Aside from disagreeing that his mechanical failures have been 'lucky' because they were outside of the actual race, there is little in there that isn't the truth. Arguably he has been unlucky to have had so many failures so early in the season. Not sure how much it would have changed anything in the races though, regardless of where he as qualified, Hamilton's starts have been atrocious, today was masked by him taking advantage of the 1st corner mellee (1-1 after China?) meaning Rosberg would have had the jump on him every time anyway. At worst, Hamilton is only really down from China where he <probably> would have got 2nd place but for the Q and 1st corner problem.
A similar vein to choosing the least bad idea, that does not make it a good idea... An F1 thing. I think at best Hamilton would be 28 points behind Rosberg but then who know what would happen if both Mercedes ever got a clear run of things. It's a bit cutting that Rosberg seems to be really on it yet we are robbed of getting to see him demonstrate it against a car that can challenge. It's been a unusual season, the racing has been fairly good so far, sadly that racing has been from 3rd back.
Hamilton's just not on top of his game and has had that compounded with a bit of bad luck. I'm hoping it will make for a good hunt when he decides to turn up the wick again. I'm actually more annoyed that Ferrari don't seem to be mounting any kind of real challenge and it's likely to be another massive dull fest.
If you watch the replay from Vettels car you see Lewis returning slowly on the left of him and Perez suddenly having 'a moment' and slowoing down right in front of him, which was caused by his tyre letting go after being tagged by Ricciardo fronts wing during the first incident between kvyat and Vettel. I don't see what Seb could've done other than slow down, it's not like he broke particularly hard, Kvyat just didn't seem to react to it at all until far too late, not even to make a move around the outside to overtake. It actually reminded me of racing online with a sore loser. "oh you've overtaken me, but you won't beat me".....punt
Looked like Vettel's car was damaged on the right rear in the first collision. There were damaged cars all over the place including Kvyat's own and all caused by him, he should have been going more cautiously.
Lewis was lucky Vettel didn;t hit him by the look of it, Kvyat almost took the clean sweep of Rosbergs challengers
Shortly after his pit stop, we saw some alarming behaviour from Nico's MGU-K. We spent a number of laps reassuring him that he had a good gap over Lewis and could ease off before the FIA gave us the all-clear to tell him to switch to a setting that would control the issue. At the wheel, Nico wouldn't have had any inkling of the stress on the pit-wall. When he put in the fastest lap on the penultimate lap of the race, he was still in that 'safe' setting - demonstrating just how much pace the car had last weekend.
OH Sugar. Merc PU is WAY more powerful than suspected....... Doesn't bode well for Ferrari catching them even in 2017 where they will have unlimited PU development.
Why right the letter when there is no need for one, no right minded F 1 fan would believe that Merc we're ****ing up Hamilton's chances on purpose, that would hurt them in the WCC which, lets be honest, most Teams want more than the WDC! However, should Hamilton continue to be unlucky over the next few races and Rosberg remain unscathed, then the lunatics will be out in force again! Also, don't see why Merc would show their hand.. "His engine was set to a safe mode" yet he still smashed the Lap Record on 25+ old Softs (not super softs).. If the others think/thought they're close, then this will be a wake up call..
That message was for the corporate side, a thinly veiled way of showing their ability. No matter how much we trick ourselves fans are fairly low on the list of what F1 as a whole cares about.
I I disagree. Yes Mercedes will reach peak performance quicker but at least it gives everyone a chance to replicate and no be restricted. The rules have locked in a triple world championship for these guys and that's a ****ing joke. My bigger issue is that people are not allowed to test. How the **** can we have a competitive sport without the ability to test the developments.
Thinking about testing it would make more sense to have a sliding scale restriction on testing based on your previous WCC position. The champions get the mandatory test allowance, the runners up get plus 3 days, 3rd place gets plus 6 days etc...etc.. all the way down to last place.
That's all well and good but testing was limited due to "cost" issues.. The likes of Sauber, Manor, FI may not have the funds to go testing.. Haas appear to be well backed and financed so could go. The rest of the teams have big backing.. RedBull Merc Ferrari Williams McHonda Renault So these teams (the haves) if testing was allowed would be able to advance over the have nots!. They need to find a nice balance, maybe increase the FP1 and 2 times from 1.5 hours to 2 hours and FP3 to 1.5 hours.. an extra 2.5 hours of testing per GP session would certainly help. But I guess, at some tracks the support races will suffer...
I understand the cost, but if you can't afford to test you shouldn't be racing - but let's put that to one side because that's all to do with the finances of the sport. The issue with testing is it should allow under performing teams to catch up, not leading teams increase their advantage. I've never been in agreement with limiting testing - this is one of the reasons we have fewer true drivers pushing for seats.
Sadly the finances in the sport have to be considered because that's the biggest factor that's skewing the grid. You could give a team all the track time in the world but if they don't have the finances to turn that data in to upgrades it's wasted. To makes any real change there has to be a more balanced distribution of income in the sport. It's just not going to improve until that happens... but it's not going to in the foreseeable future. Blimey....being so pessimistic about the sport really doesn't feel great.