Agreed. Nico never has had the tenacity for F1. His silver spoon lifestyle shows hes never had to push for things in other walks of life either. I think he is quite content being a Mercedes ambassador and nothing else. Meanwhile Hamilton is signing his name into the history books race by race. Would have been good to see him challenged for it though.
We said the same about Red Bull a couple of seasons back, and Ferrari in the early naughties, Mercedes dominance won't last forever. You throw enough money at engine design and eventually you can get close to Mercedes, and that's what Ferrari and Honda will do. The engines will eventually all be similar, and the 2017 regs will shake things up again. I quite liked Mosley's suggestion of having a second set of regulations which allow more freedom, but teams have to adhere to a firm budget cap. If (and admittedly it's a big if) the two sets of regulations were closely matched, then eventually the larger teams would have to go for the budget cap, realising there was more room for development. Nobody would ever sign up for it though.
Well.. that was rather entertaining, boring and predictable, all rolled into one race! Midfield battles were decent.. but the DRS here is too powerful, esp. against the power old Renault and Honda powered cars! Boring in that it was a case of the same top teams taking the honours, had it now been for Vettel's issue in Quali and Kimi's overzealous Turbo at the hairpin, it would have been a Merc/Ferrari 1-4 Predictable in that if one Merc doesn't win, the other one will! Not a Alonso fan (not a hater either) but good for him, they appear to have an engine that is piss poor in performance and reliability and now its confirmed its a thirsty bugger too! Honda, more than McLaren need to get their ****e together and fast! Good driving from the Rookies again, Sainz is quitely going about his business, like the look of him!
1 Kimi Raikkonen 1’16.987 42 2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1’17.105 0.118 59 3 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1’17.472 0.485 64 4 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1’17.553 0.566 64 5 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1’17.637 0.650 63 6 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1’17.922 0.935 67 7 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Mercedes 1’17.969 0.982 51 8 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull-Renault 1’18.048 1.061 69 9 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1’18.238 1.251 66 10 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Mercedes 1’18.385 1.398 51 11 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso-Renault 1’18.616 1.629 50 12 Carlos Sainz Jnr Toro Rosso-Renault 1’18.811 1.824 61 13 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda 1’18.856 1.869 49 14 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1’18.889 1.902 49 15 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 1’18.890 1.903 58 16 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1’19.060 2.073 67 17 Felipe Nasr Sauber-Ferrari 1’19.088 2.101 47 18 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 1’19.580 2.593 41 19 Will Stevens Manor-Ferrari 1’20.707 3.720 38 20 Roberto Merhi Manor-Ferrari If you take out Kimi and Massa who I think set their times on the SS, it still shows how controlled the Merc paced was.
Did anyone see much of a difference between Alonso overtaking Hulkenberg in Monaco and Massa overtaking Ericsson in canada? both were in front, on the inside and made minimal wheel to wheel contact which knocked their opponent slightly wide.
Didn't Hulk sustain damage in the Alonso move? Now I know that shouldn't effect whether a driver gets a penalty or not, but we all know it does. I can't really fully picture the Alo-Hulk move in my head so I'll go scour Youtube!
yes Hulk did get damaged when he hit the wall, but the corner was Alonso's and I thought it was a fair move, the only difference between the two moves is the closeness of the wall. Vettels move on Hulk yesterday was far worse imo, but as there was no damage it was okay. AFAIC that isn't the way to steward a 'race' (which, quite obviously, Monaco is not). he slightly locks up braking, but that's exactly how Massa did Ericsson, the only reason it looks worse is because Monaco isn't a race track.
The Alonso-Hulkenberg one was just a racing incident. Alonso was alongside all the way down the straight. It was a little naive of Hulk to try and hang it round the outside on such a tight track, no good was going to come of that. The Vettel-Hulkenberg move I'd also say was a racing incident. They were both committed to the corner and there simply wasn't room for both of them at those speeds, with the result that they both ended up on the kerbs. I'd have said Vettel should've handed the place back but as Hulkenberg spun out there was no point.
Massa v Ericsson was one of the highlights at Montreal. This was a very exciting piece of action and is what F1 should be about. Given the circumstances, it most certainly did not warrant penalisation of either driver. In my opinion, both fought hard and fair; at all times within the boundaries of safety for the situation they found themselves to be in. By comparison, the stewards at Monaco chose to penalise Alonso for a move on Hulkenberg which may look very similar on TV; and obviously, the consequences of contact were quite different… Before I go any further, I'll declare here and now that I felt the penalty for Alonso at Monaco was harsh. The consequences for Hulkenberg were unfortunate but it was reasonable (in my opinion) to believe that Alonso considered himself sufficiently well-positioned for Hulkenberg to perceive only one choice if he wanted to continue. From Alonso's perspective, this is what his move demanded of Hulkenberg, and given the actual circumstance, my judgement would have been that it was not unreasonable for Alonso to hope for compliance from a fellow expert driver if he could establish himself alongside Hulk's car on entry to that particular corner (i.e. a minimum of front and rear wheels overlapping). Yet at the same time, and looking from Hulkenberg's perspective, I acknowledge that he could also reasonably expect Alonso to back out rather than risk contact. Because of these respective viewpoints, I would have deemed the whole thing as a 'racing incident' since I perceived neither driver as unduly reckless or negligent, and that both had reasonable claim for what might be expected of the other. It therefore saddened me to see Alonso given a penalty; especially since Monaco presents so few opportunities for overtaking (although I admit this is no reason to sway judgement). As has been said, ideally, consequences should be of secondary consideration when evaluating 'accidental' scenarios, as opposed to those brought about through recklessness or deliberation. However, the reality is that the circumstances are always relevant to a referee whose responsibility is to make a judgement, since circumstance and potential consequence (should) always under-write a driver's evaluation of any given situation. Indeed, not doing so is the very definition of recklessness. In no way am I trying to excuse or justify the stewards' decision to penalise Alonso at Monaco – I personally believe was harsh and said so as soon as I understood the penalty was to be applied – but it is very difficult to compare two incidents at different circuits where the likely consequence of contact (which forms part of a driver's evaluation of it) has greater relevance at one than the other. The most unfortunate consequence is that any penalty awarded for a clearly 'debatable' incident lends itself to criticism from the public arena upon which it relies. There is a substantial responsibility within those standing in judgement (the stewards). For this reason, F1 needs to demonstrate a greater tolerance to 'racing incidents' where blameworthiness is anything less than clear-cut so that racers and public alike will be more inclined towards 'racing' than 'not quite racing'… In my view, some (not all) stewards need to be a little more tolerant; but all should feel sufficiently supported by the FIA* to avoid getting involved where and whenever possible! *Unfortunately, the FIA lacks leadership at the moment – just as Bernie wanted(/prescribed?)…
I think that the penalty was issued purely because Alonso locked up and was potentially deemed to not be in control.
