2017 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, April 14-16

[The_table]

Why on earth would you not respect Hamilton, if anyone deserves respect it's him... we have seen what he can do in a not so competitive car, we saw him making a double world champion's life very tough in his rookie season, etc...

It's not like he's always had the best car in his career is it, in my opinion he deserved this car...
(I admit that i've had enough of silver cars winning but still that's no reason to be a dick to him...)

On another note: Why does it always have to come to Kimi being angry before Ferrari pit him, wouldn't it be better to leave the decision to him, wasn't that what those "less aid from their engineers via radio" rules were about?

[CHT]

Mercedes might lose the development race this year without Nico, in the same way Mclaren lost it after Alonso left.

[PlatinumZealot]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/bott ... re-894958/
"Our generator broke on the grid and we couldn't bleed Valtteri's tyres so we were starting with the completely wrong tyre pressures on his car," said Mercedes chief Toto Wolff.

- At least something new at the tight Mercedes ship. No apologies on the knees to Bottas by the whole Merc management like in the past? May I suggest for the next race mechanic sliping on a banana peel because It will be hard to beat comedy value of this one. Mercedes are not capable of putting the right pressure into tyres. I guess it wasn't a hybrid AMG model.

- Can't wait for another edge of the seat Hamilton Vettel battle with the average separation of 7,8 s. and mutual backslapping written before the race and recited regardless of race reality. Sod this circus

That's only for his first stint tyres. He had normal tyre pressures after that. His pace was just woeful and that lost Mercedes the race.

[Phil]

I had to watch the race with the volume real low.
Were they booing Hamilton at the interviews at the end?

HAM's blocking of RIC deserved all of the 5 seconds absolutely. It harmed another drivers race and it was dangerous. HAM'a driving the second half of the race was impressive to watch.

Not going to argue if the penalty was just or not, but... What and who exactly did he harm? Which others "drivers race"? Ric got out ahead of Hamilton and did not lose any position because of it.

[mani517]

If RIC wasn't blocked, HAM had no chance of coming out of the pits ahead (waiting for BOT to leave while RIC pits).

HAM tried to avoid pit stop queue to make it a straight pit stop fight with RIC for track position by slowing him down.

Whether it worked, or not, is another matter. But, the intention was there.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Yes HAM was booed. I guess a lot of folks don't care for him as a driver. It does seem consistent that at most venues he is not respected by the fans and there's a large consortium of people booing.

When was the last time he was booed? I remember Nico was booed a couple of times and Vettel, many a times. I also remember how people used to scream in joy, whenever Vettel used to get a car failure in his Red Bull days. There is no driver on the grid who is universally accepted, so is Hamilton. There are those who doesn't like Senna and there are those who doesn't like Schumacher. Largely, just like you, many thinks the driver they hate, also gets hated the most, regardless of whether it is true or not.

Do we ever get to see a clean, straight fight between Vettel and Hamilton, without any interruptions, from lights to flag? In China, it was Vettel who was interrupted and yesterday, it was Hamilton.

[CHT]

If RIC wasn't blocked, HAM had no chance of coming out of the pits ahead (waiting for BOT to leave while RIC pits).

HAM tried to avoid pit stop queue to make it a straight pit stop fight with RIC for track position by slowing him down.

Whether it worked, or not, is another matter. But, the intention was there.

Thats correct because Merc is stacking Bottas and Hamilton during the pitstop. What hamilton did was to queue outside the pit while preventing Ric from going into the pit. Perhaps thats the reason why he was booed

[Hammerfist]

As i said, Mercedes will have to do some soul searching, because Ferrari i feel will not hesitate to shaft Kimi when needs be. This might sound cruel to both Kimi and Bottas, but if they dont want to be in this position... they just need to perform better?

They did hesitate to shaft Kimi in China though, and that cost Vettel a chance at challenging Hamilton. This race Merc did the same with Bottas. But you would think that if that situation arises again, there will be no hesitation. It is quite funny that both teams have 2 underperforming Finns at the helm. Not a great look for Finland F1 fans to be honest.

[djos]

Epic drives by Seb and Lewis today, great race to watch.

shame Lewis was silly enough to impede Dan in the pit lane, but at least 5 seconds was a fair penalty.

Bottas was just underwhelming even after his pit stops for new tires but at least he was man enough to get out of the way for Lewis.

[Restomaniac]

According to few people here, Hamilton should have got 'a flying kiss from the Stewards' for that pathetic move of dangerously slowing down in the pitlane. Even Hamilton was seen mis-aligned today with his start grid position to avoid the dirt.

This top 3 teams are killing F1 and the fanboyism of these team is also killing this forum.

I mean nobody is discussing about how Kvyat was driving today, he was taking too many risk today.

Mis-aligned?
Mis-aligned IN the box you mean? Which BTW is allowed. Half your car outside OUTSIDE the box however is a different story. Strangely the stewards clearly though that was ok.
I assume you are attempting to troll. It is a poor attempt though.


Today they rightly saw Hamilton should have got a penalty. However when they turn a blind eye when it suits.............

[Restomaniac]

The more Mercedes stick to their "the first placed driver gets the pick of when to stop" strategy, the more it hurts them.

It allows competing teams to be safe in the knowledge that they can get an undercut on the second placed car; and it stops them from taking more interesting strategies.

As far as I'm concerned, their optimal strategy today would have been to pit Hamilton slightly early, to force Ferrari to pit Vettel the next lap, and pit Bottas at the same time. That way they would have got a one lap undercut, and guaranteed that Ferrari couldn't execute the undercut that they did.

I don't get why they're sticking so rigorously to such a predictable play book.

I think it's because they thought Bottas was faster than he is.

I imagine today they learned a very valuable lesson. Bottas unfortunatly for him isn't ATM anywhere near on Hamilton's level and Bottas isn't going to win a WDC in 2017. As such they are going to have to start getting him out of they way and/or give priority to Hamilton on pit strategy.

I have no doubt if they knew at the start of the race what they know now about Bottas currently in the 2017 Mercedes they would have given Hamilton the undercut or at least kept Bottas out during the SC so Hamilton didn't need to lose time stacking behind Bottas. If not they Certainly wouldn't have left Hamilton touring around behind Bottas for lap after lap.

[Wass85]

Ridiculous for Mercedes to be using team orders so early in the season, they are no better than any other team.

[djos]

Ridiculous for Mercedes to be using team orders so early in the season, they are no better than any other team.

Rubbish, Bottas was demonstrably slower and deserved to be moved over.

[Anthropolyte]

Ridiculous for Mercedes to be using team orders so early in the season, they are no better than any other team.

Rubbish, Bottas was demonstrably slower and deserved to be moved over.

And yet Lewis couldn't get past him on his own merit. Had to rely on team orders to get past a slower car. Pretty poor, don't you think?

[djos]

Ridiculous for Mercedes to be using team orders so early in the season, they are no better than any other team.

Rubbish, Bottas was demonstrably slower and deserved to be moved over.

And yet Lewis couldn't get past him on his own merit. Had to rely on team orders to get past a slower car. Pretty poor, don't you think?

I'm not a Lewis fanboy but I doubt he'd have had much trouble considering he was 1.8 seconds a lap faster. Mercedes moved Bottas out of the way because they thought Lewis still had a chance to catch Seb and win the race. Any delay to Bottas being passed jeopardized this.