2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix - Baku, April 27-29

[NathanOlder]

Why did Ferrari FXXX Vettel when the SC came out ? Were they worried that Bottas would still come out ahead after his pitstop ? I think not; and Vettel on softs should've easily been able to keep Bottas behind on ultra softs. If Vettel was coming out ahead by staying out, than pitting him was an epic fail, and not just in hindsight...

What' s the deal here ?

Bottas did come out ahead after the put stop, even if Vettel didnt take new tyres

[sosic2121]

I can think of today, Vettel in China and Hamilton in Bahrain. When was the other 1?

Baku practice I think.

Hmm practice is a bit of a stretch IMHO.

However 3 crashes during only 4 races takes some doing.

Spin in Australia?
Did he crashed in bahrain in Q?

[Phil]

Why did Ferrari FXXX Vettel when the SC came out ? Were they worried that Bottas would still come out ahead after his pitstop ? I think not; and Vettel on softs should've easily been able to keep Bottas behind on ultra softs. If Vettel was coming out ahead by staying out, than pitting him was an epic fail, and not just in hindsight...

What' s the deal here ?

Errr... Bottas was 12 seconds ahead. Bottas would have been ahead, if Vettel had stayed out. They pitted him to give him a chance and not be vulnerable to those pitting fot fresh tires behind.

[Vettel165]

Baku practice I think.

Hmm practice is a bit of a stretch IMHO.

However 3 crashes during only 4 races takes some doing.

Spin in Australia?
Did he crashed in bahrain in Q?

I dont know, its very amusing that looks like there are that many crashes that we dont even remember it all. New Maldonado in the making.
Best two drivers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VcjE3F6oN8

[Just_a_fan]

Coulthard made the point in commentary - every driver will be super weary of trying to overtake Max. he's built up a reputation of never giving up and being ruthless. All the qualities of a future champ.

Not so sure. The top guys will still go for it unless doing so puts the title at risk. This early in the season Vettel, Hamilton, Bottas and Ricky are all going to have a go with that much overspeed. Also bear in mind that if Max tries it on with the top guys they'll fight back. He might come off worse as he did against Hamilton recently. Eventually he'll get the message.

What is going to happen, at some point, is that there's going to be a properly big accident - think Alonso in Melbourne - and the stewards will finally have to give him a proper penalty. Hopefully, no one else will be physically hurt in the process. If Ricky hadn't hit Max square in the diffuser, say he'd had a wheel overlap for example, we'd have had a Webber/Valencia take-off type accident. That sort of airbourne accident is always open to someone being killed - even with the halo.

[Sevach]

Why did Ferrari FXXX Vettel when the SC came out ? Were they worried that Bottas would still come out ahead after his pitstop ? I think not; and Vettel on softs should've easily been able to keep Bottas behind on ultra softs. If Vettel was coming out ahead by staying out, than pitting him was an epic fail, and not just in hindsight...

What' s the deal here ?

Errr... Bottas was 12 seconds ahead. Bottas would have been ahead, if Vettel had stayed out. They pitted him to give him a chance and not be vulnerable to those pitting fot fresh tires behind.

Once the SC was called Sebastian had lost the lead no matter what.

Also nobody could have predicted Grosjean, initial expectation was a 10 or so laps sprint race, leaving him on softs would've exposed him to everybody.

[Bill_Kar]

The most important outcome though, should be that Mercedes with an inferior car is leading Driver's Championship.
If it comes up with a different car in Spain, it could have a clear advantage from now on.

Sounds like you think Mercedes will bring a completely different car to Spain whereas others will sleep. Ferrari also brought little to no upgrades until now, for example. Don't know about RBR though.

Mercedes especially will try to solve their tyre issue on qualy pace. On race pace they seem to have no problems as we have seen, but still they couldn't match the pace of Ferrari today. Vettel was comfortably counterattacking most fastest laps of Hamilton in the first stint and kept a safe time gap.

No, but I tend to believe that Mercedes can do better than Ferrari, based on historical record. I don't say it will happen, I say it's more probable.
And yes, Ferrari was the car to beat today, Mercedes is fast enough only when the conditions allow it, but this trend can't go on. When you're losing the Quali battle, you need to have a fast car on Sunday, kinda like Ferrari last year.

[Shrieker]

Why did Ferrari FXXX Vettel when the SC came out ? Were they worried that Bottas would still come out ahead after his pitstop ? I think not; and Vettel on softs should've easily been able to keep Bottas behind on ultra softs. If Vettel was coming out ahead by staying out, than pitting him was an epic fail, and not just in hindsight...

