2017 FORMULA 1 UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX: RACE *** SPOILERS ***

Agree: it´s not just that they wasted the season with a few driver mistakes and breakdowns. Ferrari had a car good enough to fight for wins but not to fight for the championship. They needed to do a flawless season and have some luck to win the championship; unfortunately neither of those things happened.

They have to rise their game, not just in the operational side of things but also in the tech department. But we´re closer.

 

Max needs to not say such things. He was penalized. No changes are coming whether you support it or not. Insults are not good policy - http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/11094819/max-verstappen-escalates-us-gp-row-and-blasts-one-idiot-steward

 

Exactly...but considering the expectations here before the season started they were much better than expected.
That said it would be completely wrong to overact now and tear the team apart to start new. The team need continuity rather than a reset every season...All these silly "heads must role" after every single setback is rediculous, they had a new start when Seb came and Alonso left and they have to go all the way now. When Seb fails than they could have the next reset, maybe with Max then...

 

Because Max has to date luckily escaped punishment for many track infractions, he feels emboldened to dismiss official FIA sanction.

Stating than the fans should boycott COTA 2018 will not go down well with FIA .Both his and his Father's rantings will come back to bite him in future races.

 

Singapore was not bad luck. It was poor strategy or a lack of discipline.

There's an old saying: "You make your luck".

 

Not much strategy in a 100 meter race

 

Its called "its raining---- don't try to win the race in the first corner"

 

''Ferrari having minor issues?'' I would suggest they have major issues right from the top down. Sure, Hamilton had a poor start, but the way he flew past Seb..and pulled away, was a show to be seen. Ferrari had no answer, right through the race.........in fact, given another 2 laps, Max would have trampled all over the two reds, without going off the circuit to do it. Kimi left far too wide a gap going into that corner, and Max pounced. He's one of the few 'racers' on the track, a delight to watch.....what did Kimi expect ? a phone call to ask him to move over ?........when Max has come from 16th and to be trampling all over the leader-board...and with a new engine of relatively unknown reliability.....as if !
All Ferrari is doing, is just about hanging on. If both Red Bulls had kept on song, instead of one failing.....the reds would have trailed5th or 6th.
As Ferrari fans we expect and hope, for much better....but it's not looking good.
Keeping the faith shouldn't be embarrassing !

 

Nobody really complaining about LH's cut across Vettel at the start. Now where have I seen that before?

 

True but now much room did Vettel have vs Singapore.

 

Something that should have been obvious to Seb.

 

I know he is young but his mouth has a way of moving that needs to be reigned in. Were the Stewards unanimous or was it just the one person he does not like that implemented the penalty. He might need to include others in a poorly worded assessment. Im not at all negating the lack of consistency in the Stewards renderings and that does need to be addressed.

 

The whine generation?

Sure, people were exceeding the track limits other places ---
--- but they didn't execute a pass while off the track.
THAT's what made this different.

What was inconsistent is that cutting a corner to pass usually gets a drive-through or 25 seconds after the race.
So a 5 sec penalty was actually a mild penalty for that infraction.

Claiming steward bias because he didn't like the decision is immaturity at work.
Even Max should know better. When he forced Bottas off track, he let Bottas rejoin in front of him, and then passed him properly.
Max should look at the video again, look at similar passes (cut chicanes, etc) from the past, then reconsider his comments.

(Anyone remember the Hamilton chicane pass on Kimi in Belgium, 2008? Or dozens of cut chicane penalties in Monaco.)

 

What makes you think Verstappen could pass Vettel? Verstappen pitted earlier than Vettel and hence was on older tires and hadn't been able to catch up to Vettel for 20 laps - the gap actually increased from 2 to 3 seconds. All of a sudden at the end you think he could have passed him? Kimi had to slow because he had burned too much fuel earlier taking 15 laps to pass Bottas.

Ferrari didn't have any issues this race, they lost on pace to Hamilton (but were faster than Bottas and the RB's, at least Vettel was). Verstappen was able to get into the mix due to good strategy and some great overtaking early in the race. Ricciardo wasn't going to finish ahead of Vettel. Ferrari took a gamble on the 2 stop with Vettel hoping he could catch Hamilton knowing he could catch and pass Bottas, who was struggling, but it turned out to be slightly slower as he would have been 7 or 8 seconds up the road from Raikkonen with a 1 stop instead of just 2 seconds. Either way he got 2nd, which given they didn't quite have the same race pace as Hamilton, was the best they could do. I saw zero mistakes and a bit of a hail mary with the 2 stopper.

