2018 German Grand Prix - Hockenheimring, July 20-22

[Shrieker]

If the penalty is not clearly defined, and hence a driver not penalized, it's the fault of the rule maker, and no one else's.

Do they specify the penalties for speeding in the pit lane? Dangerous release, etc?

There are at least 2 recent precedents with the same offense where Kimi and Wehrlein were both given 5 sec penalties.

Wasn't Wehrlein's penalty given because he skipped the bollard and entered the pits ? And you damn well know Kimi's penalty was in Baku, where there was a track specific ruling regarding the pit entry... They are in no shape or form precedents for what happened today... Apples and oranges.

[Just_a_fan]

Hamilton has had a reprimand on the basis that the weather conditions made it all jolly confusing (or something like that anyway). I think that's the stewards saying "it's a bad thing but we understand why it happened today". No doubt if Hamilton tries it again in other circumstances he'll get a "real" penalty. The team appeared to think a "real" penalty was coming their way because Hamilton was trying to get a 5 second gap from P2.

I believe the reason Mercedes told Bottas to hold position was because they were concerned that a penalty was forthcoming for Hamilton so the risk of them tangling on track would have given Kimi a straight win. By telling Bottas to back off, they covered both possibilities with the 1-2 for the team still available but with reversed driver order if Hamilton was given a 5 second penalty.

[Phil]

So if Hamilton was lucky today, i guess he was unlucky in Silverstone for not getting a chance to redeem his bad start from pole, unlucky for not being able to qualify properly yesterday, unlucky for being shafted on strategy in Melbourne and Austria, the latter for also having a mechanical DNF that lost him how many points to his title rival?

[LionKing]

Wasn't Wehrlein's penalty given because he skipped the bollard and entered the pits ? And you damn well know Kimi's penalty was in Baku, where there was a specific ruling regarding the pit entry... They are in no shape or form precedents for what happened today... Apples and oranges.

They both broke the same rule. How did they give Kimi 5 sec? By your logic, where was the penalty specified?

[Restomaniac]

If the penalty is not clearly defined, and hence a driver not penalized, it's the fault of the rule maker, and no one else's.

Do they specify the penalties for speeding in the pit lane? Dangerous release, etc?

There are at least 2 recent precedents with the same offense where Kimi and Wehrlein were both given 5 sec penalties.

Wasn't Wehrlein's penalty given because he skipped the bollard and entered the pits ? And you damn well know Kimi's penalty was in Baku, where there was a track specific ruling regarding the pit entry... They are in no shape or form precedents for what happened today... Apples and oranges.

In much the same way as there were no precedents for intentionally swerving into another car behind the safety car.

[LM10]

Remind me did Vettel have a retirement? Or did he fail as an F1 driver in the wet by crashing?

It not Hamilton’s fault that he is known as a great wet driver and Vettel is not. If you want to look anywhere as to why Hamilton is now so far in front you need to look no further than the red car with number 5 on it.

Vettel failing as a driver is still luck for Hamilton. It doesn’t change anything on Hamilton side wether Vettel had a mechanical retirement or crashed. What matters is that his main rival got a DNF and this is as lucky as it can get for Lewis.

No sorry. If Vettel had retired due to a mechanical that’s lucky. Today however Vettel scored no points because he ran out of skill. No Hamiltons fault that he is just better in the wet forcing Vettel to make a mistake.

You know that it can happen to every driver. They were on slicks. One will drive over a more wet spot than the other and it will happen.
“Forcing Vettel to make a mistake” - yea.. I doubt that Vettel was being forced to a mistake by Hamilton on 3rd (or 4th?) place being like 12-14 seconds behind.

[Sevach]

I can understand your pain, but as we have witnessed in a spectacular way today anything can happen. Instead of Vettel extending his lead we saw Hamilton luckily clinging it with a 17 points gap, making it his second lucky win this year.

I feel bad for Vettel. I don’t know if it was the pressure. It’s a bit of a weird situation because in Qualifying he’s been exceptional and didn’t really show nervous manners this year. However, in the races he surely needs to shut off the mistakes.

It’s halftime yet and there still are many races. Ferrari has a very competitive car. The team should keep on doing what they have done until now. Heads down and focus, especially Vettel.

Honestly i don't see what pressure he was on, he had a 9s lead and was extending it over Kimi and Bottas, yes Lewis was faster, but i don't even know if Ferrari had warned Vettel about it (and what's the point of this warning if they did).

Conditions were at their trickiest when he crashed, getting closer and closer to a full wet track, he got caught out.

[Schuttelberg]

Vettel is showing more and more signs of weakness in pressure situations. It's amazing how things he would excel at are now his weakness. At this point, he simply doesn't deserve to win the title with the number of mistakes he's made already. For someone with four championships, in the last couple of years he's been extremely impatient and refused to play the long game. Hamilton has ceased his opportunities and maximised the results unless Mercedes have bottled up.

For all those calling Hamilton lucky, it's one thing to support someone and quite another to not applaud what can only be described as one of the best drives not only of this season but perhaps the last decade of racing! Absolutely mega stuff!

Waiting for someone on this board to now tell me how I pretend to be a Vettel fan and actually am a Hamilton fan in German clothing.

[LM10]

So if Hamilton was lucky today, i guess he was unlucky in Silverstone for not getting a chance to redeem his bad start from pole, unlucky for not being able to qualify properly yesterday, unlucky for being shafted on strategy in Melbourne and Austria, the latter for also having a mechanical DNF that lost him how many points to his title rival?

