2017 Mexico Grand Prix - Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, 27-29 October

[jz11]

I'm wondering when did it become OK to push the competitor (who is beside you on the track) out of the track on the corner exit, I mean, not caused by oversteer or anything, just drive into them thinking they'll cave in, VET on VER, VER on HAM at this race, and that isn't recent, it goes back at least a few years.

Did that start with the introduction of the "safe" run-off areas on tracks?

Not sure what you're referring to? HAM took the outside line smartly in the second corner, but VER was well in front when VET lost control and hit both cars on the right-rear.

VET on VER was "classic", see images:



VER on HAM was not so obvious, because I'm pretty sure HAM was expecting that to happen, so he back off, which led to VET slashing his rear tyre:



p.s. not for a second I believe VET tried to damage HAMs tyre on purpose, waaaaaay too much of a risk for someone who needs to win or at least be second in the race. If that was Kimi doing that, it might more plausable, but it could be possible in one condition, if someone named Flavio would be managing Ferrari team

[Vasconia]

Imagine for one moment if Lewis had not defied conventional thinking and stayed with McLaren it would be very likely be Rosberg being hailed as a 4 time champion right now.

These margins of success/failure are so fine but all credit to HAM, he backed himself when most of motorsport questioned the decision and is now rightfully judged as one of the finest drivers in F1 history.

I'd love to see him equal if not beat Schumacher's record now in the coming years if Merc can give him the car and who would bet against him?

Rosberg a 4 time world champion would not have been likely. One of the big names would have jumped for the other seat either that season or the next. However, your comments make lots of sense.

Sent from my SM-A700F using Tapatalk

We should give some credit to Rosberg, not only because of his talent but because he was a key part to prevent a total boredom during the last seasons.

[simieski]

Ref Ves's "simply simply loveleh" here is where it comes from...

Warning not safe for work, children or anyone easily and most uneasily offended.

https://mobile.twitter.com/simplylovlehh?lang=en

[Vettelswonmeover]

A question which I have been wanting to ask for long. Where do you think do Lewis and Vettel rank among the greats of F1? Compared to the likes of Senna, Schumacher, Prost, Fangio, etc.
From my point of view, both Vettel and Lewis have always had a great car or a car that is in contention of wins in their title winning years. They have not had to be at a team and build a car. Schu stayed at Ferrari for 4 years before winning the title. Senna won in a Lotus. Senna and Prost helped develop that astonishing McLaren Honda in their fighting years. Whereas Vettel had an all-conquering Red Bull for 4 years and Lewis landed straight in a race-winning McLaren and suffered a bit in his first year at Merc before getting 3 severely dominant cars.

[sosic2121]

I'm wondering when did it become OK to push the competitor (who is beside you on the track) out of the track on the corner exit, I mean, not caused by oversteer or anything, just drive into them thinking they'll cave in, VET on VER, VER on HAM at this race, and that isn't recent, it goes back at least a few years.

Did that start with the introduction of the "safe" run-off areas on tracks?

Before it happened sometimes, now it's just the way how you overtake.
IMO it's fifty-fifty between FIA and tarmac run-offs.

[Phil]

A question which I have been wanting to ask for long. Where do you think do Lewis and Vettel rank among the greats of F1? Compared to the likes of Senna, Schumacher, Prost, Fangio, etc.
From my point of view, both Vettel and Lewis have always had a great car or a car that is in contention of wins in their title winning years. They have not had to be at a team and build a car. Schu stayed at Ferrari for 4 years before winning the title. Senna won in a Lotus. Senna and Prost helped develop that astonishing McLaren Honda in their fighting years. Whereas Vettel had an all-conquering Red Bull for 4 years and Lewis landed straight in a race-winning McLaren and suffered a bit in his first year at Merc before getting 3 severely dominant cars.

I think the concept of drivers being responsible for their teams success is long gone. There was no doubt a time in motorsport when a driver could make more than a substantial time difference by driving with a little bit of insanity - in other words putting is life on the line for an extra few tenths of lap time - but that's not today anymore. With technology improving, the team and engineers have so much data that a driver simply does not have that kind of input and impact anymore. They are tasked with driving the car and sure, giving as much intel as possible, but they will never shape a team as some drivers had to back then.

So it makes little sense in comparing todays drivers with the greats of those times. I firmly believe Schumacher was a damn good driver, even after he returned to the sport, but the way he struggled to compete and dominate should tell us that the grid of today is a lot closer as a result of the driver being less of a significant factor than they had been back then. Stick those legendary drivers of then into todays cars and even the most talented ones will struggle. None will dominate more than what we already have. It's just the way it is.

If you want legendary drivers of those times, we need to go back to cars that used to drive and be like coffins on 4 wheels. And limit technology and computers from doing all those fancy simulations to figure out what the best car is.

This is called evolution.

