2019 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, March 29 - 31

[GPR-A]

His abilities to win is not the issue here. I agree with what you are saying regarding his abilities.
It's his stifling personality that engulfs a team is the problem. He will play politics around young leclerc.

Alonso is the Tantalus of Formula 1.

Has the talent and skill, but when he goes into a team the car turns to a dog. When he leaves the team, the car turns to a winner.
When he joins a team and get a winning car... he gets a once in every 25 years prodigy as a teammate. He's cursed!

Most convenient excuses that people have found out to hide the inefficiency of 500+ people who work to create a F1 car. In the modern times of F1 racing, teams have such sophisticated tools (cars laden with thousands of sensors), to the extent that they even know when a driver is going to pee, before the driver feels it. To then blame the driver for having lead them to create dogs, can at the least be termed as out rightly ridiculous. You should blame the problems of Ferrari to their own way of working.

McLaren was already sliding downwards by the time he joined. He joined with full understanding of the situation as he had experienced the fact that, at that point, Ferrari weren't in a position to create a winning car. He can only be blamed for his untimely choices, but to make him a scapegoat for the inefficiencies of a large racing team, is just too convenient.

He is also responsible for McLaren getting back to shape this year as he has been involved in their decision making. He is testing the car for them, despite not driving full time, which shows his level of involvement and commitment.

McLaren also created dog of a car in 2009 and 2011, did anyone blame Hamilton for that? They did that in 2013 and 2014. Did anyone blame Button for that?

2007 can always be debated in multiple different ways, depending upon who you want to represent.

[Vasconia]

Toto is up to his old tricks of putting pressure on his opponents.

Both Toto and Lewis love to do this.

[FittingMechanics]

I'm not sure why is there a debate about Hamilton and his skills. The guy is incredibly talented. Proof enough is that in 2007, as a rookie in McLaren, he managed to tie Alonso for points, both finished with 109 points while Raikonnen in Ferrari won the title with 1 point more, at 110 points. Guy who gives Alonso run for his money is insanely fast.

Funny thing is, it looks like Alonso lost that championship (and left McLaren) because he blocked Hamilton in Hungarian qualifying. This got him a penalty which led to him finishing only 5th in the race (Hamilton won the race from pole he inherited from Alonso).

[Carl Mccoy]

Leclerc went great. But I think I was even more surprised by Lando Norris. For me, this is another mega star coming in.

[NathanOlder]

Hamilton is the only driver in history to win at least one pole position in every season he's raced, that should indicate how fast he is. He hasn't always had the best car on the grid but he always finds a way to be the fastest man out there. No way half the grid would be beating him in the other car, not even close.

It also indicates he always was in a pole capable car. Ofcourse half the grid would not beat him, he is one of the all time great and rightfully so.

I wouldn't call the 2009 and 2011 Mclarens Pole capable as you put it. Take 2011 as an example, His Team mate Jenson Button never got pole position, and had an average gap to pole of 0.644 which is huge! the 2011RedBull was just too strong! Yet Lewis pulled out a mega lap in Korea and stole 1 pole position that year

[marvin78]

Can someone please rename this thread in

"My beloved driver is better than your piece of sh..."?

It's getting more and more ridiculous with every race thread.

[3jawchuck]

I've not been watching F1 that regularly for a while, but managed to catch this one and was very happy I did. It was a decent enough race, plenty of action and an end that reminded me of the end of the Tour de Corse that had just finished on the same day. Far too much drama and upset for a Sunday!

I found myself rooting for a Ferrari driver to win, for the first time since Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger drove for them. That was a strange feeling indeed.

[mzso]

Hamilton is the only driver in history to win at least one pole position in every season he's raced, that should indicate how fast he is. He hasn't always had the best car on the grid but he always finds a way to be the fastest man out there. No way half the grid would be beating him in the other car, not even close.

That only indicates that he always had a decent car and that he's a good qualifier.

Come kids, it's time! Ham-Bash Season 471 has begun! *popcorn*

Not worshipping Hamilton ≠ bashing. Besides his Mclaren championship he only needed to defeat Rosberg, or watch Vettel defeat himself.
I'd say even the championship he lost to Räikkönen is worth more (as far as driver performance goes) than the ones he won with Mercedes.

[SiLo]

Mods - can we just remove all this trashtalk about drivers please? It gets more annoying each week.

