The Official 2016 Russian Grand Prix Thread **Spoilers**
Discussion
glazbagun said:
vonuber said:
Surely the most likely reason is that they are deliberately sabotaging the 3X WC and highly paid Hamilton as he is not German (or white).
His car has clearly been rigged to only develop peoblems when it threatens Rosberg. Had Hamilton continued to push, then the car of the three times WDC (who they have recently locked into a £100M contract in oeder to break his spirit) would have experienced another Mguh failure.If this was still unable to defeat the poor plucky British underdog, and through sheer daring and moral fortitude, Hamilton completed a pass on Rosberg, his wheels would then jettison.
ferrisbueller said:
Quite right. I mean what is the correct response to a suspect puncture after someone has just nerfed you across the track.
That's right, full throttle around a bend. Oh, no.....wait....
I don't think anyone is blaming Vettel. It appears he was forced into it. However, it gives a reason for the second impact. Perhaps Kyvat isn't quite as thick as he has been painted. That's right, full throttle around a bend. Oh, no.....wait....
ferrisbueller said:
Quite right. I mean what is the correct response to a suspect puncture after someone has just nerfed you across the track.
That's right, full throttle around a bend. Oh, no.....wait....
Or....I think I might have a puncture so I'll pull off to the right....on second thoughts, I'll just come out of the throttle whilst maintaining the racing line through the corner...That's right, full throttle around a bend. Oh, no.....wait....
Ahonen said:
Adrian W said:
Ahonen said:
Adrian W said:
So what exactly is a water pressure issue? either you have water pressure or you don't
What makes you think that?If you have a very small water leak then you will suffer a very gradual drop in water pressure. It only takes a pinhole in a radiator to cause a gradual drop in pressure.
My experience is from GT2 Porsche 997 RSRs, where a small, gradual pressure loss could be managed by short shifting a little and monitoring the temperatures and coolant pressure. Water pressure was a very important item on the data, largely due to the front-mounted radiators.
Otispunkmeyer said:
glazbagun said:
Mesmerising.I thought it was an excellent race, given the nature of the circuit. I plotted a few driver’s lap times of interest, and here are some thoughts.
Bloody Kvyat! He really did torpedo a few people's races today, including his team mate's this time. Is he channeling the '12 Grosjean?! Both the Red Bull's races were compounded by the strategy error by the team to put them on Mediums. What on earth were they thinking, they had shown strong pace on the Softs during friday practice. These first lap crashes are making all these races very entertaining.
At the front, while Hamilton was catching Rosberg and may have put him under pressure, I really don’t think he had the pace to win as he likes to point out. Rosberg was tracking Hamilton in the first part of the final stint. You can see Rosberg having some difficulty clearing traffic from lap 30-36 perhaps managing the PU problem that Toto mentioned when Hamilton cuts the gap considerably. However, when Rosberg does pick up the pace in lap 37 he’s ~0.6s faster than Hamilton from the previous lap. He then backs off after having been told of Hamilton’s problems.
After the effort Hamilton’s mechanics put in to give him the chance of a podium, he really could have been a bit more cheery at the podium. I wonder if the water pressure message was to call off the battle, with Mercedes choosing to bring both cars home. This situation illustrates why I don’t believe Mercedes’ proclamations about how they let their drivers race. I’m sorry, if another team had a sniff there, that’s exactly when they’ll be piling on the pressure, as evidenced by Raikkonen picking up the pace suddenly after lap 38--the gap was too big between him and Hamilton to put the Mercedes 1-2 in danger. I have seen Mercedes shut down the race all too often when they see things even slightly escalating to believe that they truly let their drivers race in the proper meaning of the term, post-Spa ‘14.
Bottas’ pace was interesting in that I think the Williams car was the only one actually have tyre degradation problems in a circuit not known for that. It’s not just the Super Softs, Bottas is having degradation on the Softs too. So strange. Most other drivers’ stints look like from the Bridgestone days. But, good to see the team having some fun with putting Massa on the Super Softs towards the end.
Raikkonen had an OK race, given the Ferrari struggling to bring the Super Softs up to temperature in the first lap after the restart. Watching people like him or Button can be very frustrating as you just feel like they’re just sitting there waiting for things to happen. You do begin to wonder if Vettel was in that position, would he have put the Mercs under more pressure? He certainly was showing better pace than Raikkonen in the long runs during practice. But it is nice to see Ferrari pushing Mercedes to explore the limits of their PU, manifesting in problems during the race, when just looking at the pre-season testing you’d have predicted a bullet proof Mercedes PU that is going to sweep everything.
KMag had a good race, didn’t he? Helped by some good fortune in the first lap no doubt, but he had pace to hold off better cars, so good on him. First points for the Renault team will give them a much needed morale boost.
Coming to McLaren, I loved what Alonso did at the end there. Such a clear demonstration of the latent pace in the McLaren yet. If you extrapolate from those three fast laps, you could say an uncorked MP4-31 could be at Ferrari pace. Definitely put a smile on my face. After being out qualified by Button, I wondered if the mojo has left him especially as it appeared JB was doing all the homework during the practice sessions. But he did well in the race and had some fun too. I bet he did those laps to motivate himself. It was frustrating to watch Button follow Sainz around for 20-odd laps. I think he could have joined the Perez/Grosjean fight and made something happen there.
4/4 for Rosberg. Barcelona is a Rosberg track. He’ll be tough to beat there.
Dr Z said:
I really don’t think he had the pace to win as he likes to point out.
Surely this is meaningless in the context of yesterday's race. We've seen time and again that the Mercedes who leads the first lap is the Mercedes that wins. Yesterday, despite doing a good first lap, Hamilton got another shabby start. So the relevant question to me is less to do with overall pace but does Hamilton have the ability to pull away well enough to win?andy_s said:
hora said:
Kvyat picking up the baton and driving in honour of Maldonado
If he'd gone into the back of Maldonado we'd all be blaming Maldonado for lifting off... 
Etc.
Mr_Thyroid said:
Dr Z said:
I really don’t think he had the pace to win as he likes to point out.
Surely this is meaningless in the context of yesterday's race. We've seen time and again that the Mercedes who leads the first lap is the Mercedes that wins. Yesterday, despite doing a good first lap, Hamilton got another shabby start. So the relevant question to me is less to do with overall pace but does Hamilton have the ability to pull away well enough to win?The start that LH struggles with is bewildering. Can it be that difficult? If the set up of the two cars is the same then one would expect the starts to be more or less identical. So does LH go for a different option?
This is the first race that LH has had a perfect car but the engine penalty was a major factor. LH having to run closely behind cars he's trying to pass seemed to dictate his tactics. He could not choose the optimum time so that would have cost him a fair bit. Unlike NR.
We have seen, to our detriment, the problems of starting mid-field and I reckon that LH's first few corners were a class act on how to avoid them. I bet he had that planned as an option well before the lights. He was positioned perfectly to take to the rough. There's no such thing as coincidence. I think the guff about it being forced on him was playing to the jury.
You can see where the tinfoil brigade get their ideas from:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/02/lewis...
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/02/lewis...
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