[Vettelswonmeover]

A question which I have been wanting to ask for long. Where do you think do Lewis and Vettel rank among the greats of F1? Compared to the likes of Senna, Schumacher, Prost, Fangio, etc.
From my point of view, both Vettel and Lewis have always had a great car or a car that is in contention of wins in their title winning years. They have not had to be at a team and build a car. Schu stayed at Ferrari for 4 years before winning the title. Senna won in a Lotus. Senna and Prost helped develop that astonishing McLaren Honda in their fighting years. Whereas Vettel had an all-conquering Red Bull for 4 years and Lewis landed straight in a race-winning McLaren and suffered a bit in his first year at Merc before getting 3 severely dominant cars.

I think the concept of drivers being responsible for their teams success is long gone. There was no doubt a time in motorsport when a driver could make more than a substantial time difference by driving with a little bit of insanity - in other words putting is life on the line for an extra few tenths of lap time - but that's not today anymore. With technology improving, the team and engineers have so much data that a driver simply does not have that kind of input and impact anymore. They are tasked with driving the car and sure, giving as much intel as possible, but they will never shape a team as some drivers had to back then.

So it makes little sense in comparing todays drivers with the greats of those times. I firmly believe Schumacher was a damn good driver, even after he returned to the sport, but the way he struggled to compete and dominate should tell us that the grid of today is a lot closer as a result of the driver being less of a significant factor than they had been back then. Stick those legendary drivers of then into todays cars and even the most talented ones will struggle. None will dominate more than what we already have. It's just the way it is.

If you want legendary drivers of those times, we need to go back to cars that used to drive and be like coffins on 4 wheels. And limit technology and computers from doing all those fancy simulations to figure out what the best car is.

This is called evolution.

Agreed that the days of racing being larger than life are gone. But the point of the driver making the difference is still there. If Kimi and Bottas were the lead drivers of Ferrari and Merc respectively, then any Red Bull driver could also have been WDC this year. Lewis has raised his game and Vettel has utterly dominated Kimi. Even Alonso dominated Kimi and Vettel had the upper hand over Webber. Considering qualy, race craft, performance vs teammate, performance of rival drivers and teams, how would you then rate Lewis and Vettel?

[Jolle]

A question which I have been wanting to ask for long. Where do you think do Lewis and Vettel rank among the greats of F1? Compared to the likes of Senna, Schumacher, Prost, Fangio, etc.
From my point of view, both Vettel and Lewis have always had a great car or a car that is in contention of wins in their title winning years. They have not had to be at a team and build a car. Schu stayed at Ferrari for 4 years before winning the title. Senna won in a Lotus. Senna and Prost helped develop that astonishing McLaren Honda in their fighting years. Whereas Vettel had an all-conquering Red Bull for 4 years and Lewis landed straight in a race-winning McLaren and suffered a bit in his first year at Merc before getting 3 severely dominant cars.

I think you're view of the past is slightly rose-colored.
Senna was something special, but the McLaren team was, technical and operational of another level in those days. For instance, for 1988 (when, except for '87, they already won about everything the years before) they choose as only team (new engine regs came in at 1989) to build a new car and Honda was the only engine supplier to develop their engine, just for McLaren. It was a two car season. This carried in into 1989 and 1990 was almost close (Ferrari made a very big push with Bernard and Prost).
Schumacher is a bit of a different story. Yes he is/was a worthy champion, but not without controversie (or better: Flavio isn't without controversy). His first title he had, after that horrible weekend, no real competition. Would be if Vettel, Hamilton, Ricciardo and Alonso would quit and next year it's Verstappen vs Bottas. 1995 was exceptional nevertheless. As for the Ferrari days, that was part Schumacher, parts Todt, Brawn, Burne and a sh*tload of fiat and Marlboro money, very similar to the eighties when McLaren had all the right people at the right moment.

To win multiple WC's you need the perfect team, for years. All those drivers had that and thats why they won. You can also turn that around, because they are of exceptional talent and ambition, they get chosen for those teams.

And then, going back to 1994... everything was in place: Senna, Newey, Lowe, Rothmans backing, Renault at their peak. Such a damn shame.

[sAx]

From my point of view, both Vettel and Lewis have always had a great car or a car that is in contention of wins in their title winning years. .

Apart from Rosberg Senior (FW08 1982), every driver in the modern era has had a great car in contention for wins in their title winning year!

[komninosm]

Even if Vettel didn't crash on purpose, shouldn't he be penalized for hitting two other cars anyway? And ruining another car's race? And leaving track with 4 wheels to get an advantage a couple of times during the race?
I mean back a few years ago when he T-boned Button's car he didn't mean to do that, he lost control, but took Button out all the same and he was punished. He was driving a Red Bull at the time not a Ferrari though.
What gives?

[TAG]

Welcome to the club of fans of 4 time champions!

You are so heart broken, just like Vettel, don't take it so hard, don't take it so personally. Next year a new chance all over again.

