Best Driver: Hamilton. Peerless. Yes, he still has the best car – but his control of it is now matched by the comprehensive measuring of a bigger picture. Others worthy of mention: Rosberg redeemed himself but despite outscoring his team mate for overtakes, surely cannot be considered as having done a better job overall. Räikkönen produced his best in a very long time, controlling the pace for a cunning alternative strategy. He also did a great job off the line and into the first corner. Alonso. Kvyat. Worst Driver: Madlado. After showing great speed during practice this weekend, he seems almost incapable of keeping his head during a race. Best Rookie (Nasr, Verstappen, Sainz): Nasr. Please sir; when will Stevens and Mehri qualify for this award? Best Team: Ferrari. Worst Team: McLaren. Button's gremlins appeared right at the start of the weekend, yet remained for the duration. Getting only one car to the grid at what might be considered the team's most important venue seems little short of disastrous. Best Overtake: Two candidates for this: Rosberg. – v Räikkönen L4; Vettel L9; Vettel L16. Nasr v Massa L25. Funniest-moment: Despite what I've said about Räikkönen, his radio chatter suggested he wasn't quite sure of the plan! Most Surprising Result: McLaren not getting two cars to the grid. Least Surprising Result: Hamilton win. Special Mention to: Button and Vettel – for very different reasons! Race Rating: 7.2/10
As I said in my selection, Bianchi was getting a lot of praise last couple of years for schooling his 'average' teammate. Stevens is doing the same and gets no credit.
The stint on the prime, if you look at the numbers, was simply ridiculous. He lost absolutely no time to the leaders whilst the others were doing their second soft stint, his net "Loss" was from extending the first stint whilst others pitted and got the benefit of the fresh softs and basically a giant undercut. He only started to lose out when others pitted again, got fresh tyres for their third stint and Ferrari (arguably) left him out 2 laps too long. Then when roles were reversed and he was the one on the softs and everyone else was on prime, he pulled back nearly 20 seconds of lost time again. In other words, in stint 2, he was pretty much bang on a full second a lap quicker then he theoretically should have been able to be in the second stint, even including losing time in the last few laps, without that it was something like 1.5 seconds faster than it should have been. He basically got "undercut" twice because of the strategy, left out too long and still finished second.
No, because he lost circa 10+ seconds by being undercut (or left out too long) on every stint. He was on the alternative strategy, unfortunatley for Ferrari it was the only one which 'could' have beaten the Mercs.
Räikkönen needed clean air for his strategy to work. This requires flexibility with the timing of pit-stops, which is easier if the tyres are still in reasonable shape. The down-side is vulnerability to the undercut but the gamble is in being much quicker later on when the 'undercutters' are suffering.
But stuck to their plan and delivered it very well. In doing so, he gave us an old fashioned exciting end to the race for the podium, not something you see too often these days.
Best Driver: Ricciardo, best of the rest all weekend Worst Driver: Kvyat, so many rookie errors, not good enough for Red Bull Best Rookie (Nasr, Verstappen, Sainz): Nasr, although none were particularly good Best Team: Mercedes, lost out on a 1-2 through luck Worst Team: Ferrari, should have won, potentially have gotten a 1-2 Best Overtake: Rosberg on Vettel Funniest-moment: N/A Most Surprising Result: Ericsson being in solid points before the year long pitstop Least Surprising Result: double Mercedes podium Special Mention to: Ericsson, Button, Maldonado - engine problems in quali, brake problems in the race while being in a solid 7th Race Rating: 7/10
