2018 Singapore Grand Prix - Marina Bay, 14-16 September

[Shrieker]

Perez, Grosjean and Sirotkin should not be in F1. I take comfort knowing that at least one of them won't be on the grid next season.

In Ted's notebook he had a conversation with someone I can't remember who, who said ocon wouldn't start 2019 on the grid, but with the way some of these guys are driving he might!

Fingers crossed... It would be a shame if all three did get a seat, and Ocon didn't. That said, I think Toto should write a posh cheque to Claire and put Ocon in one of their seats.

[atanatizante]

Lewis doing mind games with Vettel/Ferrari. Just after 2 laps when he reported issues with HS tyres Vettel went into the pits trying to do a undercut. There was a big bogus from Lewis bearing in mind Ricci was doing 27 laps on those tyres with no issue whatsoever ...

[Phil]

Vettels tyres would have needed to go off badly for Bottas to pass though, as we saw Perez couldn't pass the Williams with a tyre advantage, so who's to say Bottas would have passed. If he did pass id bet that kimi would have then acted as rear gunner and kept Seb in 4th.

Speaking strategically, he wouldnt have needed to pass Seb. Just put him under constant pressure to drive at a higher pace/defensive and force him into a 2nd stop...

[Restomaniac]

Vettels tyres would have needed to go off badly for Bottas to pass though, as we saw Perez couldn't pass the Williams with a tyre advantage, so who's to say Bottas would have passed. If he did pass id bet that kimi would have then acted as rear gunner and kept Seb in 4th.

We will never know.
As Anthony Davidson said. If you don’t have to push tyres they will last forever. Vettel was able to cruise without pushing at all.

[NathanOlder]

@Phil

Yeah, its just IFs and BUTs, maybe at a higher pace Vettels tyres may have been fine, we wont know.

Bottas 100% should have given Vettel that headache, luckily for Seb he didn't need to worry.

[NathanOlder]

Vettels tyres would have needed to go off badly for Bottas to pass though, as we saw Perez couldn't pass the Williams with a tyre advantage, so who's to say Bottas would have passed. If he did pass id bet that kimi would have then acted as rear gunner and kept Seb in 4th.

We will never know.
As Anthony Davidson said. If you don’t have to push tyres they will last forever. Vettel was able to cruise without pushing at all.

Indeed. Would you not have thought Ferrari would have gambled, and got Seb to push. He may have been able to pass Max and Lewis. Surely with Bottas pace issues Seb could have pushed, which would have made Lewis and Max push harder and if Sebs tyres didnt last, they would have been far enough in front to pit and come out 3rd or near 3rd with a decent set of tyres on low fuel.

They drove as if they were protecting a championship lead.

[drunkf1fan]

Vettels tyres would have needed to go off badly for Bottas to pass though, as we saw Perez couldn't pass the Williams with a tyre advantage, so who's to say Bottas would have passed. If he did pass id bet that kimi would have then acted as rear gunner and kept Seb in 4th.

Speaking strategically, he wouldnt have needed to pass Seb. Just put him under constant pressure to drive at a higher pace/defensive and force him into a 2nd stop...

Also it seemed as if Sirotkin was doing all sorts of shady blocking. It wasn't on camera but from what Perez said during the race and how angry he was at Sirotkin I suspect he did the same thing he did to Hartley to Perez at some point. Vettel would either have to drive the same and risk a penalty of as you say speed up to stay ahead and in doing so actually push his tires out badly.

Regardless, even if it didn't work Bottas should have been there putting the pressure on. Maybe Vettel manages to hold him behind and not pit but just the pressure of defending causes him to crash/spin. The simple fact is Vettel backed of over 30 seconds and Bottas not only wasn't pressuring him but was falling away further, never should a top driver have 30 seconds to back off and your other driver can't even put pressure on him. Even from a make sure Vettel's engine is turned up which may make the difference later in the year, the lack of pressure is because Bottas's performance was abysmal.

If Hamilton wasn't driving out of his skin lately and if Vettel hadn't messed up as often as he had, this kind of performance could be the difference between Merc winning a title and not. He's just not good enough.

