2020 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, Nov 27 - 29

[Moore77]

Joe Saward amongst others (some of the-race.com crew too)

cant find anything from the above people, please site the link of your claim that "A decent few people in the paddock don't rate Mick."

You asked, I answered. Google those sites if you care enough (it takes more that 3 minutes, his good stuff is in the comments) Shrug.

This is the dumbest way of putting content on discussion forums. Say something out of whims and fancies and when someone asks for the source, tell them to google it.

[nzjrs]

cant find anything from the above people, please site the link of your claim that "A decent few people in the paddock don't rate Mick."

You asked, I answered. Google those sites if you care enough (it takes more that 3 minutes, his good stuff is in the comments) Shrug.

This is the dumbest way of putting content on discussion forums. Say something out of whims and fancies and when someone asks for the source, tell them to google it.

If you followed Joe you would value that not all the good stuff is made easily accessible for the perpetually lazy. I'd recommend snooping around on his blog and Twitter comments - it's worth it.

But thanks for your opinion old chap.

[aral]

Some off topic comments have been removed as they were harking back to 2012 and were nothing to do with the Bahrain GP. Any chance you could stick to the actual topic...please?

[ENGINE TUNER]

Bottas was also stuck in a "train of DRS" in the early stages of the race, meaning that his DRS was useless as the car he was trying to overtake also had DRS. Bottas sure didn't have his best day yesterday, but pulling off an easy DRS is doable for any driver, if the car and the delta advantage allows it and is enough. The Mercedes perhaps is also the car least set up for being in the pack and doing overtakes vs the midfield teams who are.

This train was 4 sec off the pace of Hamilton in some laps. I do not think there is a good excuse for not being able to overtake at the speed the others were going.

Dirty air is the excuse

[ENGINE TUNER]

Max went straight savage on Albon after the race.

Completely unsolicited, too.

Interviewer: “Good thing that Alex takes the podium and score some good points.”

Max: “Well yeah, that’s your conclusion but if you trail your teammate with 30-40 seconds you can hardly say he did a good job. Still nice for Alex to score a podium though.”

Yikes.

Ouch !!! that's savage coming from your team mate

Its savage and stupid, rbr are the reason why ALB was so far back today. HAM pitted early because he had vibrations on his tires, and RBR pitted ALB on the same lap, which put ALB back into the midfield traffic who were all going long. That traffic slowed him down and chewed up his tires. We've seen several times this season where RBR sacrifice ALB race to test tires for VER. This was actually one of ALB better races in spite of poor RBR race strategy. And if they left him out longer in the first stint he could have been used to slow down an early stopping HAM.

[Phil]

This train was 4 sec off the pace of Hamilton in some laps. I do not think there is a good excuse for not being able to overtake at the speed the others were going.

4 sec off the pace across an entire lap. Not 4 seconds faster down the straight. To overtake during a DRS zone, you need a high speed differential and a long enough straight. And you need to be close enough too.

[PlatinumZealot]

A race to remember. This was history. 2020, I tell you. It just keeps on giving.

[maxxer]

Anyway i found it quite surprising how they could lift the whole damaged section of barrier out of the ground with one forklift shouldnt this be mounted on proper foundation? No wonder it takes so long to build new roads in my country

[basti313]

This train was 4 sec off the pace of Hamilton in some laps. I do not think there is a good excuse for not being able to overtake at the speed the others were going.

4 sec off the pace across an entire lap. Not 4 seconds faster down the straight. To overtake during a DRS zone, you need a high speed differential and a long enough straight. And you need to be close enough too.

There was a time when people could overtake without DRS...

And looking at F2, there were many opportunities to overtake with such a pace difference.

[LM10]

This train was 4 sec off the pace of Hamilton in some laps. I do not think there is a good excuse for not being able to overtake at the speed the others were going.

4 sec off the pace across an entire lap. Not 4 seconds faster down the straight. To overtake during a DRS zone, you need a high speed differential and a long enough straight. And you need to be close enough too.

Bottas has never been good on race pace, following and pressurizing a car in front or wheel to wheel fight. He’s driving the (by far) fastest car on the grid and fastest car in F1 history, yet struggles to overtake an Alfa Romeo for several laps, one of the slowest 3 cars with a 40-50 hp down on power engine.

If he can’t manage to come close enough to this dog of car in his W11, then there is no argument left for his race pace abilities really.

[Jolle]

This train was 4 sec off the pace of Hamilton in some laps. I do not think there is a good excuse for not being able to overtake at the speed the others were going.

4 sec off the pace across an entire lap. Not 4 seconds faster down the straight. To overtake during a DRS zone, you need a high speed differential and a long enough straight. And you need to be close enough too.

There was a time when people could overtake without DRS...

And looking at F2, there were many opportunities to overtake with such a pace difference.

That was a time before car's downforce was relying on all the tiny vortices around the floor, wings, etc.

[Moore77]

This train was 4 sec off the pace of Hamilton in some laps. I do not think there is a good excuse for not being able to overtake at the speed the others were going.

4 sec off the pace across an entire lap. Not 4 seconds faster down the straight. To overtake during a DRS zone, you need a high speed differential and a long enough straight. And you need to be close enough too.

Leclerc showed last year that, even with cars of similar speed, you can overtake, if you drive better. There are abundant incidents where cars with half a second per lap pace advantage can overtake in Sakhir. Even there are examples of similarly matched cars, like Ricciardo showed yesterday, you can overtake. With 4 seconds per lap advantage, you can lap the entire field.

[Phil]

There was a time when people could overtake without DRS...

And I'm saying, there are set up considerations to consider. They don't set up the Mercedes to drive in traffic - it's setup for the high probability of it driving in clean air at the front, maximizing lap time over high speed on the straights. Factor cooling into that, as well as overall downforce. Bottas got himself into traffic in a DRS train of other cars with similar or better top speeds. It really isn't rocket science.

[Moore77]

There was a time when people could overtake without DRS...

And I'm saying, there are set up considerations to consider. They don't set up the Mercedes to drive in traffic - it's setup for the high probability of it driving in clean air at the front, maximizing lap time over high speed on the straights. Factor cooling into that, as well as overall downforce. Bottas got himself into traffic in a DRS train of other cars with similar or better top speeds. It really isn't rocket science.

Those were the days of heavy reliance on front wing when Mercedes used to struggle in traffic. In last couple of years, with simplified front wing and more durable tyres (less susceptible to thermal degradation from wake), Hamilton has shown upteen number of times how to chase and kill, without any issues. So car's setup is not such an issue. Especially on Sakhir where following is so easy from the last corner.

[e30ernest]

I really think this is also a case of Bottas being told by the team to nurse the tires to reach a target lap. Remember he was out of sync with the strategies.