2017 FORMULA 1 GULF AIR BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX RACE **SPOILERS**

What we are seeing is reminiscent of some of the schumi years, where the Williams was the quicker at, but the Benetton beat it, and of course, the ferrari against the mclarens and BMW Williams that were so strong.

 

APRIL 16, 2017

No new rule after Vettel grid position controversy



The spotlight was on Sebastian Vettel for a full 22 minutes in the pre-Bahrain grand prix drivers' briefing.

That is the news from Germany's Auto Motor und Sport, after a barrage of fellow drivers complained about how the German positioned his Ferrari on the Shanghai grid a week ago.

Stewards did not penalise Vettel in China, because there is not a specific rule about how a driver can position his car to avoid damp and slippery white lines.

"Theoretically, as long as you have one wheel in the starting box, you can be where you want," Force India team manager Andy Stevenson said.

But Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa reportedly all brought up at length the issue of Vettel's controversial starting position.

Massa called for a clear rule.

"I think this was the only briefing in which he (Vettel) was quiet," Massa laughed.

"If a driver is forbidden to cross the line at the exit of the pitlane, he cannot do that. We need to have rules that must be adhered to," said the Brazilian.

However, Whiting responded that a 'common sense' approach should instead be taken to the issue of grid start positions.

"In the last 22 years, there were maybe three notable cases like this," the F1 race director said. "If we had a strict rule to the centimetre, then 10 drivers would have been penalised in China."

But Massa insisted: "In formula one, there are some things that we are asked to use common sense with, but as we know, common sense is not always in formula one."

 

What a race! Great result Ferrari! Vet superb.

Bot choked under the pressure of pole today. Yes his pressures were set wrong but he capitulated in stint 3 far too easily and finished 14 seconds behind Ham. What went wrong?

As for Ham - I don't believe he knew the rules when he slowed down in the pit lane. Back to school for you son. He was outclassed by vet today.

Stroll? A joke of a driver. I doubt Williams will keep him beyond the summer break if they can fix be a replacement funding source.

 

Maybe being told to let Lewis pass did not help his motivation...I guess yesterday he learned the hard way what people already knew: he is the No.2 in the team!

 

There tends to be one car per team that draws the bad luck. Remember Vettel vs Webber? Webber raced about half a season with KERS issues. Schumacher-Rosberg was similar (2013 I believe?) where Schu's wheels fell off etc and Rosberg had little issues.

He complained about the car not sitting nice in any of the three stints. But once Hamilton was through on convincingly better pace Bottas may have also tuned down his engine to preserve it for later in the season. Surely Hamilton went all out.
Bottas didn't look good yesterday but Saturday was a bit of hope. I am glad we have Ferrari up there this season

 

+1

I've said it often that Vettel is very much like watching Schumacher, the way he goes about things, his dedication to the team and winning, knowing the rule book in and out...I couldn't be any happier with him at Ferrari, especially when he starts winning titles! If there ever was one driver worthy of matching his hero...it has to be Vettel. Truly a great guy.

Perhaps the only thing he's got going against him is moaning about blue flags, but I've never blamed him for it .

I think he turned his engine down after letting Hamilton pass

 

Who cares? We and Ferrari want the main focus, the WDC!

Don't believe me, remember the 21 year drought ... that was for the WDC, and Ferrari didn't consider themselves winning until 2000 even though they won the WCC in 1999. Ferrari don't give a **** about the WCC as they have more money than F1 hand out anyway.
Pete

 

I wonder if there was much, if any, impact on Hamilton's donk from the laps he chased so hard after Seb and whether that's what Seb might have been angling for.

 

Only way this will be resolved is to replace the driver ... crap happens, but Kimi can't deal with it.

Pete

 

+1

No one remembers the constructors title, no one. It's a consolation prize. The real and true glory comes from winning the WDC, the car will be named plenty....

I think so. Vet knew Elton had a big gap to close...All Vettel had to do is not react immediately and overcook the tires, even at the speed Elton was closing it would have just been enough to sit behind Vettel on the last lap, let alone overtake Vettel. That't not considering drop off in tires. Vettel had enough in the tank to cover him off easily.

If Hamilton didn't pit Vettel would've won, too. All he had to do is cruise up behind Hamilton and sit <5 seconds. Easy as Hamilton's tires would've fallen off (even without that, an easy task).

And at that...Vettel also would've won if there was no SC. He was already 3 seconds a lap quicker, and Mercedes didn't box either driver...Verstappen was in next lap and easily would've been ahead of both Mercedes even if they pitted next lap. The SC, like China, really cost Ferrari dearly this race

 

Meh, I don't think kimi is the guy holding the spanner, putting wheels on, rebuilding the engine...It's a case of Ferrari only ever able to focus on 1 guy and 1 guy only.

Once again this race Kimi was asking multiple times on the radio if he could get boxed or he'd be hung out to dry like last weekend. If ferrari did he'd have been out in front of Elton and could've blocked him more.

