Best Driver: Worst Driver: Best Rookie/New Driver Best Team: Suprise Team: Worst Team: Best Overtake: Most Surprising Result: Least Surprising Result: Funniest moment: Excuse of the week: Special Mention: Best post from the race thread: Race Rating: ?/10
Best Driver: Sebastian Vettel Worst Driver: Carlos Sainz Best Rookie/New Driver: Ocon Best Team: Force India Surprise Team: Renault Worst Team: STR Best Overtake: So many can't choose one (to be honest I can't remember) Most Surprising Result: Bottas loses P1 Least Surprising Result: mHRT fail/ Mercedes on the podium Funniest moment: -- Excuse of the week: Sainz "he hit me". Special Mention: Massa, Perez, Alonso, Hulkenberg, Ocon. Best post from the race thread: -- Race Rating: 8/10
Best Driver: I would have given it Lewis but fir the penalty so by default Seb. Worst Driver: There were a few this weekend that were massively outperformed by teammates or made mistakes, Sainz springs to mind and Kimi and Bottas could be nominated but I'm going for Palmer who was behind both Saubers and the so,e McLaren. Best Rookie/New Driver: Pascal, stunning drive. Best Team: Pound for pound, FI, but Ferrari are getting it together. Suprise Team: Red Bull, much closer than I thought. Worst Team: it has to be McLaren Best Overtake: Most Surprising Result: Ferrai aggressive on strategy. Least Surprising Result: Merc on the podium Funniest moment: Alonso's disdain for anything Honda Excuse of the week: Rear limited Bottas Special Mention: Max who I think would have faired well, Ocon and Massa Best post from the race thread: More Injured than Owen "I've never really rated Bottas" for him to bang it on pole and then prove the comment right in the race. Race Rating: 7.7/10
Best Driver: Hamilton and Vettel. Worst Driver: Ericsson. I've been giving palmer the stick but this guy is surely the most undeserving of an F1 seat. Best Rookie/New Driver Ocon Best Team: Force india Suprise Team: Renault some good improvements Worst Team: Mclaren Best Overtake: can't think of a non DRS Most Surprising Result: Bottas Pole Least Surprising Result: Ferrari win. We knew the track favoured them Funniest moment: Excuse of the week: Special Mention: Stroll. The guy deserves a finish. But getting a good kicking from his rivals Best post from the race thread: all those who wrote off Bottas for Pole Race Rating: 7.5/10
Best Driver: Vettel Worst Driver: Valterri Kovalainen Best Rookie/New Driver: none worth mentioning Best Team: Ferrari called everything right. Suprise Team: Renault Worst Team: Honda. Now a name I associate entirely with total failure. Best Overtake: Alonso vs Palmer Most Surprising Result: I didn't think Ferrari would win after qualy. Least Surprising Result: Ocon 10th. Funniest moment: Hamiltons pit antics. Excuse of the week: "Stroll clearly turned in on me" - Sainz Special Mention: hulks qualy effort. Best post from the race thread: Race Rating: 7.5/10
Best Driver: Alonso, had no real right to be overtaking anyone in the McHRT. Worst Driver: Palmer, he's done 1 good lap this season. Best Rookie/New Driver. Ocon, none of the others finished Best Team: on balance probably FI. Surprise Team: ^^ Worst Team: McHRT. Best Overtake: Alonso on someone Most Surprising Result: Massa Least Surprising Result: 2x merc podium Funniest moment: "do whatever you want" Excuse of the week: Special Mention: Massa, Hulk, Grosjean, Hamilton, Vettel, Perez, all drove good races Best post from the race thread: Race Rating: 7/10. and entertaining race, especially outside the points, shame about the safety car, it eroded part of Vettels lead but caused Hamilton to lose a chunk of time from being stacked then penalised. The head-head will come.
I think Lewis was phenomenal in that final stint, but how much was down to Vettel coasting we don't know. What I will say is that I thought the Merc was faster here and the Ferrari faster in china which is ironic. The other thing to consider is that the Ferrari is faster on high to medium fuel and the Merc is faster on the lighter race fuel.
We don't know how much the track temperature effected them, I think it was Coulthard that said at the start of the race it was the coldest it had been in any session of the weekend.
