2017 Malaysia Grand Prix - Sepang, 29 September-01 October

[i70q7m7ghw]

He does as long as that Turbo couldn't and/or didn't just throw its guts into that ICE.

He will have another fresh engine tommorow anyways.

Yes, actually the silver lining is he can take a bunch of new components effectively without penalty as he's already at the back. That might help in the final races as you could say Hamilton is overdue a technical DNF.

[Restomaniac]

He does as long as that Turbo couldn't and/or didn't just throw its guts into that ICE.

He will have another fresh engine tommorow anyways.

Indeed but it's the difference between having 4 and 5 ICEs and 1 or 2 new specs.

[drunkf1fan]

So after all the hand-wringing at Mercedes, and the confident optimism at Ferrari....

...Hamilton on pole. Again. After the car was supposedly undriveable yesterday, they opened another bag of magic pixie dust, sprinkled it on the car and presto.

But if Raikkonen is that close to Hamilton, I don't doubt Vettel could have had pole.

I've seen this on multiple forums, the absolute assured belief that Vettel would have beaten Kimi and thus would have gotten pole. Kimi vs Vettel was no contest for 2.4 seasons, but in the 9 previous races to this, Vettel only outqualified Kimi 5 times. Kimi has found his form in this car and is incredibly competitive with Vettel in qualifying now. So many people are just stating it as a matter of fact that given Kimi's time Vettel would certainly have pole because there is just no question he'd beat Kimi.... but given the last 9 qualifying results I fail to see how anyone can state that.

[TAG]

Once again robbed of a mano a mano contest with these two. Really disappointed, for the race and for Ferrari fans. I think given Mercedes' shortcomings that it was a Vettel pole here for sure with a great race between him and Hamilton come Sunday, but it was not to be.

Like it's been mentioned, at least Vettel get a new PU out of the deal to replenish his dry component base. Two eyebrow raising things in qualifying, Gasly right on it. Sainz is a solid driver, so for him to come in and match his speed is a fantastic start to his F1 career. Congratulations to him. Let's see how he races tomorrow.

The other, is Vandoorne two tenths up on Alonso here is noteworthy. You never really quite know where the McLaren is but today Vandoorne drove very well, especially here.

Outside of DNFs with major attrition in the front, I'd have place Vettel no better than P5. Getting past the Red Bulls will no be easy. Kimi will move over if he's asked and Bottas is going to be nowhere with his race pace.

[Juzh]

Pole Lap

[Shakeman]

Its a long way from the back. If Vettel does not make the top 10, Lewis would effectively have two dnf's in hand.

But we've seen countless times that starting from the back and executing a great race strategy can yield a top 5 position, it would only take an inopportune safety car to really put the cat amongst the pigeons again.

I simply do not buy into the notion that the championship is over, not by a long way. HAM and Merc are not immune to car failures or prangs, it might be 2-0 halfway through the second half but no one would write a top football team off completely until the full time whistle has blown.

Huge credit for HAM's pole must go to the engineers who dug deep into the data to get a setup Lewis could work with.

[Shakeman]

Pole Lap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOMfWEcg6Fg

It didn't look like he was trying...which is the best compliment I can give.

[TAG]

Huge credit for HAM's pole must go to the engineers who dug deep into the data to get a setup Lewis could work with.

All they did was basically take off all the new aero crap. That car is still not where its potential should be. The problem all weekend for them was being able to get the tires to work in the right window. I think Bottas just couldn't make it work and Lewis did, but that car is shy of it's potential this weekend. The engineers got it wrong to begin with. The pole wouldn't have been theirs if Hamilton wouldn't have put it there. He couldn't improve on his time the second run, if they knew how to improve it, it would have been faster.

[Sevach]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/bott ... ge-959546/

Bottas is blaming the new aero package for his performance.

[OneAlex]

Isn't Bottas is driving with the updates that didn't quite work while Lewis has stuck with the old spec? I'm not sure if Bottas swapped back during FP3, that might account for the time. On the other hand, he might never have been teammates with anyone as relentless as Lewis - I hope he's not lost his mojo.

I'd say it's more the updates. Merc will be worried about why they're not working and need to understand what's wrong to fix it. Bottas will now be on something of a data collecting exercise this weekend.

[Fulcrum]

0.682 behind his teammate - must have been Mercedes worst upgrade in the past 5 years.

[MtthsMlw]

http://formula1.ferrari.com/en/2017-mal ... t-for-seb/

Ferrari now officially saying that Vettel had a turbo problem.
Quiet interesting that this happened basically in the first lap with the new engine. What do you guys think, is this just a coincidence or does the spec 4 engine produces to much power for that 'old' TC or what else could have gone wrong?

[NathanOlder]

Its a long way from the back. If Vettel does not make the top 10, Lewis would effectively have two dnf's in hand.

But we've seen countless times that starting from the back and executing a great race strategy can yield a top 5 position, it would only take an inopportune safety car to really put the cat amongst the pigeons again.

I simply do not buy into the notion that the championship is over, not by a long way. HAM and Merc are not immune to car failures or prangs, it might be 2-0 halfway through the second half but no one would write a top football team off completely until the full time whistle has blown.

Huge credit for HAM's pole must go to the engineers who dug deep into the data to get a setup Lewis could work with.

No one would write a top team indeed. But when the top team (Arsenal) are 2.0 down half way through the 2nd half against Barcelona, the fat lady is on her way to center stage.

[morefirejules08]

Where are all those people that claim that this was a Mercedes track? The graphic that was posted earlier made me think that Ferrari had a shot here, but I didn't foresee the Mercedes being 1.4s off the pace. Wow!

It’s only Friday mate, calm down.

Yes, it's only Friday but Friday with very limited running and that doesn't help solving problems.
-

Seems they solved them.

[morefirejules08]

http://formula1.ferrari.com/en/2017-mal ... t-for-seb/

Ferrari now officially saying that Vettel had a turbo problem.
Quiet interesting that this happened basically in the first lap with the new engine. What do you guys think, is this just a coincidence or does the spec 4 engine produces to much power for that 'old' TC or what else could have gone wrong?

Possibly doing a 4.5 hour job in 2 didn’t help matters?