 

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mercedes-ready-to-rethink-team-orders-approach-895039/

So all of the sudden Mercedes is not that sure about the team order anymore...
Although from their point of view it certainly is the right think to do it shows that all this "equal opportunities for both drivers" was drivel they only could afford as long as they were light years ahead of the rest of the field...

 

Let's not deal in alternative facts here. Why would anyone believe that Bottas turned his engine down? The team never said that, nor was that the reason bottas gave for his lack of pace. Knowing that Hamilton had a 5 second penalty all he needed to do was stick within 5 seconds. Of course Hamilton eventually pitted again but Lewis was taking over a second a lap out of bottas consistently. Bottas is a guy with everything to prove and not much time to do it. His engine wasn't turned down.

Sure bottas had the wrong tyre pressures for the first stint but after the pit stops he had no excuse. Bottas is a very quick qualifier (his record against massa isn't that much off alonso vs massa and he's far quicker than Kimi over 1 lap). Bottas's race pace is terrible - not a patch on nico and he will never be a challenge to Lewis.

Ferrari: I think we all want Ferrari to do here. If you care about Ferrari then you would stop making excuses for Kimi. Far slower than Vettel in qualy and race trim and Vettel is probably only the 5th quickest on the grid if we are objective about things.

Some try and claim Kimi, despite being slow, is good at setting up the car and providing feedback to engineers. Kimi has made poor set up choices all season, always complaining about the balance of the car yet Vettel stays late after qualifying to work on his cars set up with the engineers and his car works perfectly.

We all love Kimi but the time for him to retire has come.

 

From Mercedes perspective, Bottas is ideal Number 2 though.

I pushes Hamilton during qualifs, but doesn't challenge him during the race.

Yet, he brings the car home and the points with it.

Everyone is happy!!

 

As a fan I'm not happy. Kimi and bottas shouldn't be in top cars. I don't want a repeat of the Schumacher days where teams have one good driver and the other driver is exploited to make the number 1 place higher

Would rather alonso Ricci or verstappen join the fight in top machinery than see merc and Ferrari using their number 2s as pawns to help Vettel and Hamilton **** that...

 

Agreed. They seem to put him on stupid strategies... perhaps as a contingent for some farfetched race occurrence... his car always seems to have these silly issues... and they pretty much seem to ignore him during the race.

That being said... he doesn't seem like a driver that's able to help himself... at all. And maybe the team is only willing to put the effort in that he is.

 

Who cares?

Enzo only cared about the manufacturers championship.

That's good enough for me.

AND - this is why its important to the Driver's championship

Kimi needs to do more to support the team and his teammate. He needs to take points AWAY from the Merc and RB's by coming in ahead of them.

The season is very young. Still 15 races to go. If Kimi cannot help Vettel it will be 10 times harder for him to win the driving championship. Every time he can bring the car home in front of the Mercs he is taking points away from Hamilton. And Hamilton is hoping Bottas repays the favor to Vettel.

How many driver's championships were won by just a few points? Many.

 

BS!

Proof please. Heck the WCC did not even exist when Ferrari started in F1. A team gets far more publicity winning the WDC than the WCC. The WCC is a consolation prize and the lesser teams only care about it due to F1 $'s, which Ferrari don't need.
Pete

 

Maybe, but my point is Vettel likely has the same issues but drives around them, like all good drivers. Kimi can't and therefore whinges on the radio.

His motivation is now so low that all he can do is complain.
Pete

 

If you don't like team hierarchy and team orders, you are watching the wrong series, because this is what F1 is about. Most WDC were won because the team issued order for its best driver leading in the points not to be unnecessarily challenged . Teams that ignored that, like Wiiliams did once, lost the championship.

 

Correct. The old man was only interested in watching his car win races, and not really interested in who drove them.

He wasn't against creating a rivalry among his drivers and let them sort it out on the track.

 

For Ferrari, only his cars mattered, not who drove them.

As long as a Ferrari won, he was happy.

 

Great drive by Vettel. I recorded it and watched it late dozing off, so I'll reserve commentary as I wasn't all with it.

Couple comments - Vettel doesn't seem to have big problems following closely. Ferrari design or driving skill? Not sure as they didn't show the in car camera much.

Sainz - idiot move on Stroll. Having had people do stupid **** like this to me many times, it drives me nuts to see it at this level. I'm glad he got a penalty and disappointed to see him do that as I am a fan of his.

Kimi battled back hard which was nice to see, but he seemed to get flat out raped at the beginning of the race. Not sure what happened there - will go read about it when I have some time.

Oh and I saw some really exceptional passes. Great race.

 

"Ferrari: I think we all want Ferrari to do here. If you care about Ferrari then you would stop making excuses for Kimi. Far slower than Vettel in qualy and race trim and Vettel is probably only the 5th quickest on the grid if we are objective about things."

If Vettel is 5th quickest, would you mind listing the current top 4?

 

Vettel 5th quickest on grid? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Do
You
Watch
The races?