Could Ham have got second if they had pitted earlier and gone for the undercut? Don't know why they didn't try.
Vandoorne gets McHonda's first points Pity Jenson didn't have better reliability and hope Alonso is fit soon.
Grosjean and Wehrlein have to be my drivers of the day I think. And Haas F1 have given me something to break the monotony this year.
0/2 for my predictions so far this year. Could have been worse, I could have gone for Seb again this race. Actually, that wouldn't have been worse.
Well crucially for him this season he has got off to a great start and had some luck with Hamilton not maximising his speed for one reason or another, much like 2014. Although very early on, A DNF somewhere for Hamilton in the next two races would actually heap some pressure on him as suddenly he'd be staring at a 35+ point gap so we'd have a fight on our hands for a few races. So although Hamilton won't be panicking as he has shown great quali pace, there is some pressure on his engineers now which we can often forget. It would be nice if Ferrari could win one of the next two and keep pushing Merc. You have to think that with Kimi being within 7 seconds of Rosbetg today, Vettel may have gone awfully close to winning, so Ferrari are still looking strong, but with reliability questions. A secondary note for me is that it's nice to see Danny Ricc back to near his best and hammering Kyvyat. I'd love Ricciardo in a car where he can fight for wins and titles- a true racer.
I would agree that while Rosberg has shown in quali that he is going to be tougher to beat this year he has also had some considerable luck the way the races have worked out, and I don't think we have seen any indication yet of how competitive or otherwise he can be on race day without the misfortunes or miscalculations of his rivals. We have yet to see him in a proper fight. I would also love to have seen Seb in the mix today, would have made a reasonably interesting race very much more interesting.
I dunno about luck, Hamilton caused his own problems in both races and should consider himself fortunate that they didn't balck and orange flag him like they should have. the rules on safety are quite clear, If you're driving around shedding bits of your car over the racing line the stewards MUST bring you in But ever since the "they're racist" remark they've not dared implement their rules. One rule for one, one for another, He got away with reversing up the pitlane, whilst K mag had the book thrown.
Doesn't feel to me that Rosberg has upped his game in the races, it's more that, somewhat unexpectedly, Lewis hasn't really got back on it in the new year. Credit to Rosberg that he has got his quali pace back closer to Hamilton again though. Seems like Seb would have had a sniff at the title this year, but unless Ferrari catch right back up to Merc on pace, it's going to be hard to get back the points he's lost.
Yes we can assume Hamilton's bad starts may well be his own fault, the collision with Bottas was 20% his fault at most, but Nico's luck has not just been about Hamilton's travails. Ferrari after looking strong in qualifying have shot themselves in the foot with strategy and with a car exploding before it reached the grid. They appear to have some very interesting pace but poor reliability and deployment right now, and Nico cannot take credit for any of that. Much has been made of his five wins in a row, but like his 3 Monaco victories in a row the achievement has been rather gifted him.