They don't have any major issues, unless you consider being .2 slower than the Mercedes on this track a major issue. I'd call that pretty minor, and Hamilton admitted he got his car perfectly adjusted to the conditions, which he's struggled to do at time this year, but Ferrari put themselves in decent position strategy wise and got both cars on the podium (which has been a rarity this year). If Kimi hadn't f'd up qualifying again, things might have been different as they could have pressured Hamilton with alternating strategies instead of having to spend half the race behind Bottas. So no, not problems from top to bottom. IMO, the biggest problem has been that Kimi either gets it right in the race or in qualifying but almost never both, which leaves Vettel as the sole gunner in the race. Vettel has been able to get both quali and the race correct on numerous occasions which is why he was in the hunt for the title until Asia and things went tits up. Vettel coming away with zero points at 2 of their best tracks with Kimi either doing the same or being nowhere due to **** qualifying is the big problem.

As to Max, he didn't run wide, he cut the track. Big difference imo. He basically skipped a corner and was right to get penalized. Thing is, Kimi left him room so he didn't need to, and I think that's why the he got dinged, there was no reason to cut the corner other than to gain an advantage, unlike running wide where you usually cost yourself a little bit. He just straight hopped over the curbs and cut the corner.

 

I honestly don't understand the Max controversy other than just wanting to root for Max. I'm no Max hater but he went off the track to cut the corner and get around Kimi who was on the racing line.

What part of these facts equate to "horrible decision"? Other people did it so he should too?

So, if OJ gets off with murder it's OK if others can?

If the stewards are inconsistent, its not because they changed the rules. Max understood driving with all four wheels off the track means "driving off the track". And if you pass while going "off the track" he should expect a penalty. I can guarantee Max did not see others going off the track and say to himself "Hey! I can do that too!"

Instead he knew it was a risky move because he had no other chance to take. In the end, he actually made the right decision. He didn't lose anything and came darn close to having it go his way.

If the stewards penalized him more than 5 seconds I would agree it was unfair. But they just corrected his unfair advantage he took.

What would you all say if Kimi went off the track, cut the corner, and kept the lead? It was "Ok"?

 

So nobody wants to talk about how Seb stopped trying to catch Hamilton once he got around Kimi?

Maybe the Ferraris were trying to conserve fuel. But on ultra-softs vs Kimi's older softs, Vettel should have been able to get well clear of Kimi.
But he didn't.
Seb was sitting a bare second ahead of Kimi, the whole time Max was closing in.

Vettel sitting in front certainly impaired Kimi's ability to hold off Verstappen.

Again, Max had the better tires. But without Seb being in the way, at least it would have been a fair fight.

 

Kimi complained after passing Bottas that the crew told him to save fuel. I'm sure both Kimi and Vettel were trying to make it to the end without running out or being underweight.

 

I think it was..just when Grosjean took Alonso out at Spa....**** hapens....SEb didn't do anything wrong, no one did, it was an unfortunate chaine of events...sghould thay be moer careful?..sure, but so should he 100 other times when he made a risky pass or other manoever..it's called racing, if you wan't to play it safe you drive like Stroll.

 

Mark Webber on Stewards decision is succint

 

Agree, from where I was at, going through the series of corners around turns 5, 6, 7 and 8; Kimi was all over Bottas; then when they came down the long straight, Bottas was much further ahead of Kimi, until they approached the corner, where Kimi would catch up again.

 

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Here is a pic towards the end of the race. (Cell phone quality).

 

That is the part that is actually sad...Ferrari and most likely Red Bull (maybe even McLaren) actually have a good car but there is absolutely nothing they can do about the power unit. They can not test and with only a small number of PU allowed per season they even have to be conservative with the updates because no matter what, they have to keep this engine for 4-5 races. So unlike they are even over the winter there is little to no chance that they will catch up during the season. Unlike in any previous dominant era of any car this status quo was as given over the time by the regulations. And this is also the reason why some of us are sceptical about the Lewis evaluation only by stats. Let´s not forget he was lucky enough to be in the right team at the right time, maybe even more than Seb was a few years ago....Schumacher might have been the last one who contributed to the dominance of his car by endless testing.

 

I remember Ham in Monaco, cutting a chinace, all four wheels off track limits, enabling him to keep Ricc. behind him, no penalty given

 

I particularly like this little snap shot of the incident in question !

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