Grand Prix thread Not606 2016 Japanese Grand Prix Chat and Predictions

Will Nico and his old engineers be creeping into Lewis' room to mess with his engine again? Can Lewis bounce back? Will another team be taking the winners trophy like in Malaysia?

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Location: Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, Japan
Capacity: 155,000
FIA Grade: 1
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FRI 07th OCT P1: 02:00
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And as always, please can a mod sticky this thread! Thanks!

 

This one has to be Lewis, pretty much over if it isn't.

Lets hope for a good, multi car battle for the win. I'm hoping that Red Bull will be up there and maybe Ferrari too.

 

This one is must win for hamilton.

23 points in 5 races is basically 3 wins plus? Thats get back to 2 points from parity if rosberg can do seconds.

It really is critical now.

 

Wouldn't mind seeing Danny Ricc get another win...
But I can't see anyone getting past Hamilton, if he's on the same sort of form as he was in Malaysia, no one is getting close, also, wouldn't put it past Merc botching up one of Rosbergs pit stops to gift Hamilton a win should it be necessary..
One thing is for certain, the Hamiton fans will go ape ****e if he has another failure (be fun to watch though ), its bad luck, nothing more, this conspiracies **** is a load of bollocks!

 

I was thinking on what needs to occur.

125 points max left

23 point deficit/lead depending on who you like best

If you go to the nth degree you could come up with all permutations where there can be more than a 23 point swing but it boils donw to this

1. If hamilton wins all races and rosberg finishes 2nd then hamilton can win by 12 points.

2. all rosberg needs to form here then is to deny hamilton that 12 points by swapping a result really.. eg. say its 4 wins to hamilton and 1 to rosberg... all 1/2s for mercedes. that = 118 for hamilton and 97 for rosberg = 21 points and not enough.

3. this means hamilton must on one of those 4 wins push rosberg back into the clutches of an opponent so he finishes outside the top 2.

Really all rosberg needs is consistency and wait for hamilton's clutch to **** up. I think they both can easily recover from a poor start that puts them 4th or 5th or something and get 2nd

hamilton really needs to win at japan and ideally he'd want rosberg fouled up again. I honestly thought half way though this last race the title was hamiltons again but now its firmly rosbergs to lose.

 

ah, Suzuka, could get interesting if the 2 merc go wheel-to-wheel as the roles will be effectively reversed, if Lewis tries to defend in his usual manner will Rosberg wilt, or will he say "fine, lets both go out". The title really comes down to where Rosberg finishes.


In other news, good to see Ocon topping the speed charts, just a shame he keeps doing it i the pit-lane rather than the track.

 

Merc have been quick to blame Nico in public, less so Hamilton, if he does anything deemed to be his fault that causes either of them or just Hamilton to not finish, pretty sure Merc will come out in full force behind their #1 driver, could they then suspend Nico for a race or two to make up the deficit? Either way, I would advise against it.. then again, last time they took each other out we had a cracking race...

 

I agre totally. a double dnf for mercedes would suit rosberg to the ground.

If hamilton is behind and trying to pass he's got to find a very clear spot IMO.

The thing is Red bull could be no 3 and 4 on the grid and jump both and max with respect to his talent is an idiot who would not think about anything but the half inch he sees for a position and stick his car into the side of either....

JB... mercede aint suspending anyone aint happening.

 

Some think Hamilton is getting a raw deal by Merc, it's plain bad luck, but if people think he isn't their golden child, they're in for a rude surprise.
They know, if/when the others get their **** together, Hamilton is the only one that can mix it with the likes of Danny Ricc, Vettel, Alonso, Max, as was proven yesterday, Rosberg's ability to defend and attack is very questionable.
Agree, any punishment, like a suspension would only ever be considered if he did something blatantly obvious and against their new code of conduct..
But given his advantage and the fact that he tends to do better at Brazil and beat him at Mexico last year, he should back himself to win 1 maybe 2 of the last 5 GPs and seal the deal..
Not a betting man, but I'd put my 50p on Rosberg to win the title..

