The Official 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix Thread **Spoilers**

[S0 What]

mollytherocker said:

Not a bad race at all!
Grosjean was fabulous.

Agreement from me he is emerging as a contendor (yo adrian) and Haas have kicked some ass so far this year.
Great race i thought, shame about Seb but there you go, push the limits and sometimes it breaks

[patmahe]

Roo said:

markcoznottz said:

Flooble said:

ClockworkCupcake said:

For those of us watching Sky, could you elaborate?

The C4 presenter asked Susie Wolff what she thought of Toto Wolff ...

He's doing the edgy you tube generation stuff, it's probably what he's asked to do, thenDC and Webber can do the technical side.

Steve Jones is terrible as lead anchor. Get him and Susie Wollf together and it's almost unwatchable. You get the impression that Mark Weber wasn't that impressed either.

Anyway, great race. Shame about Vettel but Grosjean is doing an amazing job in the Haas.

I think he's just trying too hard to be funny and enthusiastic, he'll settle down in time...I hope.

[DanielSan]

Sam All said:

Roo said:

...l but Grosjean is doing an amazing job in the Haas.

A podium in 2016 looks likely.

I'll concede defeat with Haas. They're doing a lot better than I gave them credit to do.

I liked Brundles comment yesterday about then using as many ferrari buts as they could, saying it's better than spending 3 years at the back 5 seconds off the pace

[rdjohn]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

You don't think Bottas just outbraked himself?

The first corner is a sharp elbow, there is only really one line and that is far left to apex, so Bottas would have known that he would have difficulty trying to attack Lewis. He said that he was not trying to pass.

I suspect that since Spa, there is an understanding at Mercedes that once a car is clearly ahead, the first few corners are not contested and so it looked like Lewis was tucked-in behind Nico. From Bottas's camera, it looked almost like Nico was tip-toeing around, rather that a Bottas lock up.

Bottas had made a brilliant start and so it was odd he chose to go to the right, rather than hold the racing line behind Lewis. I think the Stewards made the right call. He made a dumb move, but paid a high price for it.

Sadly Williams look as though they could soon be swamped by a myriad of other teams. Their performance yesterday was the biggest disappointment in an other wise superb race.

[anonymous-user]

rdjohn said:

The first corner is a sharp elbow, there is only really one line and that is far left to apex, so Bottas would have known that he would have difficulty trying to attack Lewis. He said that he was not trying to pass.
.

Yes, only one line. That's why no one ever overtakes there.

[hairyben]

rdjohn said:

I suspect that since Spa, there is an understanding at Mercedes that once a car is clearly ahead, the first few corners are not contested and so it looked like Lewis was tucked-in behind Nico. From Bottas's camera, it looked almost like Nico was tip-toeing around, rather that a Bottas lock up.

Nico pretty much parked it on the apex and asked for a menu. Ham had already tucked in behind and pretty much conceded the place, mercs were several car lengths ahead, nico brakes to nothing- look how much Bottas then gained in the corner and half the field were wrong footed- thats not just concertina effect.

[swisstoni]

Bottas was a bit of a victim of his rocket like launch off the line and probably arrived at the corner a bit faster than even he had hoped. Both Mercs seem a bit rubbish off the line, Hamilton's the worse obviously.

[FourWheelDrift]

Best moment of the race, when Kvyat squeezed Bottas out wide onto the dust to get past him and they cut to the Williams garage to see Frank smiling, it might have been his car overtaken but he still likes a good move.

[swisstoni]

FourWheelDrift said:

Best moment of the race, when Kvyat squeezed Bottas out wide onto the dust to get past him and they cut to the Williams garage to see Frank smiling, it might have been his car overtaken but he still likes a good move.

Yes that was a really nice moment. A proper racer.

[Derek Smith]

hairyben said:

rdjohn said:

I suspect that since Spa, there is an understanding at Mercedes that once a car is clearly ahead, the first few corners are not contested and so it looked like Lewis was tucked-in behind Nico. From Bottas's camera, it looked almost like Nico was tip-toeing around, rather that a Bottas lock up.

