Such a pit with Kimi's pit stop on so many levels. This might be Vettel's best race ever for his getting the most of the car with poor tires for the last 10 laps. The strategy changed and in the past these kinds of risks would not be rewarded.
The thing is, as the tire carrier swings the tire into position and the wheel guy zips it on, he moves out of the way of the tire at the same time. That didn't happen because he never put the tire on and the car got released. You'll notice no other crew member got run over in any other pit stop in the race. 30 other pit stops, and 250 crew members didn't get hit, over however many races since the last guy got hit... There's a lot going on during pit stops, I've stood inches from cars being released or coming in for a pit stop hauling ass right next to me. Its dangerous. I don't think we should call on the FIA to implement any new rules based on this one incident. That's how you end up with stupid things like the halo and DRS. Ferrari can fix it internally, and if they don't, no one will want to work for them if they think they're going to get run over. Our crew practices pit stops all the time to minimize the possibility of something like this happening, but you'll never remove the danger of standing next to cars doing 50 mph.. go stand on the free way during rush hour to get a sense of the chaos in pit lane sometimes. lol
Hope he and his lady can be doing scenes from "Rear Window". Anyone hear what happened to the wheel gun that the left rear still hadn't come off while the other three tires were changed?
+1 No point in overdramatisation from him, holding his head in his hands...what is he to do? A live active pitlane with medics all around. All he can do is stare. A pointless waste of time. I read somewhere else (not here), people suggesting he should've at least considered doing something ''if just for the cameras''. Tools. Kimi's not a ****ing doctor.
Kimi said it best, his job is driving, to go when he is told to go. It’s not to double check everything is okay nor hold a census of opinion before he moves. Green, foot down, end of story. The guy is not responsible for a team tech failure Also, in answer to a previous comment, while I would have laughed my head off and loved it had Elton been forced to retire from the race in the same circumstances, I nor anyone else would be so stupid as to opportion blame for what happened to Elton. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat.com mobile app
Firstly, best wishes to the Ferrari mechanic who got injured. He undoubtedly had some if the best emergency response medics in the business attend to him and will have benefited from that. Overall, that was a storming race! Seb drove like an utter master and proved today why he is Ferrari number 1 and worthy of a seat at the top table of all time great drivers. Long may it continue. Gasly - what a drive! Outperformed the car by a long long way. Superb. Bottas - number 2 driver... Enough said. McLaren again miles off the pace. Nothing to do with the engine, RB are so much faster with the same donkey. They need to get on top of their chassis / aero limitations pronto. Could still come good later this season. RB - oh dear. This weeks Haas award for team self destruction. Shame. Max - ok, enough. We knows he’s super fast, and he deserved a bye for a while whilst he adjusted to F1, but he’s not a rookie anymore and needs to learn to use his head. He didn’t have to take the chance he did to overtake Ham and blew it. Stroll - I can’t end without taking the obligatory pot shot at the worst driver on the grid. Pathetic as usual.
Additional thoughts: McLaren: they've scored some pretty good points and are now 3rd in the Constructors. HOWEVER, a good bit of that is due to 2 Haas retirements (Australia) and 2 Red Bull retirements (Bahrain). If you plug those cars in front of the Haas/McLaren/Renault/Toro Rosso fight, at least we have a good battle for 4-12 spots. Bottas: Most folks on the forum aren't impressed with him, but I'm still going to give him credit for out qualifying HAM this week, getting in front of Kimi, and at least maintaining 2nd all the way. I think he got 2nd just because Kimi spun his wheels at the start, but BOT got the job done, and it felt like it was Mercedes strategy that kept him 6 seconds behind VET for a long time, maybe waiting for HAM to catch up? VET: Pole, win on failing tires, great job from the 4 time champ. Like it or not, a lot of the action in this race was due to DRS and the different pit stop strategies. I'm afraid that if we all want pure passing (no DRS), then we'd have to go to IndyCar or any other race series where all cars are the same.
I said it last year when he had again his come together with the Ferraris: With every race incident you can ask who is to blame and there will always be different opinions but at the end of the day one has to realize that Max is involved in these accidents more often than not...I guess one can have his conclusion from that... He does nobody a favour with this driving, the least himself or his team!
Has it been confirmed that Verstappen's retirement was due solely to damage from his contact with Hamilton? Could he have instead suffered from the same sort of power problem that eliminated his teammate?
Red Bull RacingVerified account @redbullracing 22h22 hours ago After investigation, a suspected electrical engine issue put pay to Daniel's #BahrainGP, while Max was forced to retire after sustaining too much damage from his early puncture Image Unavailable, Please Login
There were a couple of good moments in the race, but I agree... passing on DRS is not exciting at all... nor is conserving fuel, engines, or tires. That's not racing, that's... well something different. I think once again, Max showed his immaturity. It's very much the classic "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" concept applies very well in F1. Between the normal bad luck and misfortune caused by his own doing, he might be in for another long and disappointing season. My biggest question about this season thus far is what happened to the no strategic coaching rule? I'm not specifically trying to bash Lewis, but they were walking him through just about everything. He sounded a bit desperate for help the way Nico used to all the time. I thought the racing and decision making was to be left to the drivers.. doesn't seem that way at all this season.
Welcome to the current F1, it's more tech induced than driver induced. When you employ 1500 people, most of which are behind laptops, reading real-time data being streamed via satellite to the pits and different parts of the globe, one has to wonder if this tech induced motorsport will take a backseat.....and let the drivers drive.
I thought that was the whole point to the strategy ban and they were only allowed to relay safety info. The year before last, it was Nico begging for help... "... I don't know what to do... help!" Last year you heard the teams telling drivers they could give that information... now we're right back to the teams telling the drivers everything and telling them what to do.
Red Bull say MAX had a broken differential. I'm pretty sure the stopped the ban on telling drivers what to do.
I watched a DTM race the other day and there the drivers can talk to the pit but not the other way around. This is quite exciting. The pit stops and all strategy (there is of course less in touring car racing) are based on the driver's view of the race developing and the driver's understanding of the tyre conditions. I quite enjoyed that.
that ended (strategy ban). If I had it my way, at the start of the race, disconnect everything and use the relay boards that the pit crew sticks out on the side of the wall in the pit lane area as the driver passes by. A VSC or SC comes out, relay that info on the board or on the signals provided by the FIA on the side of the track....let the driver decide "should I pit or go further." The driver should know how long his tyres should last given said compound and info being relayed by the pit board regarding times per lap. That should shake things up a bit..
We got lucky that Vettel is a beast of a driver because our strategy was a joke and the pit stops were even worse. Outsmarted by Merc and ruined Kimi's race with a stupid pit move but fortunate to come out with a win.
According to RB it was due to having to drive almost a full lap on 3 wheels. "Had it not happened in Turn 1, and he hadn't had to drive the car back as a three-wheeler, that is ultimately what damaged the gearbox. And therefore, we decided to retire the car because we were losing hydraulic pressure rapidly. To have both cars retired within two laps is hugely frustrating."
