2014 Russian GP - Sochi

[search]

strong performance by Bottas - but what was he doing there in Q2?! Is there any particular reason to set an endless amount of laps on the tyre you'll start on when you're comfortably sitting in 3rd place?

[Jano11]

Camt blame Renault when they are behinf the Renault powered B team

they can.

Yes an no. They can but it doesn't look very objective.
Plus given the state of their engine usage this would have been the right moment to get new engines in for the last 4 races.

[siskue2005]

strong performance by Bottas - but what was he doing there in Q2?! Is there any particular reason to set an endless amount of laps on the tyre you'll start on when you're comfortably sitting in 3rd place?

Exactly I was baffled why he was staying out for 3 more laps even when he had easily got into q3

[gray41]

strong performance by Bottas - but what was he doing there in Q2?! Is there any particular reason to set an endless amount of laps on the tyre you'll start on when you're comfortably sitting in 3rd place?

I found this rather odd, it could cost him the chance to finish higher than 3rd tomorrow, Nico also doing an extra lap to Lewis.

[PlatinumZealot]

Feeling good for tomorrow, man.

[ringo]

Vettel starting to reveal himself as an ordinary driver. If Kyviat goes and gives riciardo a hard time, then it may actually reinforce the suspicion that these guys aren't that much different and it was the very well designed redbull cars of the past 5 years that made the drivers look a cut above the rest.
Anyhow, good job by Danil and Bottas. Hamilton seems to be dialed in, so i'm expecting a smooth race barring any brain farts or freak accidents.
The scary part as well is that Lewis is driving much like Button this season, very smooth and patient. He doesn't seem to push as hard in qualifying, and only goes balls to the wall at specific times during the race. Should be interesting how he and rosberg go about trying to beat each other this weekend.

[McLobby]

Very exciting GP2 race so far, with lots of overtakes, Hopefully we'll have something similar tomorrow!

[iotar__]

- Boring qualifying
- Long straight and first 3 corners after the start might be interesting, then no degradation tyres = boring
- Judging by GP2 it's going to be another selective track limits mess. Weird penalty for Nasr, FIA can't manage to establish any consistent rules in their series, just randomness. I guess they are too busy with FRIC and fake ban on radio transmissions.

[SectorOne]

Camt blame Renault when they are behinf the Renault powered B team

they can.

And what would their complaints be?

Theyve got more DF, same Engine. STR simply did a better job.

[Juzh]

Camt blame Renault when they are behinf the Renault powered B team

they can.

And what would their complaints be?

Theyve got more DF, same Engine. STR simply did a better job.

Underpowered renault is forcing them to compromise and massively cut DF to make them at least somewhat competitive. TR was on par with RB on 2 highly specific tracks this year and are not a good measure of renault performance at all. Not to mention TR is going for slippery car approach for years now.
Bottom line remains. Renault is bad, and RB with a merc engine would wipe the floor with merc similarly to what merc is doing now.

[henra]

Vettel starting to reveal himself as an ordinary driver.

Vettel has been an excellent EBD car Driver. But he seems to need the stability and infinite traction on the rear end.
He looked quite ordinary against Webber (being clearly out- paced a couple of times by Webber at the beginnning of 2012) when EBD wasn't working properly. Once EBD started to work properly and the rear end became stable he started embarrassing Webber.
The current Formula doesn't work well for him and I see rather difficult times ahead for him with the twitchy Ferrari next year.
It appears to me he also has difficulties with the current PU generation to accelerate smoothly out of turns with part throttle thereby making the rear end in- stable and killing his rear tyres over a race distance. Ricciardo can almost always drive longer stints than Vettel.
Edit: The 2015 nose regulations with a further shift of DF from the rear to the front is probably going to hurt him even more.

[SectorOne]

Thats not a valid complaint, theres nothing stopping them from running STR levels of DF around here.
Engine is identical, you cant pull the Renault card when comparing to STR.

(for juzh)

[noel]

well, this gp2 race gives me hope. several exciting moments.
and a massive shout out to jolyon for securing the championship.

[Juzh]

Thats not a valid complaint, theres nothing stopping them from running STR levels of DF around here.
Engine is identical, you cant pull the Renault card when comparing to STR.

(for juzh)

Perhaps the entire car philosophy, which currently puts them 2nd in the constructors at 332 points compared to 7th for TR at 29 points, is preventing them that. Don't you think?
In other words, in order to get a renault powered car anywhere near mercedes in speed traps you have to shed off so much downforce and drag to make yourself utterly uncompetitive in all but 2-3 events.

[search]

strong performance by Bottas - but what was he doing there in Q2?! Is there any particular reason to set an endless amount of laps on the tyre you'll start on when you're comfortably sitting in 3rd place?

I found this rather odd, it could cost him the chance to finish higher than 3rd tomorrow, Nico also doing an extra lap to Lewis.

yep, this is the total amount of laps (including in- and outlap) those who emerged into Q3 did on the sets of tyres they'll start on:

HAM 4
ROS 5
BOT 7
BUT 5
KVY 9
RIC 9
ALO 7
RAI 8
VER 9
MAG 4

Bottas' first flying lap was more than a second quicker than Vettel's fastest lap overall, he still did 4 more (without improvement btw)