2017 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, April 14-16

[Vasconia]

Finally I was able to watch the race. That was the best one of this season so far. Lots of action and some nice overtakes and battles, true F1 seems to be back.

I would say that Lewis was the fastest one on the track but its hard to judge it because Sebastian managed the gap.

It was incredible to see how slow Bottas was, I have read on Marca that it was due to a failure of the car, but I am not sure. It costed a lot of seconds to Hamilton and it made easier for Sebastian to win the race.

Anyway, Ferrari is close(but behind) and they are doing a great job with strategies. This is helping them a lot of course, but race pace is something essential to make them work, and at least Sebastian seems to have it.

Alonso´s work was awesome until he retired, those battles with Palmer were spectacular.

[Sieper]

It is not luck being or becoming more important; hard work, excellent strategies and execution are becoming more important in order to win in such a competitive field.

Verstappen also did't have bad luck- it was just poor quality of some of the parts in his car that came to play.

If Luck is such a dirty word (and I am not denying anything else you said, excellent (and daring) work is being done) then how come Sebastian Vettel himself said in his post race interview "when the SC came out I thought Oh No not again". He feared he would be unlucky again.

[Phil]

Than basically you say that Vettel is just lucky to have won the race- excluding all the hard work that has been done over the last couple of months by the Scuderia..

I think the argument has a lot to do with perception. Who had track position? How quick are the relative cars? There is still a perception that the Mercedes is the car to beat - highlighted by the advantage in QF and the fact that it is still quick enough for race wins. Track position gives another advantage. In that sense, assuming Mercedes gets the optimum out of their race, one would assume it is the car that wins more often than not.

In theory then, to overcome that car for the race win, would mean that there needs to be an element of circumstance involved. Ferrari pitted early, thus went for the undercut at the expense of traffic and showing your cards. They clearly benefited of the fact that Bottas was severely pace limited (= the slower of both Mercedes) for whatever reasons and the quicker one was stuck behind him (Stint 2) plus had a 5 seconds time penalty for doing something that had zero impact on the race result.

If there was a perception that Ferrari is the quicker car, then it would be easy to assume that they are the car to beat and thus their win to "lose" rather than the other way around.

[basti313]

Than basically you say that Vettel is just lucky to have won the race- excluding all the hard work that has been done over the last couple of months by the Scuderia..

I think the argument has a lot to do with perception. Who had track position? How quick are the relative cars? There is still a perception that the Mercedes is the car to beat - highlighted by the advantage in QF and the fact that it is still quick enough for race wins. .......

I think they are very close to each other as long Merc is not running the highest engine mode. That said: With the Q advantage due to the engine Merc can easily get 1-2 Qs if Bot can sort his pace out and everything is running normal. A normal race start and Vet will be behind the blocking car, no chance to overtake on a usual circuit and the prime car disappearing.

Oz was different to normal due to Vet running in P2 after the start.
Bahrain was different to normal with Vet in P2 and the prime car even further behind.

It is pure statistics, that usually everything runs normal, so Ham has a clear advantage this season as long as Ferrari can not overcome the 0.5sec Q disadvantage (maybe 0.3 compared to Bot).

[wickedz50]

Than basically you say that Vettel is just lucky to have won the race- excluding all the hard work that has been done over the last couple of months by the Scuderia..

I think the argument has a lot to do with perception. Who had track position? How quick are the relative cars? There is still a perception that the Mercedes is the car to beat - highlighted by the advantage in QF and the fact that it is still quick enough for race wins. .......

I think they are very close to each other as long Merc is not running the highest engine mode. That said: With the Q advantage due to the engine Merc can easily get 1-2 Qs if Bot can sort his pace out and everything is running normal. A normal race start and Vet will be behind the blocking car, no chance to overtake on a usual circuit and the prime car disappearing.

Oz was different to normal due to Vet running in P2 after the start.
Bahrain was different to normal with Vet in P2 and the prime car even further behind.

It is pure statistics, that usually everything runs normal, so Ham has a clear advantage this season as long as Ferrari can not overcome the 0.5sec Q disadvantage (maybe 0.3 compared to Bot).

I completely agree with your view. Also note that grid penalty is coming sooner or later for Ferrari as they have used most of the available parts as per regulation. The lead then turns into deficit automatically. Also in season development will push the Merc car further ahead and ultimately a cruise control victory for WDC and WCC.
Theoretically Ferrari with the history they have has no chance.

[atanatizante]

Sorry for not reading all the posts, but I think Ferrari knows they can`t beat Merc in Qualy and having a bit of a margin to Red Bull they are more (if not almost) focused towards the race setup, hence their tyre advantage over Merc and eventually race pace ...

[komninosm]

The only rule i can find is :

"No car may be driven unnecessarily slowly, erratically or in a manner which could be deemed
potentially dangerous to other drivers or any other person at any time whilst the safety car is
deployed. This will apply whether any such car is being driven on the track, the pit entry or the
pit lane.."

Don't se how Hamilton broke that rule. I can't fint a rule regarding blocking.

Yeah, vague rules only seem to favor Ferrari like in China when Vettel wasn't penalized for his starting off his grid box.