To be very honest, that happened in Singapore. (The heartbreak bit)

And to be blunt, I'm very pleased Lewis won. I know he's at or a level above Sebastian. What I did take personally was Rosberg winning all those races and the WDC. That was actually bitter to swallow.

The sport is littered with one time WDCs that happened to be in the right place at the right time. You can't begrudge it, you simply move on and come back like a powered up pac man the next year is all.

[Restomaniac]

The next race is now going to be interesting.

Verstappen has nothing to worry about and can be as risky as he likes they say. Guess what?
The now 4 time WDC is the same.

Fancy some wheel bashing my young Dutchman? Let's see how you go against a Hamilton totally off the leash himself.

[drunkf1fan]

When I saw that Vestappen almost reached the pole I was pretty sure that he could win the race, as it happened. Red Bull is clearly faster on Sundays, I don´t now why but being 4-6th on qualy, they can be as fast as Mercedes and Ferrari during the race, so being second it was clear sign that they had the pace to win. Last races are going to be very good ones to watch. If 2018 is like that...

It is worth remembering that, Red Bull is getting a new PU almost every race! A modified, slightly more powerful one every time, though extremely unreliable. Whereas, Mercedes got their last and latest Spec in Spa! That was 6 races ago (Mexico was 7th) !!!. For sure, they are not using the latest spec PU everywhere and might as well be using Spec 2 and 3 in some races and two more races to go. So, it's not a rocket science to understand that the Renault PU is helping come closer to Mercedes and Ferrari with this situation. While both leading drivers of Merc and Ferrari have to conserve their PU as much as they can in races, RB need not have to worry about it. They can go bonkers as they have nothing to lose. With the monkey off the back, we might see Merc and Ferrari go full monty in the next two races. No holds barred. Just the sheer display of the arsenal!

I am sure, neither Mercedes, nor Ferrari have stood still on the PU development part and I wouldn't be surprised if next season, we would be back to square on power terms and RB might still become a decent third. As much as I would like to see THE TOP FOUR TEAMS, including McLaren fight for the championship next year, it might still be between Merc and Ferrari.

Fernando for champion next year and 2019. Then all three FOUR TIME CHAMPIONS retire! Yes. Yes. Yes.

But Renault were a fair step behind those two, even if new spec engines helped close the gap it would be very surprising to see Renault bring a step that included performance equal to Merc and Ferrari. More over the new spec has only been there since USA. RBR showed miles better FP2 performance than Ferrari in Singapore and again qualified 2nd, though a bigger gap there. He again got a better start than Vettel there and would have led Vettel into T1, it's extremely likely that Max, even more so because of the rain, would have beaten both Ferrari's in that race and likely would have done so in the dry anyway. Kimi may well have beaten Max into T1 but in the rain the chances of him holding off Max were pretty slim imo as his race pace is usually much worse than the Max and Vettel and certainly not known for his wet driving pace.

In Malaysia, Vettel didn't get close, after he managed to get in clear air he only closed on Ricciardo and only because he was using too much fuel and/or tire life. In Japan he had another great start had pace beyond what Ricciardo could do, he matched Hamilton and he was 30 seconds ahead of Kimi. With a relatively normal gap between Kimi and Vettel being 20 seconds to me it looks like RBR was faster than Ferrari since Singapore, the new engine mode seems to have made the biggest difference in qualifying as the gap in Singapore was what 4/10ths while the gap in Mexico was 8/100ths iirc. Race pace didn't really appear to change between Singapore, Ricciardo matching a cruising Ham makes me think a pushing Max would have been pushing Hamilton pretty hard, Malaysia, Japan, Cota and now Mexico and the biggest thing Renault are talking about for 2018 is qualifying modes.

[PlatinumZealot]

hamilton post race conference

https://youtu.be/rx-E3mMD-28

[Manoah2u]

Max was absolutely fantastic today, the speed he was carrying was absolutely phenomenal, as all weekend really.
Second, absolutely stellar stuff from Alonso, i genuinly enjoyed that battle between him and Hamilton, that was golden.

Congrats and happy for Lewis, it was really unavoidable by now but the start gave for a very exciting race due to the contact. Lewis earned his title. Nice tension from seeing him having trouble progressing through the field then to find it back in the latter stage of the race and simply carve through the field.
Vettel did a magnificient job, was really heartbreaking to hear him ask how far he was behind Kimi and that that 'was too much'.

I personally think, but didn't have the data anyway, Ferrari made a mistake in pitting Vettel immediately, but i could have been very wrong offcourse.
The pitstop cost him a whole lot of time and ended him in very difficult traffic. I wonder whether it wouldn't have been smarter keeping him out a couple of laps more - IF his tires were intact - and use a SC or VSC to replace the wing - having said that, i haven't seen the aero and performance difference with 'intact' and 'damaged' Ferrari, so it's assuming things. It might have been manageable for a while, and he might have been drving in the top 5 for a while untill the VSC popped up and he would have benefitted from that and then have a much lesser space to cover, but that's all guessing.

Great race either way.