Formula One Gran Premio de Mexico; Race ***SPOILERS***

I am not a fan of Lewis. Especially after his failure to use the steering wheel or as the Elton fans call it understeer at COTA. This race showed what Nico can and could do when he doesn't have to avoid his "unbeatable" teammate at the first corner. He beat Elton at the start, at the restart, thru the pit window and all the way to the end. I am not sure how anyone can try and spin it any other way

Go Nico, what the hell was happening with the Ferrari's though. Not a good day.

 

I loved the crowd, they were awesome!

Good race by Nico, shame about the Ferraris.

First time since 2006 both cars out, aye!

 

I gotta give young Sainz credit: went wide and had to give up the position ...
... so wait for the stadium and let the Mexican pass in front of the Mexican crowd.

Showmanship.

 

Next year they will all be living in Texas.

 

Good race, nice to see it return. Crowds looks packed, I bet it was a massive undertaking to manage so many people coming into & leaving the track. I've never been to Mexico City & I'm sure it was logistical nightmare traffic wise.

 

Hamilton was on the inside...

 

Yeah, his car wasn't suffering and he wanted the softs.

The team needed to do something for Nico, I guess...

 

The spin probably is that one of them is a 3x WDC. Not certain what your point is, except that you don't like Hamilton. That's fine and to each his own, but Nico has had the opportunity to win the WDC, especially last year when Ham had the failures.

In the big picture, one of them is a 3x WDC and the other is a fast driver...

 

Ugh. Both Ferraris crashing out. What a disaster!

Sadly,
Andrew.

 

+1 Correct, but lets not let facts get in the way..

 

Vettel had a bad day at the office, Kimi ermm well that's another story.

 

Yeah...Seb seemed rattled. I think we can assume that Ferrari getting second place meant a lot more than they let on.

Sucked, that's for certain. Ricciardo was a bit of an arse for nipping him at T1 (though it was more about coming in too hot versus taking out Seb).

Kimi, otoh, smdh. Arrivabene said it best "these crashes happen every race now, huh?"

 

Interesting...Normally Mercedes always runs the same strategy if there are no special circumstances: Leading driver comes in first, second a lap later...
It worked fine all year when Hamilton was driving in front, now that he is second all of the sudden this is unfair or is done to secure Rosbergs lead...Give it a break, it is not always unfair or external decision when Hamilton does not win a race.
Hamilton was better all the year and deserves the WDC because he got his act together more often than Rosberg did over the race weekends. One has to give him credit for that but please do not take credit from others as soon as they win rather than Hamilton.
Rosberg was in front all weekend and even with the safety car he was able to get out of the DRS-window again afterward so why talking his victory down like it was gifted by the team?

 

I didn't see the need for a new set for Lewis at that point . However, I didn't even say a single word about "unfair"...rather, I think the team supported Nico's drive for second as the priority and told Lewis to follow. Do you see a problem with that? I think it's "team strategy"...I think it was painfully clear that Ferrari coveted that second position, so Merc properly protected Nico's drive.

Not certain why this becomes such a point of combat for you all of the time. Is it unreasonable to think that this is good strategy?

 

I really enjoyed this race. I think I will try. To attend this one next year.

 

Because it is obvious that the entire season several people around here tell us every weekend that Mercedes has no intention to favour anyone or force a result to one or the other and that Hamilton always wins fair and square because of his abilities and the very first race Rosberg wins in a long time is promptly under suspicion being received out of team strategy.
People not agreeing with Hamiltons legend are said to take something from his achievements just to do the same with Rosberg or anyone else as soon as possible.
Toto and Niki were not angry when Rosberg dropped out in Russia bringing Vettel in the position to fight for the second place but they were happy to have Hamilton nearer to the WDC. They smiled when he made his mistake last week although this was not good for the second place of Rosberg either, although it would have changed nothing for the WDC if Rosbergs won that so why do you now think that they all of the sudden put out team order (that was said they never did in the past) to secure a second place of Rosberg they did not care about in the last races?
Indicating that this win was due to team strategy or Hamiltons grace is just as arrogant as throwing a hat towards a beaten man. Hamiltons fans already speculated whether Rosberg will screw up again and he did not but instead of giving him credit for that his victory is slighted and this attitude over here annoys me more and more.

