I wish it could be anybody but Vettel and Ferrari, but since the alternative is Hamilton I guess I’ll settle for that.
The unfortunate thing about F1 is that aside from the bottom-feeding teams like Force India, Lotus, and Marussia you have teams that either dominate or were at one time dominant. Rooting for Ferrari is like rooting for the Yankees, and Williams, McLaren and Red Bull aren’t much better. Sure, some of them have fallen on tough times, but historically they have all been unstoppable for extended periods of time.
Still, this week proved that Vettel is actually a great driver. That sounds like a funny thing to say given that he won 4 consecutive World Driver’s Championships, but Red Bull was so good during that time that you couldn’t tell if it was him or the car. In the Ferrari, with this week’s showing, I’m no longer uncertain.
I appreciate it probably wasn’t supposed to be exhaustive, but Mercedes belong on the second list as well - they were dominant in the early 50s, until the Le Mans tragedy in 1955 precipitated their withdrawal from all motorsport for 30 years.
ETA: back on topic, was the Malaysia circuit supposed to favour the Ferrari set-up or was it not even talked about because everyone assumed Mercedes would run away with it anyway?
I think it is far too soon to say that. He got his arse handed to him by Ricciardo last year and Kimi is pretty good yardstick as well so we’ll get a good feeling for how good Vettel is if/when he starts out-qualifying and beating Kimi on a regular basis.
The current Team Lotus has nothing to do with the Colin Chapman Lotus. It’s a rebrand of the former Renault team with affiliation with Lotus Cars. The original Chapman-led Team Lotus died in 1994.
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I think it is far too soon to say that. He got his arse handed to him by Ricciardo last year and Kimi is pretty good yardstick as well so we’ll get a good feeling for how good Vettel is if/when he starts out-qualifying and beating Kimi on a regular basis.
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I thought of that, too, but I’m thinking that when they built the car it was somehow more suited to Ricciardo’s driving style. Usually they build cars to suit the lead driver, but he was clearly unhappy with the car last year. You’re right that it might be too soon to say it, but it was a good performance from him on Sunday.
Agree, and just to be clear. I like Seb Vettel, and Hamilton, and Alonso. They are all exciting and the perverse part of me likes to see at least one of them starting from the back for some reason as then we are guaranteed some action.
Pushed to make a choice between the three I’d suggest Hamilton has the greatest pure speed but I’m perfectly willing to accept Vettel could be a “great” as well.
Yeah, it’s not a direct line of descent from the teams of their glory years, but when you paint your cars black-and-gold and call yourself “Lotus” it carries certain baggage.
I was wondering exactly the same thing about this year’s Mercedes. It seems the gap between Hamilton and Rosberg (which I think was perhaps a bit artificially close last year thanks to Hamilton’s bad luck) has increased, maybe this year’s Mercedes suits Hamilton more than Roseberg? Some people seem to think Rosberg is actually the greater talent. But I think at this level the margins are so fine that tiny differences in setup, even within the same chassis design, can make the difference between 1st and 2nd in a race/championship. If Hamilton can manage those setup changes better than Rosberg, he deserves to be champion, and vice versa.
I’m just too young to remember it, but what about Senna and Prost in the 1988 McLaren? I gather Prost had a very smooth, calculated driving style whereas Senna was constantly making tiny, instinctive adjustments to the steering/throttle etc. And yet in the same car they were virtually inseparable over the season. Perhaps they were both able to set up the car to their liking despite their different styles.
Wire to wire Lewis Hamilton in China with a disappointing yellow flag finish. Overall, not a very exciting race this weekend with the exception of a little drama with Button knicking someones car (can’t remember who). As for the child prodigy, his engine went KABLAMMO at the end of the race, it really was too bad.
The post-race press conference (the one in the press room that isn’t shown on TV anymore) was all kinds of awkward between Lewis & Nico. Jalopnik has a story and a link to the video. Nico’s going to be fried by the end of the year if Lewis keeps ahead of him.
I don’t think that’s a very incisive reading of the situation by that blog, borderline naive.
Lewis was concerned about one thing and one thing only, taking the minimum out of his tyres while still maintaining a serviceable gap. That he did perfectly, he had life left in them should he have needed them. What would be the sense in building up a large gap and stressing the tyres? At any point a safety car could have wiped out that hard-earned lead and left Lewis only fractionally ahead of Nico and Seb with potentially better boots on.(and sure enough a safety car did deploy)
The previous race saw the team profligate in tyre-usage during qualifying and wrong-headed in their pitting strategy during the race. It isn’t surprising that Lewis chose to be rather more conservative this time round.
Sorry Nico, you don’t really have a fair point here, if he’s too slow…pass him.
Having said that. I have no doubt that Lewis knew what he was doing would potentially back Nico into range of Vettel. I also have no doubt that he wasn’t too fussed about it as the benefits for him outweighed the negatives for the team as a whole. I was rather struck by Niki Lauda’s rather pithy reading of the situation.
I’m watching F1 again for the first time since San Marino 1994. I see there are a lot of the same old complaints here (“no overtaking!”) but as somebody watching with fresh-ish eyes I can assure you that today’s product is far more interesting than that of 20 years ago. It’s fantastic, though I am almost viscerally pained by McLaren-Honda’s unreliability and general uncompetitiveness.
I’m looking forward to the mid-season, where the Mercedes boys start taking each other out due to frustration with one another and handing the wins to the Ferraris, as God intends.
Seriously, what was he thinking? No reason to pit at all. Hamilton can blame his team, but he made a huge mistake in hitting the pit lane. Should have stayed out and won the race, easy. No one would have gotten around him.
I haven’t seen the post-race coverage yet, but it will certainly be interesting. Strange Monaco finish like the one where Senna blew it late in the race after crushing everyone else. And equally as satisfying for me.
