2017 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka, 6-8 October

[Jordan44]

Oh I agree on this too. New ICE is a certainty IMHO.

PU4 has ran 4 races now. PU3 has ran 2. PU4 will do Austin and PU3 the last 3 races. Unless they have a failure there shouldn't be any penalties.

If they manage to secure the championship, then I think they should swap PU for the last race. Just get a new one, open it up fully and drive the thing to bits in one race.

I got a feeling that despite the penalties it would be a very humbling experience for the other teams.

Great for the fans.. but I'm not sure how they could justify the cost of building a PU just for one race to the Daimler board

[diffuser]

What happened to Vandoorne? He just went backwards?

[Restomaniac]

But i could not help but feel the pace of the Mercedes was again below expectations. Pretty sure this would have been a clear win for Vettel here.

I felt that Hamilton was cruising with the engine turned down all the way at points... One lap they were showing his onboard, on the main straight in 8th gear the lights on the wheel didn't even light up, or barely did iirc. They definitely turned down the engine for reliability.

They actually asked Verstappen if he thought he had a chance at any point today.
His answer? No not really apart from the back markers at the end. It seems he knew what was happening in front of him

[turbof1]

PU4 has ran 4 races now. PU3 has ran 2. PU4 will do Austin and PU3 the last 3 races. Unless they have a failure there shouldn't be any penalties.

If they manage to secure the championship, then I think they should swap PU for the last race. Just get a new one, open it up fully and drive the thing to bits in one race.

I got a feeling that despite the penalties it would be a very humbling experience for the other teams.

Great for the fans.. but I'm not sure how they could justify the cost of building a PU just for one race to the Daimler board

?? They have spare PUs in case that some break down. They will merely be using stock which will not be used anyway next year.

Besides, producing the PU is not all that costly. The real costs lie in the development

[sosic2121]

Lewis' start over here was extremely similar to the one Vettel made in Singapore.

How dare you!

I thought the same, but wasn't man enough to write it.

[PlatinumZealot]

Anyway, it's been a great year of racing and I'm genuinely happy for you, Hamilton and all his fans! After the horror of last year, this is a title well deserved. And knowing me, you will know that I always mean what I say.

Today was a dagger driven deeper in the heart for us Vettel fans, but that doesn't take away from the brilliance of the rivals. Well, at least we gave this a good old run for it.

Hallo schuttleberg

Maybe a little Karma for Baku perhaps?

[McG]

What happened to Vandoorne? He just went backwards?

He went wide at turn 1 on the first lap and never recovered much from that.

[WaikeCU]

Mercedes just had a bad start to the season, which made everybody believe Ferrari had a chance. Look at the pole lap here, 0,5s faster and people are still believing in it...

It signifies how majestic that W08 really is. Best chassis, best aero, best reliability. Those traits wins you championships. Add to that the best driver behind the wheel. Ferrari being outdeveloped.

Absolutely ludicrous statements.

On pure pace, we can sure agree Vettel would have had around 60 additional points from the last three races (I personally estimate 2 wins and 1 second place - so 68 points) and therefore would have been right with if not ahead of Hamilton (who would have likely scored fewer points) .

Now, obviously I grant that part of developing a winning car is making it reliable - and Ferrari has fallen down there - but it’s through no skill of the Mercedes team or driver, who have been handed it on a plate.

That's disrespectful. You are saying like they've been sitting down on their lazy a** done nothing at all and because Ferrari made mistakes, Merc is leading and winning the Championship all through luck. Easy to say what would have. I could also say easily that Lewis won the 2016 Championship and Nico was just lucky. No! Nico did work hard for that and fully deserves it. Try acknowledging hard work and aiming for perfection for a start.

Ferrari made mistakes, Seb made mistakes that were crucial for the Championship. When it matters, the best show up and don't crack under pressure.

[Moose]

Lewis' start over here was extremely similar to the one Vettel made in Singapore.

How dare you!

I thought the same, but wasn't man enough to write it.

Similar, but different in one very very very important way. Vettel wasn't along side him.

In singapore, two people were along side Vettel.

[Artur Craft]

Haha, Red Bull was a bit faster than Mercedes again, on the race(with the soft tyres that is, cause with the supersofts it was a match, and the gap was more due to the VSC that caught LH on a better spot ).

Bottas is not just a second driver anymore. He's officially now the donkey/bitch (sorry for the terms, but that's the sad reality) of the team. He's been used repetidely to hold others for Hamilton while not been allowed to race the first driver and almost stopping the car to let him go (and all that with Vettel out of the championship!!!)

FI and Williams were so strong or, conversely, Haas, Renault, Mclaren were so weak. Mercedes PU is a perfect match/fit for this track

[Just_a_fan]

Similar, but different in one very very very important way. Vettel wasn't along side him.

In singapore, two people were along side Vettel.

