Well what do you know a pretty unpredictable race for once. Best of the year by a mile. Vettel was great. Very composed while everyone else was making errors. Kimi was good, but i find it sad to be praising a WDC for being only 10 seconds behind his teammate. Still very unlucky to lose his podium. Alonso was a bit lucky with the strategy and other cars having incidents but still an incredible result for him. Both Mercedes drivers were poor. Rosberg especially so since not only did he crash, he was generally slow.
I'm going to continue recording races instead of getting up to watch them. Every time I do, it's a good race!
Relatively speaking both Mercedes drivers were quite fortunate today. Hamilton was fortunate to finish ahead of Rosberg considering his offs, collision and drive through. Rosberg was fortunate to only lose a couple of points to Hamilton considering how awful his pace was all weekend. Everyone is allowed a slow race every so often but his pace this weekend has been absolutely shocking!
A fairly frank description of how the race went for Hamilton! http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/33668310
I think today showed the difference with Rosberg and Hamilton- Lewis the aggressive racer, making a rare mistake today, whilst Rosberg again struggled in traffic and never really looked like passing Seb or Kimi at any point. Enjoyed seeing Ricciardo in a scrap at the front again- that kid will be heaps of fun in a regularly competitive car. 5h for Alonso is an amazing result but the reality is they were 70+ seconds down prior to a safety car, and the engine is still a turd. More entertainment today and some good battles. It was nice that there was no easy DRS overtake at this track- a lot more driver skill and imagination, which Ricciardo tried when going for the pass on Rosberg. Close but no Cigar! Nice touch from them all regarding Jules
Of course none of this would have happened if the Mercs hadn't suddenly become rubbish at starts. They would have buggered off and that would have been it. So for the sake of entertainment perhaps we should hope it continues.
I don't know if they're trying things ready for the new rules but it's pretty odd for their starts to now be either average or poor. Hamilton is back using the clutch they started the season on and Rosberg is still on the Austria spec clutch so it's not like they've brought something new in and it's not working, both the old and new suddenly seem iffy.
Mercedes changed their starts post Austria because Hamilton blamed it for getting beaten by Rosberg. Rosberg mentioned needing to practice their new starts before the race at Silverstone.
But Hamilton went back to the pre Austria setup (that had been working great for him) whilst Rosberg stuck with the new setup. If Mercedes were getting good starts at the start of the season and are still using that setup on one car it seems odd that both now seem poor.
As a fan I found the sport very cruel today, there were several drivers who took points who simply didn't deserve them - but that's the way the cookie crumbles. A lot of people criticising Nico - whilst comprehensively outpaced by Lewis, Merc did confirm that his car was incorrectly configured on Friday and there was a quote by Toto stating that Nico was "compromised" in the race. I have no idea what that means but for the information to be volunteered would indicate to me that it was potentially significant. Super drive by both the Ferraris, especially Vettel.
Said it in Malaysia. Can't you see it slipping out of Toto's and Lauda's hands? Mind you they will probably bail before they fully lose grip of the front row of the grid.
Have we considered that Ferrari and Williams might have improved their starting procedures? If you can get around the Mercs, it's pretty tough for them to fight back with these shoddy tyres.
Have to say, that race was pretty mental today. I'm trying to recall the last time a race was so plagued with errors both from drivers and teams. I guess everybody is already on summer holidays mentally.
This is interesting. Remember pre-season when Arrivabene predicted two wins for Ferrari this season? Well, now they have them. Also, and interesting for me at least , I wondered after the Malaysian whether Hungary would be the other predicted win... Official NOT606 2015 Malaysian GP Chat and Predictions Thing is, I don't know why Ferrari were so much faster yesterday; the conditions could hardly be compared to Sepang. James Allison made much of the extra speed gained from being ahead in the clean air but was that all it was?