 

They've clearly told one driver to support a strategy favoring the other driver many times. Sometimes it favors Lewis (often, in fairness), like giving him the upgrades before Nico, and sometimes it favors Nico. Ham just has the tendency to challenge it over the radio.

I'm not saying Merc gifted Nico a win either. They just mitigated any potential tangles between the two by putting Ham on a different strategy and having them meet towards the end of the race (though the safety car would have changed everything).

I am not, nor have ever been, a Nico basher. I don't dislike any F1 driver (though FA at Renault was very close for me)

 

There was no need for a second pit stop for either Mercedes, as proven by Perez who did the race with only one stop.

But, Mercedes chose to be prudent, and with their 2 cars well ahead elected for a 3rd set of tyres, to avoid any potential failure.

Rosberg having pitted for tyres, they wanted to do the same for Hamilton.

But Hamilton, by then in the lead thanks to Rosberg's pit stop, tried to cash on that by questioning the team strategy, asking about Rosberg tyre degradation, etc...

In fact, Hamilton wanted nothing else than rob Rosberg of a win in Mexico. He couldn't do it on the track, so he thought about being clever instead. It didn't work; his team told him to pit. Even after his pit stop, the brat was still questioning his team!!!

 

Then it is all good for me. Maybe I have put you more in the tesla/toil corner then deserved but actually I was waiting for those comments about Hamilton letting Nico win to come up. Sorry about that.
I do not dislike either of them but I do dislike many of those biased comments around Hamilton here in this forum.

 

8 laps earlier (lap 33), they told Nico 'your tires are 10% worn, you should be good for the race' then they brought him in. We don't know if they detected a slow leak or were just hedging their bets, but I don't see a problem with how they handled it in either instance.

I think it's generally good form to back the driver with the most on the line and I was happy to see Nico get the well-deserved win. And, yes, Lewis is a bit of a shark and would have lost no sleep taking away his rival's victory if he was given the opportunity. (Let's lose the illusion of teammates...Nico is his closest competitor and there is no love lost between the former friends)

Merc handled it properly.

 

I can't believe i stayed up for this crap. I almost threw my remote when bloody Bottas crashed Kimi out. Glad they didn't hire that idiot to replace Kimi. It's 100% Bottas fault just as it was 100% Kimi's fault in Russia.

Poor race, and really frustrating weekend. I called it off after what 25 laps. It was almost 4 am here then.

 

I'm sorry but this is just funny
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Indeed... but only Kimmi was penalized. My guess is stewards thought Kimmi deserved it, especially after his comments he'd do it all over again. Maybe he did, but Ferrari certainly didn't. And neither Vettel's crash, due to a rookie-like performance. Oh well. He basically lost 2nd place for that drive today; no way he can make up 21 points in 2 races unless a miracle happens (Nico DNFs in one race, and rain on the other... as a minimum).

Hamilton behaved like an a$$. Guess he wanted to brag about winning Mexico for the first time, but thankfully, he didn't. The diva never has enough. And Rosberg is becoming another diva. Wouldn't miss either of those guys if they left now .

Finally, does anyone know the official Mexico attendance? I think they obliterated COTA on its inaugural race (117K at COTA, vs 120K estimated in Mexico). And COTA just had 101K this year; it's been on a steady decline since. Also wonder if they were nearly as badly organized as COTA was on its first year (well, I went last year, and it was awful still). Just curious. Thx.

 

Had an 'incident' this am and now in the hospital. 😳
Just read thru all rhis thread.... Something I've never really done before, as most know, I'm generally 'involved'.

As usual, many different views of what went down! From *really* boring to really good! 😉

As the Viz notes, 'all depends on who ox is being gored'.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Morning IAN. Hope you are okay !