[Phil]

So after a full 2 days to reflect on what I found was a spectacular Bahrain race, here are my thoughts;

Leclerc
Very much impressed by Leclerc. What impressed me most about him, was that he found himself as low as 3rd after having lost the race, behind his team-mate and Bottas and he made two incredible moves to get back in front that showed that this guy is not only fast but has race craft as well. That he also showed in Melbourne when he backed out of his good start just at the right time to avoid contact and know when the position was lost, while here at Bahrain, he showed just the right amount of finesse against defending these two opponents. He then went on to pretty much dictate the race until he suffered his issue. In the end, I felt sorry for him losing it the way he did. That race was and should have been his.

Hamilton
Some may call Hamilton lucky for inheriting the win - I couldn't disagree more. After half a lap, he was down to 4th and from there it took grit and determination to fight back and put himself in the position to inherit the win. He did that against his own team-mate in the same car and again against what should have been the faster car. One of the crucial moments of the race however was on lap 1 when he had a run up against Leclerc on the outside and he managed to back out of it in just the right time to avoid having his front-wing cut off that would have surely compromised his race to the point he wouldn't even have been in contention for a podium. Another defining moment was in 2nd stint where he clearly struggled, yet was fast enough to keep himself in that window vs Vettel.

Hulkenberg
Once again very impressed by Hulkenberg. He started on 17th and would have finished the race in 6th behind Vettel if not for that car failure. Against a team-mate who is supposedly one of the best drivers on the grid, he is showing how underrated he is / has been IMO.

Norris / Sainz
Had another brilliant race, but I think Sainz was better on the day and would have finished ahead if he had not tangled with Verstappen. Pity as that completely broke his race. Norris with a very good drive once again.

Vettel
Not in a happy place at the moment and I think he will be finding himself under a lot of pressure to have the full teams backing behind him. I still think Vettels biggest strength is his qualifying speed, but Leclerc might just be close enough there to put even more pressure on him. China will be interesting IMO.


Ferrari / Mercedes
Given the talk about how Ferrari have supposedly got a huge power-performance advantage... well, I'm not exactly seeing it, not in the race anyway. If that were case, I think Hamilton would have had little chance to take on Vettel during the race. The race pace seemed quite comparable in the end. Will be very interesting to see how China shapes up with that long straight.

[Bill_Kar]

Ferrari / Mercedes
Given the talk about how Ferrari have supposedly got a huge power-performance advantage... well, I'm not exactly seeing it, not in the race anyway. If that were case, I think Hamilton would have had little chance to take on Vettel during the race. The race pace seemed quite comparable in the end. Will be very interesting to see how China shapes up with that long straight.

Well, if leclerc's problem was a misfire and not something fundamentally wrong, then there is a problem as he was always out of Hamilton's reach.

[FrukostScones]

I really enjoyed watching this GP, despite my favs not winning.
It had enough drama for 3 GP (or more).
We are bound for an epic season.

[Unc1eM0nty]

It would be interesting to see how far up the grid he could drag a Williams or Racing Point this year though...

I don't think anyone can drap that dog of a car up the grid

[wickedz50]

From "Mission WinNow" to "Mission LoseNow" . This is what Vettel and Team Ferrari is all about.

[WaikeCU]

I really enjoyed watching this GP, despite my favs not winning.
It had enough drama for 3 GP (or more).
We are bound for an epic season.

It's because there's excitement throughout the grid.

- We have dreamt of a fight between the three top teams (Merc, Ferrari and RB). RB might not be up there yet, but I could see them close the gap later on the season. Fight is more intense now between Merc and Ferrari, because it has been going for the last two seasons between them and between Lewis and Seb. Add another dimension with a refreshing driver like Leclerc and we are back to a similar season like 2007. Champions who are now challenged by the new kid. Would not be surprised if Leclerc brings delirium for Ferrari.

- Midfield is tight. We have teams like Haas, Renault, Mclaren, Sauber and Red Bull who are fighting for best of the midfield. Haas wants Renault's scalp, Mclaren looking like a permanent top 10 running team with fresh face Norris who creates excitement. Sainz is a quick driver. Hulkenberg who has another challenge to beat a strong teammate and prove he's a championship material. Kimi is calm, cool and fast making that Sauber work beautifully.

- Even though Williams are on the backfoot. I like the return of Kubica against another young talent in Russell. It's cool to see how they match out weekend in, weekend out.