Uhm, you’re mixing it up. No one here tells that Vettel was unlucky today. So Hamilton also wasn’t unlucky in Silverstone when he had a poor start as well as he wasn’t unlucky as he caused a hydraulic problem on his car yesterday.

[Restomaniac]

Vettel is showing more and more signs of weakness in pressure situations. It's amazing how things he would excel at are now his weakness. At this point, he simply doesn't deserve to win the title with the number of mistakes he's made already. For someone with four championships, in the last couple of years he's been extremely impatient and refused to play the long game. Hamilton has ceased his opportunities and maximised the results unless Mercedes have bottled up.

For all those calling Hamilton lucky, it's one thing to support someone and quite another to not applaud what can only be described as one of the best drives not only of this season but perhaps the last decade of racing! Absolutely mega stuff!

Waiting for someone on this board to now tell me how I pretend to be a Vettel fan and actually am a Hamilton fan in German clothing.

You know something. That is an incredibly adult thing to say. As you say sometimes you have to just hold your hands up and say ‘well done fella’.

[Restomaniac]

So if Hamilton was lucky today, i guess he was unlucky in Silverstone for not getting a chance to redeem his bad start from pole, unlucky for not being able to qualify properly yesterday, unlucky for being shafted on strategy in Melbourne and Austria, the latter for also having a mechanical DNF that lost him how many points to his title rival?

Uhm, you’re mixing it up. No one here tells that Vettel was unlucky today. So Hamilton also wasn’t unlucky in Silverstone when he had a poor start as well as he wasn’t unlucky as he caused a hydraulic problem on his car yesterday.

So it was a poor start and not Raikkonen punting him off the road at Silverstone?

[Phil]

Personally i am not that critical of Vettel. Being 1st and leading a GP is always a very difficult position. From 1st, you can only go backwards. Getting the perfect balance between risk and reward is hard; risk too much, you risk throwing it away, play it safe, well you might lose too. Vettel was being too cautious because he needed to and because he had the most to lose. This likely caused him to lose tire temps that led to less grip and his eventual mistake and crash. Hamilton on the other hand, well he was driving like someone with little to lose, was aggressive and maintained a lot of heat in his tires.

[Schuttelberg]

Vettel is showing more and more signs of weakness in pressure situations. It's amazing how things he would excel at are now his weakness. At this point, he simply doesn't deserve to win the title with the number of mistakes he's made already. For someone with four championships, in the last couple of years he's been extremely impatient and refused to play the long game. Hamilton has ceased his opportunities and maximised the results unless Mercedes have bottled up.

For all those calling Hamilton lucky, it's one thing to support someone and quite another to not applaud what can only be described as one of the best drives not only of this season but perhaps the last decade of racing! Absolutely mega stuff!

Waiting for someone on this board to now tell me how I pretend to be a Vettel fan and actually am a Hamilton fan in German clothing.

You know something. That is an incredibly adult thing to say. As you say sometimes you have to just hold your hands up and say ‘well done fella’.

I find it extremely irritating why fans on either side can't appreciate it when the other guy does well. It's sport. That's the joy of it. Mind you, it's 3:15am here and I'm reliving Spa 1998 today. It's miserable. But, these are the times that make the good ones really special.

[Schuttelberg]

Personally i am not that critical of Vettel. Being 1st and leading a GP is always a very difficult position. From 1st, you can only go backwards. Getting the perfect balance between risk and reward is hard; risk too much, you risk throwing it away, play it safe, well you might lose too. Vettel was being too cautious because he needed to and because he had the most to lose. This likely caused him to lose tire temps that led to less grip and his eventual mistake and crash. Hamilton on the other hand, well he was driving like someone with little to lose, was aggressive and maintained a lot of heat in his tires.

Completely disagree. Vettel did something metronomically dumb today. In the 5 laps leading up to his crash, he extended his gap to Raikkonen from 3 to 10 seconds. He was just pushing too hard and I have no idea why? It almost felt like he was trying to prove an unnecessary point!

A part of me has a feeling he did not like being held up by Raikkonen for that long. It's not the first time he would have lost his hot head and done something daft.

[Unc1eM0nty]

. Instead of Vettel extending his lead we saw Hamilton luckily clinging it with a 17 points gap, making it his second lucky win this year.

Lucky !

A mechanical wrecks his qualifying, he starts from 14th on the grid and drags his car through the field to finish first and you call this lucky ?

He's had many easy wins in the past with a dominant which you might describe as lucky, this was Not one of them. It was a great drive - at least have the humility to give it some respect.

Thinking of you at this difficult time

Finishing 6th at least when you’re in a Ferrari or Mercedes is the absolute minimum this year. Fighting through field is ridiculously easy. It’s like F1 vs. F2. There is no spectacular racecraft whatsoever going on when Hamilton passes the others on his way upfront.

I didn’t mean that his race win was lucky (even though I believe he would have not won with Vettel on track), but the lucky thing was that Vettel had a DNF and Hamilton is now leading with 17 points. Otherwise even if he had won and Vettel had finished 2nd he would have not been leading the WDC now.

I think Hamilton would have had Vettel I honestly do.

Hamilton was rapid in those conditions on the ultra soft, on lap 50 he took 2.2 seconds out of vettel. When Vettel went off Hamilton was 10 seconds behind with 15 laps to go.