What' s the deal here ?

Bottas did come out ahead after the put stop, even if Vettel didnt take new tyres

Oh.. That was unlucky for Vettel then. A bit like oz. 12 seconds is enough to come out ahead even under sc. Do they have to drive to a delta (as in vsc ) round the entire circuit ? Cause the last time i remember, you could drive fast under sc other than the crash site. Maybe Ferrari should have put ultra softs on Vettel s car on his first stop then.. He drove really well today and up until he went wide on the second sc restart he was the driver of the weekend for sure. I wonder whether the muricans are pressuring race control to hit the nascar button whenever there s a chance. Which would obviously be a shame.

[Shrieker]

On a side note, Bottas drove extremely well both in China and here. I was watching the race with my brother, and dad, and as soon as Bottas went over that debris i pointed it out saying why he didn t avoid it. Obviously i overlooked the fact that it s nigh on impossible to spot debris smaller than a certain size from distance while traveling @ roughly 90 meters a second.

This was just plain bad luck. And it was such a lucky win for Lewis. He did pretty much nothing apart from his stint 1 push which had no effect. Can any1 recall a luckier win for him? I can t off the top of my head. Bottas simply overshadowed HAM these last 2 races, and if hee keeps this up, than he s clearly made a step from last year, putting him firmly in wdc contention.

[Shrieker]

Wanna have a shout out to Grosjean , Ocon, Perez and Leclair ( ) too. Grosjean, what a brain fade moment.. The team should be the ones calling wtf this time. Ocon : That would be considered bad even in iracing. What did you expect man ? Have Kimi teleport somewhere else(btw he managed to recover to 2nd from plum last at the end of the first lap like Bottas did last year , surely worth a praise - guess it's a Finnish thing )? Perez and :Stellar jobs both. Force India from zero to hero in a few races, even given the power hungry nature of this track. And 's Sauber looked very racy, and if i saw right he overtook stroll on merit, which should be an encouraging sign for them for some of the circuits at least.

[szlaszlo84]

On another note, F1 is starting to resemble stock car racing. 3 out of 4 races have been decided by SC this season.

Not saying it is not entertaining but feels like winning is not necessarily defined by best car/driver the majority of the time.

Also just for fun crashtappen has a website now. Bit like Maldonado used to have.

[Restomaniac]

Why did Ferrari FXXX Vettel when the SC came out ? Were they worried that Bottas would still come out ahead after his pitstop ? I think not; and Vettel on softs should've easily been able to keep Bottas behind on ultra softs. If Vettel was coming out ahead by staying out, than pitting him was an epic fail, and not just in hindsight...

What' s the deal here ?

They were all filing through the pit lane. Changing Vettel onto US made no difference.


In fact scratch that if Ferrari hadn't changed Vettel tyres he would have been eaten by most of the field after the SC never mind just Bottas.

[Restomaniac]

Why did Ferrari FXXX Vettel when the SC came out ? Were they worried that Bottas would still come out ahead after his pitstop ? I think not; and Vettel on softs should've easily been able to keep Bottas behind on ultra softs. If Vettel was coming out ahead by staying out, than pitting him was an epic fail, and not just in hindsight...

What' s the deal here ?

Bottas did come out ahead after the put stop, even if Vettel didnt take new tyres

Oh.. That was unlucky for Vettel then. A bit like oz. 12 seconds is enough to come out ahead even under sc. Do they have to drive to a delta (as in vsc ) round the entire circuit ? Cause the last time i remember, you could drive fast under sc other than the crash site. Maybe Ferrari should have put ultra softs on Vettel s car on his first stop then.. He drove really well today and up until he went wide on the second sc restart he was the driver of the weekend for sure. I wonder whether the muricans are pressuring race control to hit the nascar button whenever there s a chance. Which would obviously be a shame.

Have you actually watched the race?

[siskue2005]

Why did Ferrari FXXX Vettel when the SC came out ? Were they worried that Bottas would still come out ahead after his pitstop ? I think not; and Vettel on softs should've easily been able to keep Bottas behind on ultra softs. If Vettel was coming out ahead by staying out, than pitting him was an epic fail, and not just in hindsight...

What' s the deal here ?

The first corner had debries so the FIA gave instructions that all cars should go through pit lane. It was displayed on tv when the SC came out.... so all were going to come through pit lane anyways, so no point in not changing his tyres

[JonoNic]

Would a VSC allow cars to file through the pits? If not. Then SC was the only call.