Schuttelberg wrote:zeph wrote: ↑19 Apr 2021, 18:46
Russell just tweeted this:
Sounds like he shat his pants.
Disappointing. Sounds to me like Mr.Wolff has pulled his ears and he has succumbed. I can guarantee that if Wolff had tried this with Hamilton in 2007 he would have been asked to go and f***** swivel.
I'm very disappointed in George. I believe in my heart that he's as good as Max and Charles and just deprived at this point. If you allow people in this sport to manipulate you, you will soon lose yourself and with it the confidence and almost arrogance you need to succeed at this level.
I'm not saying yesterday was his brightest hour, but it was not clear cut and Bottas had a fair share of the blame.
And, as it so often happens with the second Merc driver, this incident overshadows the real issue which is why Bottas was floundering around in that position in the first place. I think Hamilton is a once in a generation talent, but the way he sliced through the field compared to how Bottas was going backwards shows the vast gap in that team. It was the same in Bahrain and it was outright embarrassing in 2020.
I guess you have to consider also at which point in the race did Hamilton cut his way through the field... He did when the track was mostly dry, while Bottas was stuck in the midfield DRS train while the track was still damp and therefore trickier to make a pass.
As has been the norm during the last few seasons, tire temperature plays a very big role in the current Formula, the trickier it becomes to get them into the right window, the more performance you lose... Hamilton lost a huge amount to Verstappen during the beginning of the race due to that fact.
In addition and specially during the first half of the race, completing an overtake, even with a big pace differential was exponentially harder... Norris had to ask the team to make Daniel let him through, having a hard time to get into his DRS, once he was allowed to get by, he pulled 5 seconds in a couple of laps.
How hard it was to pass was also proven by Perez, in arguably the fastest car of the weekend (or evenly match to the Mercedes), he also found it extremely hard to make any inroads and ended up finishing outside the points.
Yes, Bottas qualifying performance is what put him in that situation and that’s on him... But it would be interesting to understand how the different driving styles play a role in how quickly you can get (and maintain) the tires in the right operating window.
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