2018 German Grand Prix - Hockenheimring, July 20-22

[Restomaniac]

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!

Im glad somebody else noticed. He didn’t have the tyres in those conditions for the pace he was setting. Hamilton was eating Raikkonen and Bottas on the timing screens, it came as no shock to see Vettel in the barrier.

[Schuttelberg]

Sometimes it's good to swallow your pride. He had second place at worst in the bag. Would have left leading by 1. Now, he's behind 17. IMHO, the championship is gone!

[Wynters]

iirc one of the reasons to why it's prohibited to return to the track from pit lane entry, is to hold the teams from making a fake entry in order to throw other teams off.
that besides the obvious safety reasons.

If an opposition team want to slow down to enter the pits, then veer off onto the grass, bounce along it, inhale some turf, dirty the tyres, possibly damage the floor/hit a drainage ditch, then go straight onto the marbles (long after other cars would have been accelerating down the straight) in order to cause me three seconds thought of 'he's going to pit, I should make a call to my car that's somewhere behind him'... then I'd be over the moon.

It was prohibited. It was punished (whether harshly enough is up to personal interpretation, see discussions in previous races) but it wasn't some sort of tactical masterstroke that has now opened the door to other teams regularly doing it.

[Bill_Kar]

It still hurts now in the night, that race was the real nightmare, the worst race as a Vettel fan since Valencia 2012 and Korea 2010. Oh the pain is unbearable, like the hearth was taken away from me. Cant we have a solid season without any major issues. It will be an absolute miracle if we will win the title this year (I lost all the hope, I know its early but still, Hamilton will take WDC with ease now, he has the major psychological advantage now). Seb has to stop making his major mistakes, the car is very good. But Hamilton this year he is very good, better than Seb, and doesnt crumble under pressure. Whats up with Seb really in his RBR years he was always fantastic while in the lead, something has changed.

I feel you man. Hamilton's fans , we got China 2007 or Singapore 2012 or Malaysia 2016. All these are defining moments for the two greatest drivers of their generation. You never forget them. Especially when you end up conceding the WDC.
It's really tough when you make a mistake and losing all these points. Seb will not sleep tonight, regardless of what he said. But nothing is over, what we know at this moment is that Seb has the better car and he can bounce back. He needs to bounce back.
Championship's far from over, 2018 is a good old year. I doubt if Hami never looks back from now on, I feel it that this campaign has plenty of drama waiting in the corner.

[Restomaniac]

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.

I think you need to look back at it again. Hamilton was eating Raikkonen and Bottas on the timing screens. Vettel was pushing like mad on tyres that were not up to the pace he was setting. It was a matter of time 1 way or another.

[Restomaniac]

Sometimes it's good to swallow your pride. He had second place at worst in the bag. Would have left leading by 1. Now, he's behind 17. IMHO, the championship is gone!

Indeed. There would have been no shame in accepting 2nd on old cold S tyres against new and red hot US tyres in those conditions.

[foxmulder_ms]

They pitted RAI to keep him in Front of HAM. They didn't pit VET to cover the rain risk and to make it a secure one stop if had stayed dry. They should have moved RAI imediately out of the way. Made absolutely no sense.
HAM was incoming Very fast on the US during mixed conditions. If VET would not have binned it, HAM might still have won.

i don't think they were pitting raikkonen early to hold hamilton back

That was the EXACT reason. Otherwise there was no point. Raikkonen was faster than expected.

[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.

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.

Was it Vettel driving too fast or Kimi & Bottas too slow? I am honestly unsure, but as Hamilton was coming up behind both Bottas and Kimi, i recall a lot of backmarkers being tangled up in a big battle that surely must have accounted for that huge gap opening to Vettel ahead?

[Wynters]

They pitted RAI to keep him in Front of HAM. They didn't pit VET to cover the rain risk and to make it a secure one stop if had stayed dry. They should have moved RAI imediately out of the way. Made absolutely no sense.
HAM was incoming Very fast on the US during mixed conditions. If VET would not have binned it, HAM might still have won.

i don't think they were pitting raikkonen early to hold hamilton back

That was the EXACT reason. Otherwise there was no point. Raikkonen was faster than expected.

