2014 Bahrain Grand Prix

[Juzh]

Why did Alonso go from 7 to 10 when the safetycar came in?

He had to pit for hard tires. some people in front didn't need to and stuck to a 2 stopper instead of 3.

Aha, 'some people' being the RB's I suppose

Yes, and some other cars as well.

[heidenreich27]

Ferraris pu worst of all, its the weakest in all areas

Except rai was pulling from both RBs on the straight when they were head on.

? Riccardo overpowered raikonnen on the small straight, correct me if i am wrong.

[Juzh]

Ferraris pu worst of all, its the weakest in all areas

Except rai was pulling from both RBs on the straight when they were head on.

? Riccardo overpowered raikonnen on the small straight, correct me if i am wrong.

DRS and better traction at the time. Rai pulled away from Vet easily anytime they were both full throttle.

[ringo]

For me Maldonado and Perez are cut from the same cloth (apart from the inherently dangerous nature of Maldonado). They are both pay drivers, but both can show moments of quality. Thats in contrast to say, Chilton, who is just sh**. Unfortunately they cant be relied upon.

Chilton seems to be doing good. He is yet not to finish a race. Today he took back 10th place in constructors from caterham.

[JimClarkFan]

Missed race, seems like there was a good scrap upfront. Hoping to catch BBC highlights

[zeph]

He is handling that Merc better than Nico at the moment... something that may not last. Nico already showed he is a huge threat by grabbing pole.

The funny thing is.. i don't think that's the case. Rosberg had the better car this weekend. And if Lewis wants to avoid having those barnstomer battles he needs to get on top of what Rosberg did this weekened.
Hamilton won on grit, intelligence, and raw skills this weekend. He didn't win on pace. And on the other side of the coin Nico should be worried as well. Because if you are faster than you teammate over a weekend car wise, and even tyre wise for the last stint, what the heck do you do when he gets everything right? How do you fight back for what 17 races?!!

I agree with you on this, Rosberg looks more comfortable and confident in the Mercedes, Hamilton has said as much:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/113321

I totally thought Rosberg had this, and to see Hamilton fend him off like that, well, that is why I call it epic. I am sure this is one of his sweetest triumphs.

[aral]

For me Maldonado and Perez are cut from the same cloth (apart from the inherently dangerous nature of Maldonado). They are both pay drivers, but both can show moments of quality. Thats in contrast to say, Chilton, who is just sh**. Unfortunately they cant be relied upon.

Chilton seems to be doing good. He is yet not to finish a race. Today he took back 10th place in constructors from caterham.

Still last! (apart from a damaged car which was 2 laps down)

[turbof1]

The best part I found was the amount of respect between the 2 after the race. When both got out of the cars I was looking with a lot of tension how they would handle eachother. When Rosberg grabbed Hamilton plyfully, and Hamilton responding playfully in return, it became clear there was nothing to worry about.

Hamilton even acknowledges Rosberg did the better job. I feel they have a great deal of respect for eachother.

[ringo]

Overall this was the best dry race we have seen in a very long time. There was a lot of action up and down the field.

Though, in my opinion, I think that Hamilton's defense was dirty and disrespectful to his team mate. He showed a lot more sense and respect to Button in his Mclaren days.
The chopping across Nico was extremely stupid and he could have destroyed a certain 1-2 finish for the team by taking Nico's front wing off and puncturing his rear tire leaving them both an entire lap to limp home to replace the wing and tire on the respective cars.

Well Hamilton couldn't toy around. He can't allow Nico to get away with the points. Nico is very aggressive mentally as well. Nico saw blood as soon as the safety car came in. Hamilton had to put him in his place with some tough but fair moves.
I didn't see any chopping or dirty driving. I saw what we used to see in F1 many years ago. In times when your tyres dont fall off because your let them slide a little.
Today we saw manly racing. In fact tougher stuff was going on in the mid field today.

If you think drivers were behaving like cut throat bastards today. May there be mercy on their souls when we reach the double points races. I think people are going to get hurt. We'll see more flipping cars and road hogging.

[e30ernest]

5-place grid penalty for Maldonado and 3 penalty points for his incident. Somehow I feel he got off lightly after such a reckless move. Ricciardo's unsafe pit release was punished far more severely than this.

[dans79]

what I'm wondering is what will Lewis do to try and edge Nico for the next race. Nico's side of the garage apparently found something in Lewis's data from Malaysia, hopefully Lewis can do the same With Nico's telemetry from this race.

[Maelstrom]

5-place grid penalty for Maldonado and 3 penalty points for his incident. Somehow I feel he got off lightly after such a reckless move. Ricciardo's unsafe pit release was punished far more severely than this.

Yep... seems pretty unfair... I was hoping they'd throw the rulebook at him.

[e30ernest]

Was there any on-board footage from Maldonado during the crash? Was it the wheel or the nose that caused the flip-over?

[Unc1eM0nty]

what I'm wondering is what will Lewis do to try and edge Nico for the next race. Nico's side of the garage apparently found something in Lewis's data from Malaysia, hopefully Lewis can do the same With Nico's telemetry from this race.

This sort of thing happens at every team after every race, I don't think it had anything to do with their speed this weekend.

I Malaysia Lewis got his set up just right, this weekend it was Nico, it's that simple

[e30ernest]

They were actually pretty equal the entire race. Lewis getting the jump on Nico on the start and ability to fend-off an overtake before the first pit stop more or less sealed it for Nico. Lewis was ahead before the first pit stop and it allowed him to undercut Nico and get fresher tires first and build up a bigger gap when Nico rejoined from his first stop. With such a small speed difference between them, getting an overtaking move to stick would have been pretty difficult at best.