^ those soft on vettle's car were only good for 4-5 laps, and hami's medium tires were 20+ laps old. it would be hard to say who's tires would survive better if they went for a few more laps.

love that hami put up the smoke screen on the last corner.

 

^ Personally, I never thought Seb had a chance of passing Lewis even though the NBC team felt otherwise. Isn't it amazing that Seb could only get 5 laps out of those tires before they went off? Seriously, something has to be done about this. I think Lewis would have been more dicey with Alonso had his tires lasted longer. And, I want my racing on track, not in the pits.

 

If Vettel had taken a slightly different line into that corner after the lapped-traffic pass he would have passed Hamilton. The slight overshoot cost him 3rd. Last 5 laps were definitely entertaining.

On a side note. Funny that **** happens to Webber after whining about something he would have done without hesitation if he was the one behind.

 

That lapped traffic definitely cost vettle a few tenths. He took off line through that turn and over shot it, while Hami got through the lapped traffic clean. I was laughing when i heard Hami yelled "blue flag, blue flag" on the radio.

Really hope Mercedes can keep the pace up through out the season. Its going to be a good fight between RB, Ferrari, Lotus and Mercedes. mclaren is pretty much out of the picture.

 

I thought that RB waited one lap too long to go to the softs.

And while I posted above that these tires are giving interesting races, I'm becoming less convinced that it's good. That Vettel and Button both decided to not even bother posting a time in Q3 is not a good sign.

That said, really surprised that some of the top teams (looking at you, RB) didn't run mediums in Q1, then softs in Q2 and Q3 (leaving one set of softs for the race). There's a huge drop off after 16th, seems like Vettel would have been able to get through without burning up a tire set.

 

I think the strategy was fine by RB (considering what they were seeing for tire wear, what the rest of the field was doing, and the fact that they were just not on pace with other top teams on this track [Especially given soft compound longevity issues RB has been having- which I think may have something to do with the fact that RB is so heavily Aero focused (set up for faster turning/more DF) compared with other teams = demolishing the softs]). It was very possible that the longer early stints as well as the softs with most of the fuel load gone could have given them the win. Tire wear didn't play into their hands tho.

That being said, I just think they had a slight mess up in execution (after the plan was locked in). The first pit should have been a few laps later, and as stated bye westsidebilly, they could have gone to softs a lap earlier. Those two changes would have netted Vettel atleast 3rd. It would have given him earlier laps on kill mode on the old mediums before the switch to softs and would have easily given him the advantage needed to take third from hamilton.

To be honest though, without the lapped traffic at the end of the last lap, Vettel would have had 3rd. Which would have been a great result considering.

 

Tire wear is definitely not a strength of RBR, for sure.

 

I still dont / didnt understand RBR's logic for vettel to start on mediums....maybe rbr wouldnt match the pace of the front runners & **** their tires sooner by qualifying p5-7?

I just cant imagine why anyone would want to put their driver in harms way = row 5, waiting to be plowed into from behind @ the start.

I dont care if it's to go to the soft tires @ the end of the race, lets face it, the racing line shrinks due to all the marbles....besides, the tires go off quick, get it over & done with.....maybe rbr thought the other teams would b sitting ducks??? i dont get it.

Thanks for the links samson

 

Agreed. Maybe they thought that they could get away with one less overall pit stop but it just didn't make sense.

 

I assumed the strategy was to go 24-26 laps on each set of mediums, then finish with 5-6 laps on the soft. Doing a 3 stopper seemed to wipe out the gains.

I really don't see what their possible strategy was unless they knew they couldn't win and just wanted some decent points (in which case I agree with Aby - go ***** out for P1 in qualifying and at least survive the first turn?).

 

Confirmed: James Allison leaves Lotus... a real shame too. He's not saying where he's headed just yet, but I'm sure we'll know soon enough.

http://planetf1.com/driver/3213/8698...-s-replacement

Hopefully his replacement is up to the task. Lotus has done a hell of a job the last couple of years.

 

I'm going to laugh if Allison ends up at Mercedes. My bet is on Ferrari, given his prior stint with them. I suppose McLaren could use him too, though.

l8r)

 

It could be any of those three, really...

All I know is I'm ready for some cars to be on track again, I hate waiting 3 weeks between races.

 

Damn, Fred is a beast on the first stint. Can't believe Mercedes are falling off that quick.

 

Merc looked down right terrible again in the race. How you gonna lock out the front row in quali and then only have one car in the points and the other a lap down...

Great result for Alonso and Ferrari. Also great for Felipe to get on the podium, especially after his penalty on Saturday.

Awesome Kimi was able to close the point gap back up to Vettel. Would loved to have seen him win, but there was no point in trying to hold off Fred, dude was a man on a mission.