I thought they were pitting him to get him out in front of Hamilton so he wasn't slowed down by Hamilton. If he pitted and came out behind him, then he'd waste the fresh rubber trying to get past (assuming he even managed to). It also gave him plenty of scope to maximise the Softs before any rain came.

[Restomaniac]

They pitted RAI to keep him in Front of HAM. They didn't pit VET to cover the rain risk and to make it a secure one stop if had stayed dry. They should have moved RAI imediately out of the way. Made absolutely no sense.
HAM was incoming Very fast on the US during mixed conditions. If VET would not have binned it, HAM might still have won.

i don't think they were pitting raikkonen early to hold hamilton back

That was the EXACT reason. Otherwise there was no point. Raikkonen was faster than expected.

Another example of Raikkonen going off script perhaps?

[Restomaniac]

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.

Was it Vettel driving too fast or Kimi & Bottas too slow? I am honestly unsure, but as Hamilton was coming up behind both Bottas and Kimi, i recall a lot of backmarkers being tangled up in a big battle that surely must have accounted for that huge gap opening to Vettel ahead?

It just looked odd. Hamilton was taking seconds out of everybody apart from Vettel. We had car spinnings all over the place. Then Vettel slides off.

In hindsight it seems pretty obvious that Vettel was pushing too damn hard on old S tyres and TBH when he hit the barrier my first thought was well that’s what you get for pushing that damn hard.

[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.

Was it Vettel driving too fast or Kimi & Bottas too slow? I am honestly unsure, but as Hamilton was coming up behind both Bottas and Kimi, i recall a lot of backmarkers being tangled up in a big battle that surely must have accounted for that huge gap opening to Vettel ahead?

First of all, Kimi doesn't drive. He crawls around and picks up the crumbs left on the table. In my opinion, Bottas was on fresher tyres, yet Vettel was faster. He was only slower than Hamilton who had a substantial tyre advantage. In my opinion, he wouldn't have been able to keep Lewis at bay. People are saying Hamilton is great in the wet and the SC helped him bla bla bla. He won the race today because of the imperious stint on the S tyres. That's truly what won him the race.

Vettel should have simply played the long game and at worst would have been second. But, he decided to roll the dice and it ended in tears.

[Just_a_fan]

It just looked odd. Hamilton was taking seconds out of everybody apart from Vettel. We had car spinnings all over the place. Then Vettel slides off.

In hindsight it seems pretty obvious that Vettel was pushing to damn hard on old S tyres and TBH when he hit the barrier my first thought was well that’s what you get for pushing that damn hard.

Hamilton was taking chunks out if Vettel too. He was 2.7s faster on one lap - might have been the lap before Vettel slid off. Hamilton was on the better tyre, no doubt, but he earnt that tyre advantage on his first stint by being quick and keeping the tyres together.

[Restomaniac]

It just looked odd. Hamilton was taking seconds out of everybody apart from Vettel. We had car spinnings all over the place. Then Vettel slides off.

In hindsight it seems pretty obvious that Vettel was pushing to damn hard on old S tyres and TBH when he hit the barrier my first thought was well that’s what you get for pushing that damn hard.

Hamilton was taking chunks out if Vettel too. He was 2.7s faster on one lap - might have been the lap before Vettel slid off. Hamilton was on the better tyre, no doubt, but he earnt that tyre advantage on his first stint by being quick and keeping the tyres together.

He was faster but no where near as faster as he was to Raikkonen and Bottas. That screamed that Vettel was pushing like mad on a greasy track with old slicks. What happened next was pretty inevitable. On your comment about Hamiltons first stint, I couldn’t agree with you more.

[Schuttelberg]

I wanted to say one more thing- I'm not one of the blind fans to not accept a fuc/< up from Seb. But, my heart sank and I was on the brink of tears when I heard his team radio. I don't know if it was the dutch fans, I certainly saw some Lewis fans jumping up and down. I can't imagine what Seb must have felt at that moment. It's okay, I get it. I actually am one of those who feels fans should be allowed to express themselves. But, I've not seen one mention of this in the media, specially the British media. I know the reaction if the shoe was on the other foot.