2017 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, April 14-16

[ripper]

Yesterday I really enjoyed the race, but I still have to understand why Ferrari kept out RAI so much on used SS in the middle stint, he may have underperformed a bit but this surely costed him some time... and he was shouting in the radio that he had problems.

[eleventenths]

Consider:
(1)
Mercedes need to be very careful. While they think they are playing fair, Ferrari are pretty shrewd. Is Kimi, a world class driver really driving the same car as Vettel? Kimi will NOT take points off of Vettel, and LH had no business starting from the dirty side of the track in Bahrain of all places. Over the course of a season, it is unlikely that Bottas will prevail over LH in quali and race. Bottas cannot beat Vettel but he can take lots of points from Hamilton. Mercedes need to understand exactly what the cost to them is when Bottas gets in front of Hamilton because, there is a cost and Ferrari are not similarly compromised.
(2)
Penalizing Hamilton for an infraction that only 50% of viewers believed to be fair, does beg the question why Vettel was not penalized in China for an offense which the FIA threaten will earn a penalty in the future. Am I the only one not comfortable with this type of FIA favoritism?

[Wass85]

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.

No, what is rubbish is their insistence that they are free to race. Bottas should have told the team what Hamilton did in Hungary 2014.

[Schuttelberg]

The performance of Kimi this season is becoming a problem to Ferrari. Vettel will have to fight two Mercedes and (probably in Spain) two Red Bulls.

Is it? I actually think it's perfect [for Ferrari]. Think about it; if Hamilton had not been beaten to pole, i am willing to bet he would have had a easy win. He failed to deliver in QF, as a result started in the dirty side of the track, lost P2 into T1. Then he got held by Bottas thoughout the race, by the latter having strategy advantage. This made it easy for Vet to get the win. Kimi was nowhere but still got 4th.

Now if Kimi had been stronger, possibly beating Vettel, how would that help the WDC? Think about China being held up by Kimi and losing time.

Having two competitive drivers in a highly competetive field can be a PR nightmare.

I think drivers are easier to manage now, than before. You could feel the bad blood between Hamilton and Rosberg, but they were both aware that it's hard to find another seat anywhere else in terms of competitiveness. Two good drivers push the team forward and in turn each other. I think Bottas being on pole was more down to Hamilton having an average session. I think and genuinely feel that if RBR begin to challenge the top 2 cars by Europe, you will begin to see their driver line up making a significant difference. It's not as if Mercedes and Ferrari have cheap drivers. They're paid handsomely, dare I say, more than the RBR drivers and I genuinely feel that those two spots can be filled much better from a team, sport, fan perspective in 2018.

In my honest opinion, I'd dearly want to see VET vs RIC in 2018 in a red car. There will be people who will say Seb will veto it, but I don't think there's any truth to it.

[CHT]

Lewis lost this race because he qualified behind Bottas and slip behind Vettel during lap 1 and Vettel drove a flawless race.

[CHT]

The performance of Kimi this season is becoming a problem to Ferrari. Vettel will have to fight two Mercedes and (probably in Spain) two Red Bulls.

Is it? I actually think it's perfect [for Ferrari]. Think about it; if Hamilton had not been beaten to pole, i am willing to bet he would have had a easy win. He failed to deliver in QF, as a result started in the dirty side of the track, lost P2 into T1. Then he got held by Bottas thoughout the race, by the latter having strategy advantage. This made it easy for Vet to get the win. Kimi was nowhere but still got 4th.

Now if Kimi had been stronger, possibly beating Vettel, how would that help the WDC? Think about China being held up by Kimi and losing time.

Having two competitive drivers in a highly competetive field can be a PR nightmare.

I think drivers are easier to manage now, than before. You could feel the bad blood between Hamilton and Rosberg, but they were both aware that it's hard to find another seat anywhere else in terms of competitiveness. Two good drivers push the team forward and in turn each other. I think Bottas being on pole was more down to Hamilton having an average session. I think and genuinely feel that if RBR begin to challenge the top 2 cars by Europe, you will begin to see their driver line up making a significant difference. It's not as if Mercedes and Ferrari have cheap drivers. They're paid handsomely, dare I say, more than the RBR drivers and I genuinely feel that those two spots can be filled much better from a team, sport, fan perspective in 2018.

In my honest opinion, I'd dearly want to see VET vs RIC in 2018 in a red car. There will be people who will say Seb will veto it, but I don't think there's any truth to it.

Drivers are always easy to manage at the beginning of the season.

[Unc1eM0nty]

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.

Dangerous...... deserved yes but dangerous ?