 

I think it's quite obvious where Hamilton's reliability problems lie, that half second he has over Rosberg has to come from somewhere, the engine didn;t blow up because he was cruising, he was trying to get the pit-stop gap over Max. I've always been a bit suspect over Mercedes reliability, sadly they haven't really been pushed that much over the season to show it

 

Not sure he was "pushing" when you looked on board and Martin Brundle mentioned it, his pace came from one of those rare days when everything was setup as perfectly as it could ever be.. he was going a good pace and still keeping his tyres intact, one of those setups where you get great grip along with prelonged life, then again, running in clear air wouldn't have hurt his tyre performance..

I have the race recorded, I'll go over the on board footage again, but don't think he was pushing it.
Didn't Merc say that they didn't give him the higher Strat modes and if they did, it was only for a lap or two? If the engine can't handle increased performance then that's not really his fault.

He, along with his car, were in a class of one all weekend, until it decided to go pop.

 

We'll get to the last race and Button will take out Rosberg in a blaze of union jacks. Swaggering off into the sunset.

 

And then Vettel will take out Lewis to make up for it? xD

 

The season Vettel is having he'll miss and take out Kimi. With Max turning up to finish them both off whilst shouting idiots down the radios.

 

Lewis should win this, but he should have won Malaysia as well. So I have no idea.

 

I think we all need to look back at last part of singapore race and see what happened.

While rosberg was out in clear air minding his brakes and controlling

Mercedes decide to put hamilton on a 3 stopper after raikkonen passed him and he was in serious championship trouble.

This triggers a whole chain of events where in effect hamilton is chasing for the full race in hot air and probably for those last laps had the thing turned to 100%

I quote

"The gap had extended to around 5.5 seconds on Lap 38 when Hamilton's race engineer, Pete Bonnington, gave his driver permission to stress his engine to the limit in an effort to salvage a podium finish.

"So Lewis, there may be opportunity toward the end of the race so suggest you use all the power unit," he said"



Again

"So you are quicker than Ricciardo ahead, keep squeezing up to him and keep the gap to Hamilton if we can," Raikkonen was told by race engineer Dave Greenwood."

Clearly hamilton was pushing and pushing.


Meanwhile at the front

And in preparation for a pit stop, Ross instructed his driver to switch to one of the most powerful engine settings and hit the Overtake button, which is normally used to deliver an extra boost of power in the heat of a wheel-to-wheel battle, on Lap 48.

"Push hard now, Nico, push hard now! Go Strat 5 and Overtake! Push hard now!"

.....

However we know this is many laps after hamilron idcon full wick and mercedes decide to leave rosberg out on old tyres so he has no need to be cooking the engine.

So ... its very clear to me. Rosberg had track position he had clear air and hamilton was being given the full engine for a long time in hot air and the cooked it chasing.

Thats the reality imo. Nothing sinister about it. You chased an under cut and continued to chase on the hottest street circuit going then are wondering why this haopened.

Unfortunately for hamilton it was the bad start that put him back there and his engineer gave him the go to drive full out and it has come back to haunt him.

Perhaps there was a bit of hubris at play at mercedes where the prior year they were awful and they really wanted a 1/2.... i dunno

 

It's a good theory, and it makes logical sense. Unfortunately theres a small matter that throws a spanner in the works...
Hamiltons PU was a brand new one that first went into the car for FP3. So it did one practice session, quali, and two thirds of the race.

Could be argued that putting it into the car in Belgium to only take it out again hours later did something, but it seems unlikely, but unlikely isn't impossible I suppose.

 

Maybe. As i said he wasnt in clear air in singapore and that is hottest and nastiest place of all to follow, that might make the difference.

Im not sure we know what went do we yet?

 

Brand new as in it went into the car for FP3 in Malaysia, it may not have even visited Singapore in a box

Mercedes have said that something failed inside the ICE, they also said they got no warning so that would suggest it's not oil related, or heat related etc, something mechanical simply failed, perhaps as simple as something snapping.