What an utter nonsense penalty to Hamilton! Not only did it destroy the Hamilton vs Vettel battle we've been waiting for, but also we've seen many times drivers slowing down the others behind when they stuck up behind their teammate in the pitlane...I remember Raikkonen at Spa in 2005 slowing down the whole field just to let Montoya do his pit stop and not stuck up behind him! Other than that the race was spectacular with great overtaking moves...specially at the end of the pit straight we saw who's got the balls to brake late!! I really think the new Tilke-droms will suit these new cars so much better...so nicely done there Formula 1...faster cars, beautiful cars, much better and braver overtaking moves!! =D>

FIARRARI at it again it seems.

[komninosm]

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.

Well said. Mercedes strategy is really poor.

[giantfan10]

Than basically you say that Vettel is just lucky to have won the race- excluding all the hard work that has been done over the last couple of months by the Scuderia..

I think the argument has a lot to do with perception. Who had track position? How quick are the relative cars? There is still a perception that the Mercedes is the car to beat - highlighted by the advantage in QF and the fact that it is still quick enough for race wins. .......

I think they are very close to each other as long Merc is not running the highest engine mode. That said: With the Q advantage due to the engine Merc can easily get 1-2 Qs if Bot can sort his pace out and everything is running normal. A normal race start and Vet will be behind the blocking car, no chance to overtake on a usual circuit and the prime car disappearing.

Oz was different to normal due to Vet running in P2 after the start.
Bahrain was different to normal with Vet in P2 and the prime car even further behind.

It is pure statistics, that usually everything runs normal, so Ham has a clear advantage this season as long as Ferrari can not overcome the 0.5sec Q disadvantage (maybe 0.3 compared to Bot).

Thats some pretty fuzzy math you're using there to predict this half a second that mercedes has in qualifying trim.
Australia= Ferrari .268 behind
China = Ferrari .168 behind
bahrain = Ferrari .478 behind...The claim here is that Ferrari disregarded quali setup to protect their tires in the race which they went on to win.
thats an average of 3 tenths behind the polesitter that Ferrari has been so far this year.
3 races with 2 race wins and a second for Ferrari but Mercedes has a clear advantage??? really?
Then we have this perception that mercedes can outdevelop anybody... based on what? being a frontrunner for the past 3 years with no competition to speak of? i submit that mercedes had such a large margin that its next to impossible to make any claim that they can outdevelop anyone in a straight fight.
what i can tell you is that every single time that any team in the past 4 years have been fortunate to put pressure on mercedes they have folded like a cheap suit and made mistakes...

[Peter1919]

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.

What the hell are you on about? Hamilton had a 5s penalty and was still quicker than Bottas who started ahead of him on the grid, exactly why would Merc have ordered Ham to slow down and allow Bottas to pass him?

Well the penalty did not slow him down, it was a 5sec penalty, not a 5Kg penalty. The only reason he was ahead of Botass was that they ordered him twice to let Lewis pass.

Yes but if Bottas was anywhere near as quick as Hamilton in this race then a 5s penalty for Hamilton and the fact Bottas started on pole should have ensured that Hamilton finished behind Bottas. That fact it did not was not due to Bottas being asked to let Hamilton through when Hamilton was on a charge on newer tires but because Bottas simply did not have the pace in this race

[Wass85]

I think this race has basically proven track position is key, Bahrain is one of the easiest circuits to overtake on and none of the front runners could pass a massively slow Bottas.

The Mercedes and Ferrari are that evenly matched strategy and the start is basically everything, Hamilton definitely needs to work on his first corner approach because it's been shocking for the last few years.

[dans79]

Hamilton definitely needs to work on his first corner approach because it's been shocking for the last few years.

Seriously, what are you talking about?

He didn't have a good turn 1 because he was on the inside with a car to his out side.

Would you prefer he just drive into the side of Vettel so he has a good entry and exit to turn 1?

[JonoNic]

http://www.f1zone.net/news/bahrain-win- ... nts/52576/

I found this cool review of the Bahrain GP. It includes a graphical relation of each driver and the gap between the leader of the race

[basti313]

Hamilton definitely needs to work on his first corner approach because it's been shocking for the last few years.

Seriously, what are you talking about?

He didn't have a good turn 1 because he was on the inside with a car to his out side.

Would you prefer he just drive into the side of Vettel so he has a good entry and exit to turn 1?

Well, pushing the outside car wide worked well for some years with Rosberg

[basti313]

The only rule i can find is :

"No car may be driven unnecessarily slowly, erratically or in a manner which could be deemed
potentially dangerous to other drivers or any other person at any time whilst the safety car is
deployed. This will apply whether any such car is being driven on the track, the pit entry or the
pit lane.."

Don't se how Hamilton broke that rule. I can't fint a rule regarding blocking.

Yeah, vague rules only seem to favor Ferrari like in China when Vettel wasn't penalized for his starting off his grid box.

What an utter nonsense penalty to Hamilton! Not only did it destroy the Hamilton vs Vettel battle we've been waiting for, but also we've seen many times drivers slowing down the others behind when they stuck up behind their teammate in the pitlane...I remember Raikkonen at Spa in 2005 slowing down the whole field just to let Montoya do his pit stop and not stuck up behind him! Other than that the race was spectacular with great overtaking moves...specially at the end of the pit straight we saw who's got the balls to brake late!! I really think the new Tilke-droms will suit these new cars so much better...so nicely done there Formula 1...faster cars, beautiful cars, much better and braver overtaking moves!! =D>

FIARRARI at it again it seems.

I do not know what is vague on "No car may be driven unnecessarily slowly". Did I overlook any necessary reason to slow down for Ham?