We was driving in the pit late at 40kph instead of 50kph, how is that dangerous ?

[Phil]

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?

He was on Softs vs SS first time around. He didnt rely on anything - it was the team who decided that in order to get the best team result, they can not afford to have its drivers compromize eachother. Undortunately, it took them too long to decide that on the 2nd stint after the Safety Car. Hamilton was glued to Bottas 1.3s behind while Vettel was driving off in the distance.

On the last stint, Hamilton was closing in on Bottas at a surreal pace. Team orders only likely speeded up the ineviteable and gave some hope to maybe contesting the win. we wont know how much THAT order helped him, but i doubt it would have changed the end result.

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.

They did. But that was at off chance. Vet didn't stand a chance in China, not with the gap. When they left Kimi out to dry, it was pointless and only damaged Kimi's race. I understand why they tried, but it was very unlikely to pay off. Here at this race, keeping Bottas in the lead who was clearly struggling did cost them a very very good chance at the win. Just look at how much time he lost on the 2nd stint when he was glued to Bottas rear on the softer tire vs him on the SS and Vettel pulling out a gap. How many laps did it take until Mercedes finally reacted? 5 seconds penalty or not, that did cost him dearly.

[Chuckjr]

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.

Dangerous...... deserved yes but dangerous ?

We was driving in the pit late at 40kph instead of 50kph, how is that dangerous ?

You are correct. I just watched the replay and I ought originally RIC had to swerve out of the way to avoid HAM. That was not the case so no it was not dangerous.

[Chene_Mostert]

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.

Dangerous...... deserved yes but dangerous ?

We was driving in the pit late at 40kph instead of 50kph, how is that dangerous ?

Probably the fact that he almost came to a dead standstill in the pit entry, some distance before the pit speed limit line. Normally drivers attack this line, whenever someone does something outside of the normal it means they have a motive.
The motive here was to try and delay time lost to Ric. Effectively Hamilton also made Ric "queue" behind Bot.

If Ric was slow in reaction, not expecting the sudden slow he could have rear ended Lewis. That would have been a better punishment for Lewis and Power Plus team, but would have destroyed his race also...

[eleventenths]

Mercedes NEED to be CONSISTENT - either you are going to have a 1-2 or you are NOT. Asking one driver to give way is clearly favoring one driver. We saw how compromised LH had to be in order for Rosberg to beat him by only 5 points! Mercedes need to understand that Bottas will NOT beat Hamilton over the course of a season, that being the case.Mercedes have a decision to make.........

[Wass85]

They should have at least made them switch back positions after realising Hamilton couldn't catch Vettel, Bottas earned his position by out qualifying Hamilton yet they threw him under the bus.

[Restomaniac]

Lewis lost this race because he qualified behind Bottas and slip behind Vettel during lap 1 and Vettel drove a flawless race.

There are some rumours that Hamilton lost his DRS on his last flying qualifying lap.

[matt_b]

Lewis lost this race because he qualified behind Bottas and slip behind Vettel during lap 1 and Vettel drove a flawless race.

There are some rumours that Hamilton lost his DRS on his last flying qualifying lap.

Although that might explain why Lewis lost 2 tenths in sector 2 without mentioning any mistakes, mercedes and especially lewis would've said something post qualifying, they would've seen it on telemetry.

[Vanja #66]

They did hesitate to shaft Kimi in China though, and that cost Vettel a chance at challenging Hamilton. ...

They did. But that was at off chance. Vet didn't stand a chance in China, not with the gap. ...

If we are comparing these two situations (and we should) I think we should at least get the facts right...





HAM was closer to VET yesterday (after the SC went in) than VET was to him in China at the same time. However, in China both Ferrari drivers were on the same tyres (if I'm not mistaken), it was evident that Kimi can't overtake Dani and it was evident that Seb was faster. After the gap was 5s to Hamilton, Ferrari really had to give Kimi the order and race could have been on from that point. They didn't and that was race for first place over. Later Seb overtook Kimi and Dani and maintained the gap to Lewis. In the final stint he caught him up a bit, but Hamilton was managing his race just as Seb was yesterday.

And let's not kid ourselves with the fact that Lewis was catching Seb after Bottas let him trough. Seb was on SS tyres for 22-23 laps, just as much as he was on S later. By the time Lewis got within 6s off Vettel, Vettel should have been in the pits if it weren't for Dani, who they had to get clear off in their out-lap window and not risk getting stuck behind him.

My point is (and I sense it got lost a bit ) - Merc were right to give Hamilton the place and try to win this race, but Ferrari in China had an even better reason to do so, in my view. They didn't and it could cost them in November...