[subcritical71]

Vettel seems to be blaming Ferrari rather a lot these day's. Its not nice to see.
Maybe the marriage is crumbling with Leclerc coming.

Man, for me, when Arrivabene rebuked Vettel during quali ... that set off alarm bells in my head. A driver's focus goes to hell if your team boss says something so cold on live TV. Compare that to the relationship between Toto and Lewis, even during the 2016 season. I think the strongest word from Toto was when Nico and Hamilton came together - "mindless".

Really! I missed that, what did Arrivabene say?

I missed the comments as well, but Mark Hughes recently did an opinion piece about the turmoil at Ferrari, which was an interesting read.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opin ... ging-guard

[Yurasyk]

Lewis doing mind games with Vettel/Ferrari. Just after 2 laps when he reported issues with HS tyres Vettel went into the pits trying to do a undercut. There was a big bogus from Lewis bearing in mind Ricci was doing 27 laps on those tyres with no issue whatsoever ...

That have been simply Vet tyres dying at that moment. The gap significantly increased before the pit.

[Restomaniac]

Vettels tyres would have needed to go off badly for Bottas to pass though, as we saw Perez couldn't pass the Williams with a tyre advantage, so who's to say Bottas would have passed. If he did pass id bet that kimi would have then acted as rear gunner and kept Seb in 4th.

We will never know.
As Anthony Davidson said. If you don’t have to push tyres they will last forever. Vettel was able to cruise without pushing at all.

Indeed. Would you not have thought Ferrari would have gambled, and got Seb to push. He may have been able to pass Max and Lewis. Surely with Bottas pace issues Seb could have pushed, which would have made Lewis and Max push harder and if Sebs tyres didnt last, they would have been far enough in front to pit and come out 3rd or near 3rd with a decent set of tyres on low fuel.

They drove as if they were protecting a championship lead.

I think Vettel’s distance behind Verstappen told a story. He didn’t have the tyres to do it but was able to cruise. Also remember that Vettel pitted first and he then ended up behind a FI which then ended up between Himself and Hamilton. Added to the facts that Ferrari have had warm up issues and then Verstappen ended up in front of him on even newer rubber meant that he was screwed. If Bottas had been able to get anywhere near his teammates pace (on far younger rubber) Vettel would have been forced to burn his tyres out staying in front.

Also I think a little bit of common sense came into play when everyone is going to the end and your on the wrong tyre and the guy behind isn’t killing you then you try and stretch it out.

[PeterSW]

Lewis doing mind games with Vettel/Ferrari. Just after 2 laps when he reported issues with HS tyres Vettel went into the pits trying to do a undercut. There was a big bogus from Lewis bearing in mind Ricci was doing 27 laps on those tyres with no issue whatsoever ...

Except that Hamilton said "There's a lot left in the tyres". It seems Ferrari misheard his message and added a not!

[drunkf1fan]

I'm pretty sure Sky messed it up, Ham said there was a lot left in the tires, Ferrari told Vettel, Vettel said he's lying because Vettel could feel his own tires going off.

[MtthsMlw]

I'm pretty sure Sky messed it up, Ham said there was a lot left in the tires, Ferrari told Vettel, Vettel said he's lying because Vettel could feel his own tires going off.

I think Ferrari understood that Hamilton reported that there is not much left in these tyres.. Vettel didn't believe him.

[Unc1eM0nty]

Vettel being helped by Bottas not being able to put him under pressure. Vettel will be on the canvas at the end on these tyres.

What happened to Bottas? He was 3 seconds behind Vettel at some point, now it’s 6? Backmarkers?

Bottas was poor this weekend, he should have been all over Vettel who had to nurse his tires to the end

[Edax]

Also it seemed as if Sirotkin was doing all sorts of shady blocking. It wasn't on camera but from what Perez said during the race and how angry he was at Sirotkin I suspect he did the same thing he did to Hartley to Perez at some point.

In one shot you could see Sirodkin giving Perez a brakecheck, nearly parking it mid corner. That really did not look fair. But that was just after the radio messages.