Mr Excuse

Vettel did have a problem during in quali. They replaced several components after quali to fix the problem. As for the race, he said that HE came a little short in pace, in comparison with RIC. He did say they lacked top speed, but he immediately added that he wasn't able to extract everything from the car. http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/3089 ... rformance/

You are Mr. Exaggeration

[iotar__]

You hear talk about how great this Merc mini battle was but:
1. They should be asking why there wasn't one after start when cars are heavy and there are opportunities to overtake. The answer - because they quickly separated them with different fuel strategies.
2 First mini battle was Hamilton rather dirty driving cutting across and almost crashing but for Rosberg's reaction, no leaving space there
3. Then "tyre differences were not as big as expected" or whatever
4. Safety car wan unplanned accident with "hello it's Paddy, don't hurt each-other kids" and couple of unconvincing attempts by Rosberg.

Tv direction was bad, for example they focused on Ferrari-Maldo doing nothing and missed Perez getting behind Hulk after pitstop.

[Traction]

Vettel is just another champion that cant win unless he is in the best car, he isnt the first and wont be the last.

Well I havent seen Hamilton, Alonso or Kimi winning in anything else for a good few years either. In fact one could say the only reason Lewis is winning now is because his car is sometimes 2 seconds faster than the rest of the cars on the track at the moment (except of course Nicos car but beating your team mate doesnt necessarily mean you are the greatet driver ever) but we wont shall we, we`ll just put it down to Lewis been unbelievable brilliant.

[stefan_]

The times when a driver was able to win a championship by not having the best car are long gone. Get over it.

[lebesset]

langwadt,

Thanks for clearing that up. Hamilton deliberately crowded Nico out of the track more than once though, which i still think isn't very fair.

it's the only way ...otherwise the overtaking car just has to come partly alongside on the outside which would force the leading car to slow instead of taking his line
different if the overtaking attempt is on the inside

[Traction]

The times when a driver was able to win a championship by not having the best car are long gone. Get over it.

...but you can come damn close

[lebesset]

You hear talk about how great this Merc mini battle was but:
1. They should be asking why there wasn't one after start when cars are heavy and there are opportunities to overtake. The answer - because they quickly separated them with different fuel strategies.
2 First mini battle was Hamilton rather dirty driving cutting across and almost crashing but for Rosberg's reaction, no leaving space there
3. Then "tyre differences were not as big as expected" or whatever
4. Safety car wan unplanned accident with "hello it's Paddy, don't hurt each-other kids" and couple of unconvincing attempts by Rosberg.

Tv direction was bad, for example they focused on Ferrari-Maldo doing nothing and missed Perez getting behind Hulk after pitstop.

if there is a competition for most unbelievable post of the year , you will get my vote

[astracrazy]

You hear talk about how great this Merc mini battle was but:
1. They should be asking why there wasn't one after start when cars are heavy and there are opportunities to overtake. The answer - because they quickly separated them with different fuel strategies.
2 First mini battle was Hamilton rather dirty driving cutting across and almost crashing but for Rosberg's reaction, no leaving space there
3. Then "tyre differences were not as big as expected" or whatever
4. Safety car wan unplanned accident with "hello it's Paddy, don't hurt each-other kids" and couple of unconvincing attempts by Rosberg.

Tv direction was bad, for example they focused on Ferrari-Maldo doing nothing and missed Perez getting behind Hulk after pitstop.

Vettel is just another champion that cant win unless he is in the best car, he isnt the first and wont be the last.

Well I havent seen Hamilton, Alonso or Kimi winning in anything else for a good few years either

Lewis and Alonso were the last two i can think of who got wins with rubbish cars (2009 for Lewis and was it 2011 for Alonso?)

[gray41]

After the race when Nico was "play fighting" with Lewis, his body language reeked of submissiveness, lowering his head and holding Lewis.

Lewis was as he was on track, standing up strong.

[Phil]

But i have noticed now Vettel has an excuse for anything now. Ricardo beats him in quali - he has a downshift issue, Ricardo overtakes him - he has a straight line issue (although i don't recall anyone else overtaking him)

Vettel is now Mr Excuse

As others have pointed out, Vettel did have problems with the car. I was actually watching qualy on the Swiss channel (SRF2) where Buemi is part of the moderation and also mentioned some insight that Vettel has problems with his car (though he clarified that he would not be able to go into any specific details).

I'm not a fan of Vettels and I am as happy as the next one to seeing Dan doing well and especially against Vettel. I also think though that no matter how Vettel will fair, if he beats Dan this season or not, will not take anything away from what he achieved the past 4 years. I don't think the team internal battle with Webber was always fair, but there's also a fair point to be made that Vettel drove brilliantly under the set of rules, the Pirelli tyres and the EBD 'era', with that car. This is a slightly new Formula now, new engines, more driver influenced, different downforce levels and traits to the car, so it will be tricky for some drivers to shine. Also, the Redbull is still quite a fragile car, so I would take any comparison between Dan and Vettel with a bit of skeptism until both cars seem to work identically and flawlessly. The season is still long and a lot can change. But for now, I'm loving Dan's work and hope he can continue to impress. His career is dependant on it.

[SiLo]

After the race when Nico was "play fighting" with Lewis, his body language reeked of submissiveness, lowering his head and holding Lewis.

Lewis was as he was on track, standing up strong.

I did touch on this a few pages back, Lewis now knows that he can close the door on him and Rosberg will always concede the place. He needed to do a Kimi and just keep the car alongside no matter what.

[basti313]

You hear talk about how great this Merc mini battle was but:
1. They should be asking why there wasn't one after start when cars are heavy and there are opportunities to overtake. The answer - because they quickly separated them with different fuel strategies.
2 First mini battle was Hamilton rather dirty driving cutting across and almost crashing but for Rosberg's reaction, no leaving space there
3. Then "tyre differences were not as big as expected" or whatever
4. Safety car wan unplanned accident with "hello it's Paddy, don't hurt each-other kids" and couple of unconvincing attempts by Rosberg.

Tv direction was bad, for example they focused on Ferrari-Maldo doing nothing and missed Perez getting behind Hulk after pitstop.

if there is a competition for most unbelievable post of the year , you will get my vote

If you start bullying like that you should at least explain your point.
For me point 1 is not clear.
Point 2 is very clear, Hamilton clearly pushed Rosberg off the track in turn 1. Remember Vettel/Alonso in Monza? Without big tarmac runoffs this would have ended in a big dust cloud and a drive-through.
Point 3 is also very clear. There was just 0.3sec pace difference between hard and soft between lap 24 and 34. Later there was no real difference. And 0.3sec is normally not enough to overtake.
Point 4...well...I would not read anything into the radio. Rosberg was just too nice as he allowed Hamilton to push him easily off the track in two further attempts. Just driving away is just not enough there, a bit of wheel banging would not have been too much.

[AMG.Tzan]

At least Mercedes let them battle a bit!! They didn't say multi 44-6 like Red Bull has done several times! Hamilton's drive was fantastic, didn't expect him to stay in front after the safety car!! Really really nice race!