Anyone think any of the world champions give a **** anymore? Vettel and Hamilton seem more concerned with the state of the sport, Kimi's never seemed to care and Button and Alonso are just going through the motions.
Of course, but it's disheartening to see someone waltz off with the title without having to work for it. I mean who even knows how well he's driving right now? It's impossible to say really.
Max, Daniil, Stoffel, Wehrlein, Hulkenberg, Palmer and Magnussen would care had they been given the oppurtunity.
I think that's a little unfair. He can't really do any more than he's doing. He's on form, has a top car and has some luck on his side. Those are all the ingredients needed to win.
Well... it's 3am here in Americanshire. Time for some sleep. See ya all next time out or for some Indy tomorrow if you're up for it.
I'm not criticising Rosberg. He couldn't do any better as you say. I just also think he couldn't do any worse. You could put any driver on the grid in Rosbergs car this season and they win all three races (well maybe not Haryanto), so i'm not praising him either. With the number of divebombs and angry radio messages Vettel made today i think it's safe to say he cares. As for the Mclaren's it's just not possible to do any more. People praise Vandoorne, but he only scored because of several retirements ahead. Button put the best fight he could have done in the first half of the race i would say.
Wouldn't want to be on the plane home with Vettel. He's probably still banging on that Kvyat is a 'Torpedo'
Unlike Hamilton with Mercedes blatant driver bias and an even more dominant car, he really had to work for it huh? Hamiltons 'atrocious luck' consists of ****ing up the start in Aus, but being bailed out by a SC, ****ing up the start in Bahrain, and then closing the door on Bottas while Botta was still there.
Its all fun and games in the midfield. But when the **** is someone going to step up and stop Nico. Lewis has won his three titles and clearly couldnt give any more ****s. And Ferrari are bottle jobs. It will be Ricciardo fighting Rosberg to it at this point!
If he didn;t give a **** he wouldn't be out there, he's making errors, like he always has, the difference is his car isn't as dominant as it was so he can't rescue the points and podiums like he could in the last 2 seasons. Plus I think Rosberg has really upped his game thogh time will tell, for sure Hamilton will start to catch him up soon, then we'll see if Rosberg has the bottle.
I feel that Vettel was to blame for the Kvyat indecent! Vettel left the door open, if there had been no gap Kvyat would have not tried to go up the inside! After Kvyat went for the move Vettel was stuck with nowhere to go. If he had backed off cars behind him would have rammed him, if he went right he would have hit Kvyat, go left and he hit his team mate! I think he was caught off guard and did not expect anyone to be on his inside so, without looking left, took avoiding action to the left and commits the cardinal sin of hitting his team mate. Then to try and duck the blame he makes a big deal of Kvyat going up the inside. It did spice things up a bit but would have hopefully been better if Nico had some competition. Looked at some points like McHonda were doing well only for the pit stops to pan out and they were back 12/13. Was quite an enjoyable race. You can sort of see why Bernie wants to mix up the grid. But that is way too artificial. I wonder if they could stop the parc ferme rules and allow teams to work on cars over night. That way they might find reliability reduces as it was in the 'old days'.
Agreed. Rosberg has not allowed himself to be dominated as he has in the past. They have been so close in quali this year, even without Hamilton's start/race issues I don't think it's clear cut that Rosberg still would not have won 3 race this year. He is doing an excellent job and everything that he has been expected to do he has done. Hamilton has come back from a big points deficit in the past, Rosberg will be aware of this. Season is by no means over, Hamilton needs to sort his starts out otherwise he will keep losing to Rosberg as the margins are now so fine between them.
