2018 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, April 6-8

[f1316]

It’s like I said all along: Oz is always crap for overtaking, but other tracks are great for it. Actually I think it was slightly too easy with extended DRS zone.

So let’s forget about the cars being so bad for overtaking and start trying to choose tracks that work for F1 and/or fix the ones you have to keep.

I’m not going to say anything about Ferrari and Vettel - the bad sports can say it all for themselves.

[dans79]

I’m not going to say anything about Ferrari and Vettel - the bad sports can say it all for themselves.

If you want to take a shot at some then do it, don't hide behind vague generalized comments!

[djones]

Just thinking...

This is now two races Mercedes have thrown away by trying to 'manage' a pace. Had they gone faster in Australia and not tried to stay at around 3 seconds Ham would have won. And today had they pushed it would have probably been a 1-2, or at least Bottas winning.

Surely this way of working and the very narrow scope for things outside of your control (safety cars, competitors doing other strategies etc) will stop from now on. If not then GGWP Ferrari, you win 2018.

[BrunoH]

good race, alonso is alonso, and that made the difference.

like i said before, car is draggy as fukk**, maybe 2 stiff suspension not giving the mechanical grip ,

who knows... but yeah kimi out, 2 redbulls out, one haas also with damage... otherwise around p10... and honda p4 with a rookie lol ... they need a to fix a lot of problems

maybe after barcelona normal big update they can clean some of the dirty downforce and be more efficient.

Because the gasly result was on merit and he did not benefit from those same retirements?

He did, but was p5 from start.. so... my guess is they were just better all weekend..

[RZS10]

I hope the Ferrari mechanic isn't injured too badly.

It's pointless to discuss whether Lewis could have won from P4, everyone would have done different strategies, start could have played out differently etc etc

Vettel did really well, he pulled away slightly towards the DRS detections, delayed the attack by Bottas to the very last lap and Bottas failed miserably

Speaking of Bottas, that was pathetic - Lewis closed more than 10s relative to Bottas after the stops iirc (he was 23.5s behind Vettel) - i don't know whether he just did not have the pace to keep up with Vettel or if it was another fluke by the Merc strategists who told him to drive to a delta completely ignoring the possibility of Vettel not stopping anymore but he should have done better given the pace Lewis extracted from that car

[ripper]

I saw a clip of clip of RAI pit stop, tibia and fibula broken for sure.

Arrivabene just confirmed it :\

[Macklaren]

good race, alonso is alonso, and that made the difference.

like i said before, car is draggy as fukk**, maybe 2 stiff suspension not giving the mechanical grip ,

who knows... but yeah kimi out, 2 redbulls out, one haas also with damage... otherwise around p10... and honda p4 with a rookie lol ... they need a to fix a lot of problems

maybe after barcelona normal big update they can clean some of the dirty downforce and be more efficient.

Because the gasly result was on merit and he did not benefit from those same retirements?

He did, but was p5 from start.. so... my guess is they were just better all weekend..

Many congratulations to Honda and STR for this deserved result but based on Harley pace and Aus, i don't think this is representative. We will see in China.

[dans79]

I saw a clip of clip of RAI pit stop, tibia and fibula broken for sure.

Arrivabene just confirmed it :\

ugh that will take forever to heal.

[JonoNic]

Let's hope that Ferrari and Mercedes both used too much "party modes" for the rest of this PU stint. RB can hopefully then recover their season

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[dans79]

i don't know whether he just did not have the pace to keep up with Vettel or if it was another fluke by the Merc strategists who told him to drive to a delta completely ignoring the possibility of Vettel not stopping anymore but he should have done better given the pace Lewis extracted from that car

I get the distinct feeling that Merc are actually trying to do the season on 3 engines while everyone else around them aren't.

[Jerrycobra]

Toro Rosso Honda did much better than I expected, This a pretty much a win for the partnership in my books. They got the car setup dialed in. Throughout the whole race Gasly was gaping the midfield. During the 2nd stint Gasly pulled away from the HAAS using a harder compound than the HAAS.

[LM10]

A shame Kimi had this pit stop incident. It's like all the bad luck of this world happens to be on him. But the mechanic was the most unlucky one, for sure. Hopefully he will recover without any problems.

Don't worry Vettel will get his soon enough!

Why should I worry? I don't want him to get bad luck. Why should I? But there are gonna be races with misfortune for him too - that's normal. First race Ferrari had luck, this race it was Mercedes.
Only RedBull was unlucky throughout whole season until now. But they also kind of push the bad luck with Verstappen driving too aggressively in Melbourne and especially today, for example.

[ripper]

Anyway RAI had green light when he started https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBu9Z3-wpB4

[dans79]

But they also kind of push the bad luck with Verstappen driving too aggressively in Melbourne and especially today, for example.

Max is showing stronger and stronger shades of his father, if he doesn't learn to moderate his driving he will end up just like him.

[Phil]

Just thinking...

This is now two races Mercedes have thrown away by trying to 'manage' a pace. Had they gone faster in Australia and not tried to stay at around 3 seconds Ham would have won. And today had they pushed it would have probably been a 1-2, or at least Bottas winning.

Surely this way of working and the very narrow scope for things outside of your control (safety cars, competitors doing other strategies etc) will stop from now on. If not then GGWP Ferrari, you win 2018.

Easy to say. Ferrari did the unexpected as a result of having nothing to lose when they realized Merc put the mediums on Bottas car. Everyone thought Vettel would stop again. If he had, it would have been important to have enough in hand with tires to defend and manage the gap with a much faster Ferrari coming from behind. As it is, they realized a little too late that Ferrari was trying to go to the end, then the game became “will they get it to the end? Will they reach the cliff?” They did. IMO Bottas/Mercedes failure was that he didnt push enough 15 laps before the end. If he had, he would have put more pressure on Ferrari/Vettel with the result that he either would have closed that gap earlier or Ferrari would have reached their cliff early and even conceded a position to Hamilton.

All in all, imaculate performance by Vettel for making it work. I also thought that Mercedes may even have been struggling a bit on the mediums (relative to Ferrari).