Not for the first time this year, in Canada Nico Rosberg found he was unable to get the information he wanted from the Mercedes pit wall at a critical moment. However a message to his team mate earlier in the race seemed to indicate Mercedes were willing to give the same information to Lewis Hamilton that they later denied to Rosberg. Shortly after discussing his own fuel saving strategy for the race Hamilton was advised that Rosberg was “safer on fuel” than he was. On previous occasions, such as in Australia, Rosberg had been told the team could not give him information about the other car’s fuel level. And when Rosberg asked for that same information later in the race, in a message broadcast with five laps to go, he was again told the team “can’t comment” on how much Hamilton had left in his tank. Last year the FIA imposed restrictions on what teams could tell their drivers on the radio, but they did not exclude information about fuel levels. However Mercedes has an internal policy of not telling their drivers how the their team mate is performing in terms of fuel-saving. The message Hamilton received was ascribed to human error on the pit wall. As he mentioned after the race, his race engineer Peter Bonnington was operating under considerable stress having experienced a major personal loss last week. Rosberg is aware Hamilton received information which would normally have been denied him, but wrote in his column for German newspaper Bild yesterday that he still “trusts the team 100 percent” to treat them equally. The number six Mercedes had other problems in the race, as the team radio transcript highlights. His brakes were in a “critical” state in the middle of the race, but he had them under control in time for the final ten laps of the race when he made his last push to get within range of Hamilton. The race saw a number of incidents which provoked some interesting responses. Will Stevens was not at all impressed with Romain Grosjean’s driving. The Lotus driver blamed him for their collision, but by the end of the race his certainty that he was in the right was already begin to soften, and afterwards he accepted he’d been in the wrong. Events of previous Canadian Grands Prix weighed on Kimi Raikkonen’s mind. Before the race he was anxious to avoid a repeat of the infringement which earned him a grid penalty two years ago in Montreal. He then spun at the hairpin, triggering memories of his similar incident last year. Raikkonen apologised to his team after making his second pit stop of the race. Here are all the team radio messages which were broadcast during the coverage of the Canadian Grand Prix.
hmmm. Rosberg was catching Hamilton massively after/ during the pit stop. He then got in range and was told his Brakes were at critical. You then see all the mercedes personnel positioning themselves like they were administrating a rocket launch or something. even with 'Critical brakes' and driving off line he was still catching bit by bit. If Hamilton had issues on his car then the situation behind was managed.
I think its very similar to Sepang and probably a few other races since. The last part of the race his radio engineer was on the Radio telling him fuel was critical and to increase lift and coast to 100m - the same time Rosberg dropped from circa 1.5 seconds to 3.5 seconds. I noticed as well that the pundits were discussing Lewis's fuel highlighting that although his race usage was less per lap than Nico he was having to save where as Nico wasn't. The only conclusion is that Lewis starts lighter by X amount; "But, in fact, many a race is started with less than the 100kgs allowed for use. Carrying an extra 10kgs of fuel through a race would cost around 20 seconds." We already know that the lead car dictates the strategy and the sister car is NOT allowed to operate a differing strategy that may alter the race result. but does this take the team orders one step further? Fuel the car light to guarantee track position full well knowing that the sister car will be unable (or prohibited) to challenge in the final stint.
Managed to grab these from the BBC coverage: Lap 69 shown when Hamilton was at hairpin: Shown on the victory lap just after the 2nd chicane The FIAs fuel flow limit is what, to within 1% accuracy? Or have they improved from last year? It could be argued that accounting for errors they used the same amount of fuel. Hamilton said his engine appeared thirstier than Rosbergs in a post race interview, but then how true that is I don't know.
Well that would indicate that they were both in fuel save then - just seems strange that Nico (or what we heard) was never warned over fuel - or certainly not as much. Although I have never been 100% convinced with those readings - I cant believe for one minute that they came in with so little fuel. Dependant on temperature 1 litre of fuel equates to circa 0.7kg so I'm unsure how they would provide the required fuel sample?
They "Claimed" that Hamilton didn't have brake issues, because he ran in clean air but was on the limit due to Fuel Usage.. But Rosberg had brake issues because he was behind Lewis for the entire race but because he was behind he could use the tow and hence use less Fuel.. Could be true but I think once Hamilton made it out after their one and only pit stop, in order to make amends for Monaco, the fight was called off!
I believe the rule is 100kg of fuel for the race (as seen by the flow sensor). The tanks are a little bigger to give the required formation and slow down lap fuel for races where the full 100kg is required.