Nico pretty much parked it on the apex and asked for a menu. Ham had already tucked in behind and pretty much conceded the place, mercs were several car lengths ahead, nico brakes to nothing- look how much Bottas then gained in the corner and half the field were wrong footed- thats not just concertina effect.

I wonder what the printout from NR's car says about the corner.

[Otispunkmeyer]

Dumb arguement RE Hamitlon and Bottas.

Put simply, Hamilton's duff start put him in that situation. End of. That's where it all started. OK Bottas was in a little hot, but bog the start, risk getting caught in the first corner bunch up. Nico nailed the start and was out and clear by turn 1. Hamilton just has to work on the start, its clear he hasn't got the best of the new arrangement yet.

[Quickmoose]

Anyone else a bit perplexed at Nico's rather laid back celebrations? was it him doing that half hearted woo-hoo after the race?

http://sniffpetrol.com/2016/04/04/fans-beg-f1-not-...

[Rach296]

Was surprising to see Vandoorne's doing so well! Question is though, if Alonso was racing would it have been the same result?

See Vandoorne's got the motivation and the drive within him to prove himself to everyone while Alonso clearly doesn't want to be in the car anymore so he probably won't be trying his best out on track.

[Jasandjules]

Quickmoose said:

Anyone else a bit perplexed at Nico's rather laid back celebrations? was it him doing that half hearted woo-hoo after the race?

http://sniffpetrol.com/2016/04/04/fans-beg-f1-not-...

I thought it was the engineer.... Which my mind then went "sounds like even Mercedes don't like Nico as much"........

[Dr Z]

Jasandjules said:

Quickmoose said:

Anyone else a bit perplexed at Nico's rather laid back celebrations? was it him doing that half hearted woo-hoo after the race?

http://sniffpetrol.com/2016/04/04/fans-beg-f1-not-...

I thought it was the engineer.... Which my mind then went "sounds like even Mercedes don't like Nico as much"........

Rosberg himself said he was cruising for most of the race and was bored as he didn't had to fight any one. He pretty much won the race in the first 10 laps.

[Sam All]

swisstoni said:

FourWheelDrift said:

Best moment of the race, when Kvyat squeezed Bottas out wide onto the dust to get past him and they cut to the Williams garage to see Frank smiling, it might have been his car overtaken but he still likes a good move.

Yes that was a really nice moment. A proper racer.

Gentlemen racers.

[MikeyC]

Otispunkmeyer said:

Dumb arguement RE Hamitlon and Bottas.

agreed

actually, if you listen closely to the audio onbaord Bottas, there appears to be a bang before he hits Ham, so maybe he got hit himself from behind ?
or maybe audio is simply out-of-sync with picture...

personally, thought the punishment was a bit harsh, there was a gap initially ...

[kambites]

Bottas definitely did get hit from behind - whoever was behind him lost part of his front wing to it (is that where Ricciardo picked up his damage or was it someone else?). I'm not sure whether that was before or after the impact with Hamilton though. I assumed it was afterwards when I first saw it but I might be wrong.

[FourWheelDrift]

Looking at the start it's Ricciardo's Red Bull right behind Bottas into turn 1.

[rdjohn]

Derek Smith said:

hairyben said:

rdjohn said:

I suspect that since Spa, there is an understanding at Mercedes that once a car is clearly ahead, the first few corners are not contested and so it looked like Lewis was tucked-in behind Nico. From Bottas's camera, it looked almost like Nico was tip-toeing around, rather that a Bottas lock up.

Nico pretty much parked it on the apex and asked for a menu. Ham had already tucked in behind and pretty much conceded the place, mercs were several car lengths ahead, nico brakes to nothing- look how much Bottas then gained in the corner and half the field were wrong footed- thats not just concertina effect.

I wonder what the printout from NR's car says about the corner.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7nAFYbxT_sE
i think if you look again here, it's pretty obviously 50% racing incident, 25% Nico going steady being a tad early braking with Lewis following but not contesting the corner and 25% Bottas being way off-line but taking a normal braking point.

But the Stewards these days feel they have to award penalties ( how harsh was KMag's?) Lewis did suffer a lot of damage.