One very important difference - in Japan two cars came out of it intact, in Singapore, three cars were wrecked.

[Shrieker]

Bottas is not just a second driver anymore. He's officially now the donkey/bitch (sorry for the terms, but that's the sad reality) of the team. He's been used repetidely to hold others for Hamilton while not been allowed to race the first driver and almost stopping the car to let him go (and all that with Vettel out of the championship!!!)

I think that's just sour grapes over what had been said about Raikkonen. Mercedes couldn't have possibly risked first place just to give Bottas a shot at third. That would be just dumb. Hamilton's tires hurt a lot, for more than a couple laps behind Bottas, and the team were courteous enough towards him by not asking him to move over immediately, unlike Ferrari (would, faced with the similar).

[drunkf1fan]

Haha, Red Bull was a bit faster than Mercedes again, on the race(with the soft tyres that is, cause with the supersofts it was a match, and the gap was more due to the VSC that caught LH on a better spot ).

Bottas is not just a second driver anymore. He's officially now the donkey/bitch (sorry for the terms, but that's the sad reality) of the team. He's been used repetidely to hold others for Hamilton while not been allowed to race the first driver and almost stopping the car to let him go (and all that with Vettel out of the championship!!!)

On the first part, there is little to no evidence of that, hamilton was pulling a gap on the softs as well, Ham was suggesting a problem at the end but before then he was relatively comfortable and it sounds like Max was pushing the limit of his tire life to be as close as he was. It wouldn't surprise me that Hamilton was far safer on tire life and was pushing the engine a lot less hard throughout on both stints.

As for bottas, he hasn't been used repeatedly to hold other drivers up. In 3 races that I can recall he was simply slow enough to end up around other drivers. He blocked Hamilton for more laps than he blocked Verstappen..... but somehow this was tactically using Bottas to block. Verstappen said after the race that it would be stupid for Mercedes not to switch them, that he would have blocked himself MUCH worse given the chance and in reality bottas's strategy probably wanted another few laps on the softs before switching to the supers. You could see how he took a number of laps before pushing hard because the length of the stint obviously worried Merc about him pushing hard over the entire stint length.

In Russia was it when he ended up a pitstop behind through the first stint, bottas said after the race that he was basically so slow in the first stint the only way he felt he could do well in the race was switching to a one stop. He wasn't blocking Vettel, the team and him genuinely thought that he could make it back to compete for second place by going longer and slower and one stopping which would have potentially put him around 2nd place come the end of the race. The team didn't start the race intending for him to be a pitstop behind Hamilton after one stop... because that isn't a good strategy, being second on near Hamilton pace was the far superior strategy, switching to a one stop was an attempt to salvage the race for him, nothing more or less. Then his engine went out on him.

LIkewise in Malaysia if they pit Bottas before Vettel... Vettel would have had to pass him on track, instead they kept him out and left Vettel the easy undercut. Mercedes both today and in Malaysia did the worst thing possible for blocking the car competing with hamilton. They could have pitted Bottas on the same lap as Hamilton in Malaysia and screwed vettel for multiple laps, maybe the entire last stint(as Merc were stronger on the soft tire in such temperatures) and today Bottas could have stayed out another 5 laps easily yet didn't.

[drunkf1fan]

Bottas is not just a second driver anymore. He's officially now the donkey/bitch (sorry for the terms, but that's the sad reality) of the team. He's been used repetidely to hold others for Hamilton while not been allowed to race the first driver and almost stopping the car to let him go (and all that with Vettel out of the championship!!!)

I think that's just sour grapes over what had been said about Raikkonen. Mercedes couldn't have possibly risked first place just to give Bottas a shot at third. That would be just dumb. Hamilton's tires hurt a lot, for more than a couple laps behind Bottas, and the team were courteous enough towards him by not asking him to move over immediately, unlike Ferrari (would, faced with the similar).

Exactly, no team would ever do this. When the Sky team asked Verstappen about it he was 100% clear that it was not wrong, it was sensible and that he would have blocked him much worse in that situation. Not switching them would be insane.

There is a huge difference between "Alonso is faster than you" and switching positions on two people on the same strategy who are genuinely fighting and they just give the position to one driver. Bottas was very clearly a full pitstop behind, no team would ever compromise the driver ahead in this situation. Ferrari and most other teams would have pit Bottas earlier or moved him over 3-4 laps earlier than they did and would have kept Bottas out an extra 5 laps slowing Verstappen. Mercedes moved over Bottas ridiculously slowly, hurt Hamilton fairly badly and were extremely kind to Verstappen in pitting Bottas as quickly as they did after he let Hamilton through.

[Phil]

You guys got it all wrong. Of course it was expected that Mercedes trip over themselves with the guy starting from pole on a S-SS strategy be held up by their other driver on a completely different strategy (S-SS) racing a completely different race...