If its your favorite, then it's a typo error, Andrew: "Veuve Clicquot" (= the Widow Clicquot) not "verve"... Regards
See ya. An interesting race with the right result for Alonso. Marks had a weekend he would rather forget unfortunately. LH and Kimi are doing good jobs too. Pete
God, I hope the boys going to FoSF tomorrow morning for tgeir racing days' inspection don't have to watch the race through that crap...
Post-race penalties issued thus far: • Webber handed three-place penalty for Vergne collision. • Gutierrez handed five-place penalty for rear-ending Sutil. All in-effect for Bahrain GP.
Webber is also waiting to see if he's going to get an additional penalty for using DRS in a yellow flag zone, along with: Sebastian Vettel Kimi Raikkonen Valtteri Bottas Daniel Riccardo Jenson Button Romain Grosjean Nico Hulkenberg Max Chilton
It's a bit like the UK weather: It never rains but it pours! As I watched the race I was thinking: "Damn! - When it's not going for you!" I think the 3 place penalty was a little bit unfair - reviewing the on-board footage it did look like Vergne was leaving the door open for Webber to drive through (Sister team and all that nonsense), and Vergne could have driven round side by side without incident, but he decided to do a late cut back to the apex and caught Webber out. However, I think had it been a Ferrari, Lotus, Mercedes or another car (including Vettel's Red Bull ), other than the Torro Rosso, then I think Webber would have been much more cautious and probably wouldn't have gone for the gap.
I suspect that the argument was that the DRS zone starts well ahead of the yellow flag zone and the DRS flaps were opened at that point. The drivers and teams probably proved that they'd slowed down coming into the yellow flag zone by lifting off which would not close the DRS flap. Then once they were in the yellow flag zone and they finally braked for the hairpin, that's when the flap closed - hence there being no action taken. Either that or the Stewards were told not to interfere with the Bahrain GP by issuing out loads of grid penalties because it could end up with nobody being able to figure out who qualified where in Bahrain!
Great GP full of excitement and battles. I was really struggling to find out who was where. Perez, I love the guy, but he deserves donkey of the race award. Moving left and right to prevent over taking, pushing Kimi of the track (he was VERY lucky that this didn't end in both crashing out)...How he didn't get a penalty is beyond me. He should've had a a warning for the Alonso thing by itself; you're allowed only 1 move to defend. Alonso drove a great race, fantastic start sorted it really, from then on it was managing the tires. Well deserved. Kimi, with a broken wing for about 40 laps did a fantastic job to finish in 2nd (I'm pretty sure the reduced downforce killed his tires much quick than expected). Could he have won? I haven't a clue. Really depends on how much quicker his tires where graining really. Impossible to tell. LH also drove a good race, but the Merc was actually slower than I would think at this track. Rosberg terribly unlucky as well. Vettel...well what's to say. Kept relatively calm and his 4 lap storm to try and get 3rd almost did happen, his tires where ruined going into sector 3. Had he had one more lap I think he probably would've lost the position again. Had his tire lasted 1 more corner it would've worked. Webber might as well have stayed in OZ for this race, then he'd start 3 places higher in Bahrain. Bianchi doing fantastic, finished close to the Williams. Stellar performance! Same goes for Riciardo. Great finish for him.