Considering qualifying, I thought it was a pretty good race! We were all set up for Rosberg to waltz off into the distance after Q2, but there were battles right through the rest of the grid for the rest of the race. Can anyone explain Hamilton's strategy to me? I think I'm correct in saying the first two stops were enforced, but what was the point of the single lap on Super Softs when he was always likely to need the Mediums late on as he ran out of tyres? I was three quarters asleep and could see he wouldn't have the rubber to get away with it. To follow on Ched's point about the Mclaren's, I was really surprised they never seriously threatened the top 10. They felt they were robbed of a top 10 start in qualifying, but on race pace they seemed nowhere near.
I'm pleased to see someone else not buying into the "bad luck" nonsense. 3 of the 4 potential contenders have suffered engine failures so far, the Ferrari's both had them on race day. Unreliability will strike everyone across the season, getting it out of the way anywhen other than when the points are handed out is a bonus (practice is even better obviously). I don't know why, but the rhetoric around Hamilton is always so negative, like everything is the biggest disaster in the world. Who are all the optimists supporting, I wonder? McLaren I guess, you wouldn't last long as realistic or pessamistic fan of theirs...
I'm not sure it all comes down to Lewis's bad luck (although he has had at least his fair share) so much as Nico has had a lot of good luck. In addition to being helped by Hamilton's troubles (some self-inflicted, some not) Ferrari have repeatedly shot themselves in the foot in quali and the race when they had the tools to do better and then Ricciardo had his puncture when leading. Nico is lucky nobody has been able to put in a decent challenge. Driving well? Yes, but how well we don't know since he has had no real pressure in race conditions. Quali has been close, but it generally always has been between him and Hamilton.
Thought the race was good overall (Behind first place), one of the best we've had in normal circumstances since the new rules came in. Ferarri need to get their act together because with some better reliability and strategy they could be right up behind Rosberg. Vettel seems to know this and that every point might count, some of his overtaking today was really committed was probably the difference between 2nd and 3rd. With Raikkonen performing much more this year, although Vet still has an edge when it matters, Ferrari, should - if they can close the last of the performance gap and get it all together - be able to take bigger chunks out of Rosberg's lead with some 1-2s. Pleased also to see Kyviat standing up for himself, not seen that side of him before. He's fighting for his seat I think, and clearly up for it, so that should be good to watch through the year. Bottas disappointing again, I've never really bought into the hype over him, but he's reinforcing my opinion more than ever right now. He really needs to get it together if he wants to be a winner in this years driver merry go round.
I don't think it's just Hamilton who has problems at the start.... Did you see how Ricardo jumped all over Rosberg at the start? So I think it's a real problem with Mercedes clutch or something. Of the three races Mercedes got jumped at the start in at least two of them. Also, I wonder who was doing race strategy for Hamilton? I was wondering if Mercedes were teaching him how to do perfect pit stops or trying to see how many tyre se they could use up before the end of the race. The question is why didn't Hamilton start on the harder tyre and let him run longer on the first stint...don't they say he had a bunch of new types for the race, so why did they end up with having to put him on used softs? Anyway, I am sorry that Kimi (he doesn't have any luck at all) Vettel and Riccardo met so much bad lucky the start of the race. It would have been fun to see Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull battling at the front. That would have been the perfect weekend. In the end the race was won before the second lap. One other thing....Hamilton's three laps on the super softs ...what was that? Was that just to make an extra pit stop? If you are going to sop him again wouldn't it make sense to put him on the harder tyre, let him run long and then put him on the super softs at the end? Why was it necessary to this away another 25 seconds? Also I don't think Vettel was at fault in he crash..seems like he was wedged in with no where to go really.
On the topic of drivers, it feels like Bottas is joining Hulkenburg in an inexorable slide towards midfield mediocrity. I think both are fortunate that the grid is getting a bit top-heavy in terms of driver ages, and there aren't many youngsters outside F1 other than Vandoorne really demanding a seat in the top tier. But both of them must surely be the furthest they've ever been from a move to a top team. Perez, Verstappen and Grosjean are probably all ahead of them. Kvyat has probably also done enough so far that he'd get a midfield drive somewhere if Red Bull dropped him, but then I said the same about Buemi.