The 'just about on time' brazilian GP chat & predictions

DC to Ricciardo - You'll enjoy it today Daniel as you like coming from behind.

Cue huge grin from Ricciardo. Keep it clean folks, it's a family show......

 

Bit of a odd race really, Vettel couldn't or wouldn't drive away from Kimi (which you'd normally expect). Then you had Bottas who somehow ended up 4s up the road from Hamilton? Not great for Bottas there really.

 

Brazilian flag.... Close enough

please log in to view this image

 

Second half of the season yes , not the first half . Really not sure what has happened to him .

 

Whatever updates they did to the car over the summer seemed to suit Hamilton more than Bottas. The Merc was notoriously difficult to setup early season, so was it more a case of Hamilton struggling to find his setup, rather than Bottas performing better than expected?

Post-summer, Hamilton has been far happier with the car so is the true performance difference between the two now showing and the thought that Bottas is merely better than average, as opposed to brilliant, was right all along?

 

Possibly , I don't think he is brilliant , but he is still very good IMHO , though I think I am in the Minority .

He won't be there in 2019 of that I am certain .

 

Agreed. I don't dislike him and I think he's a solid driver. But he's a few tenths off Lewis, Sen, Fernando, Max and Danny Ricc.

I wonder if the Aussie might jump into that Merc seat with RBR effectively locking down Max sooner rather than later and Merc finishing with Bottas when his contract ends (by which time Hamilton will be approaching 34 and Merc will be needing to look to the next potential WDC driver?)

 

I think that sums it up.

he's a solid middle of the grid type driver.

the real top top drivers all want a no 2 like this guy.

Vettel likes having raikkonen for a reason. he's not got the pace any more
Hamilton loves bottas cos he is zero threat and never will be

He is what he is. A tail gunner.

Tyo called the 5 we want to see up at the front pushing.

 

I would put money on Ricciardo being in a Merc in 2019 , unless they go for 1 of the youngsters ?

 

Mercedes is a bit of a risky seat for the future. If the engine regs go the way its looking now I can see them bailing out. I don't think they'll be able to justify another huge R&D engine project.

 

They will still need someone in his prime and a potential team leader. Danny has been in with some genuine talent- Seb and Max- and emerged with enormous credit overall. He is marketable, likeable, and a great racer. He wouldn't upset the apple cart, even in tandem with Lewis.

If I was McLaren I'd also be looking to talk to him with a view to leading the team when Alonso finishes his F1 career.

 

Bottas was in the hunt til the half-way point, then all of a sudden after the summer break he loses 1/2 second a lap, do you all really believe that's a coincidence? All the shouts were for Merc to back their no.1 driver, and I think that's what they did. They could let Nico & Lewis battle it out as there wasn't anyone close enough to challenge, and they could nobble one of their cars as their was no one to challenge the WCC, the WDC was a different story.

meh, Mercedes as a team have been in F1 for 7 - 8 years, Mercedes the engine supplier, 25 years.

 

IMO bottas had the engine modes to up the efforts v the ferrari and faield to do so.

the contrast between hamilton sailing by vettel to all be seal the championship to this botta hanging around 2/3 seconds behind vettel even after pitting and having fresh tyres is stark.

Bottas should have gone for the win there. he didn't. he settled in having failed to get it done in pits.

 

No team will deliberately hinder one of their drivers these days (yes it happened with Mansell/Prost in the Honda days), so rather than moan that Merc turned the wick down on Bottas to favour Hamilton, accept that Hamilton upped his game after the summer after a fairly lacklustre first half of the season by his standards.

As said, I think it was down to him not being able to set the car up to his liking which made the gap to Bottas closer in the first half of the season. Bottas was usually in the mix with the Ferrari's all season, being generally slightly ahead or slightly behind, so he has not gone backwards comparatively to where he was in the first half of the season, but Hamilton has just got better.

 

They wouldn't do it when there was nothing to gain, the last 3 WDC's were all in-house battles. I believe Mercedes are WCC centric and would jeopardise a WDC to make sure they get the WCC, however, I also think 2 titles looks better for marketing purposes than 1. The WCC was pretty much wrapped up by the half-way mark, so not really a risk unless they fully imploded, Kimi being way past his best, counting Ferrari out, and RBR struggling to get 2 cars to the finishing line thanks to their engine.

 

Speaking of Bottas. Do you long to make your own?


Happy Christmas