2016 FORMULA 1 PIRELLI CHINESE GRAND PRIX RACE *** SPOILERS ***

Racing incident on the seb-fiat-kimi incident, thus far all the cards are falling Nico's way, hammy making a poor choice by not pit starting, great recovery by seb.

Ferrari need to make some steps forward to catch MB.

 

As the black sweater guy has said, "The clock's ticking..." and so far Alonso ain't regretting his Ferrari departure.

 

+1
Kvyat went in faster than Seb and Kimi, had the better line and most importantly didn't lose traction. Kimi borked it and then sandwiched Seb, who would have been cleanly passed by Kvyat in any case. No cause for Seb to complain about Kvyat's driving there, only sour grapes.

For Hamilton to start last, drive most of a lap dragging the car's nose under his car, pit 5 times and still finish 7th "only" 1:18 behind the leader is pretty amazing. Wasn't he complaining about car/power trouble too?

Awesome pass by Seb on the pit entrance. And then they slap (?) with a "driving too slow" penalty lol. love it

 

+1. He is not missing out and in fact was closer to a title with Ferrari than Ferrari are now. Next year we might be saying different things though

 

When I heard the "driving too slow" nonsense I became ill.

 

Good race. It's a shame we need accidents and mayhem to have a fun race, but it was good. I feel the most bad for ricciardo.

 

I'm not 100% sure, but wasn't he allegedly doing this on purpose to help out his teammate?

Why do you disagree with the ruling? Don't you hate it when people drive slowly in the left lane on any of Houston's highways?

 

I was gutted to see ric w a blown tire, he was a necessary ingredient for a good race at the front.

I wouldn't call it a good race either, an eventful one for sure, but the racing was mediocre at best...I guess if there are enough sideshows for the commentators to drum up on it makes for better television. lol so sad.

I fell asleep shortly after rosberg came out of his first pitstop and still had a change and a half of a lead...woke up and read the final results, not surprised. Hamilton w a damaged car, countless pit stops still made it up to 7th??? lol

That's some kinda bad joke.

 

Poor sportsmanship from Vettel, IMO. I mean, raising his voice, when the cameras are rolling to millions around the world...very unclassy. He should have given it a break, looked at videos before voicing out.

Danny Fiat just casually asked him how the race was, and Vettel just lost it. I'm disappointed in his behaviour. I thought he was done with all his whining and complaining at Red Bull. To me, Vettel is the one to be blamed for crashing into the Ice. No one else. This is Formula One. Not defensive driving.

 

Well, to be fair, the onboard footage looked like the sudden turn-in by the Sauber was unavoidable.

I did mention in the other thread that a pitlane start would have been safer for him. Once the cars spread out a bit more, he could have exploited the Mercedes performance advantage in a bit more space.

In the end, it was a decent race result that will only energise the rest of the championship. I don't expect Hamilton to stay

All the best,
Andrew.

 

In all honesty it was like 1AM (4hrs past my bedtime). I will have a 5% more coherent response after the 1pm replay.

 

The German news said he was cruising to build up a gap to Perez who was occupying his pits a few seconds ahead.

Not sure if that should be punished. Typically you would see them queue directly in front of the pits which would be most time efficient. I guess he wanted to hold the other cards behind him to not loose position.
Then he did not actively block, since Vettel was able to slip through. So yes, I guess I find the fine misplaced.

 

Yep, his pitbox was full so he wanted to delay the cars around him as well.

I'm not sure, but I don't think he was penalised for going slowly in the pitlane entry, but instead for driving slowly in the actual pitlane itself and braking randomly - on board footage showed the driver behind having to jam on the brakes twice to stop from rear-ending him when he suddenly slowed.

I've only seen a highlights reel, didn't have the full race available. Could someone expand on that if they know anything?

All the best,
Andrew.

 

I am not sure how much overview the drivers in that moment actually have.
From Hami's onboard one could see Kimi coming back towards the track from the left. The Sauber is right in front of Hami. More collisions occure and the Sauber is avoiding depris, moving to the left. There Kimi is returning and forcing the Sauber back towards the right, directly into the space Hamilton attempted to occupy.
In slow-mo and a cup of tea in my hand this was obvious to happen. With three thousand things happening at the same time in a race car, I don't know if one can see all of that the same way. I would tend to think so.

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that.

 

Well, if you take the cockup from ferrari drivers, the race was funny..except for first place.....this time th team did everything right, both drivers did it wrong!! if they hadn´t messed up in qualy they might have jumped Barbie and could have won the race....i believe they do have the pace for it...after the crash they both drove fine races....oh, i loved to watch Massa having some fun with Elton...as i always said, with similar performances, Massa is more than a match for Elton.....i believed someone said something about overtaking Massa? Can't quite remenber who was it!

 

To bad we can't see the pure pace of Ferrari vs Mercedes. To many unfortunate things are happening to us so we can't get in a clear position to compare our speed to theirs. It looks like we are pretty close though.

As for the chaotic start of this race, Vettel blames Kvyat. But, i don't know how right he is. Nevertheless Vettel drove a very solid race. He had an awesome stint on the SS, no one stretched those tires as Seb did. So considering he had to change his front wing in the pit, Seb did good. Kimi also did a solid race considering everything.

Hope next race in Russia we are going to have a clean race and be in a position to challenge Mercedes.

 

Saying all the right things, not attacking his teammate. Rosberg showing the right mindset also. I guess these guys can coexist.

 

It's a long season, so eventually things will break right. If Nico is 100 points ahead by that time, it won't matter.

Four guys are lurking in contact with Ros right now (Ham, Ricciardo, Vet, Rai) so it's just a matter of some of them getting their crap together and not making mistakes, then we may have a compelling championship.

 

100% correct. Drove like a bumper car idiot.
Got spooked (overreacted) by Daniil "the torpedo" then caused the whole first lap carnage. He couldn't raise up his hand like a man so he decided to make a fool of himself and put all the blame on Daniil. Shouting on national tv and throwing the blame on someone else....very classy Seb.
There was at least half a meter between Daniil and Vettel when Vettel hit Kimi.

During the interview he was surprised to see his front wing damaged again. He hit so many people he didn't even know he whacked Bottas with his bumper car.

 

Safety car helped him (and kimi) tremendously.

 

With similar cars they are roughly equal.

 

+1 and they were both warned to keep it somewhat civil or else.

 

Regardless of what he did in the pitlane proper, "cruising" in the area between the track and where the pitlane speed limit starts, even if he didn't "actively block" the cars behind, doesn't seem right. The pit entrance isn't designed for 2-wide. If Vettel had crashed or not been able to slow down in time it would have sucked.

I'd be in favor of a (minor) penalty just for his actions before entering pit lane. If his team couldn't organize enough of a gap then he just has to wait in line a couple seconds behind his teammate.

 

Which is funny. How many times has Vettel taken advantage of slower cars at the first corner and made it through? A lot.

I like Seb and Ferrari of course but he should just shut up.