Round 16 - Russia

[RandoEFC+]

Hamilton pits under the VSC and now leads the race by several seconds. Pure bollocks. Second time this year.

[RandoEFC+]

Some sort of brake/suspension failure for Russell. Full safety car now.

[MUFC]

Charles LeBitch.

[MUFC]

Lewis can manage his tires while Charles kills his catching Bottas.

[RandoEFC+]

That was a bit shit in the end. Mercedes on softs vs Ferrari on mediums would have been fun at the end. In the end Mercedes are gifted the race. So Ferrari to have one car break down and the resulting VSC to cost the other car a win.

[nudge+]

After seeing that start strategy engineered by Ferrari I was hoping for them to screw it up somehow so I can't say I'm disappointed  Well taken advantage by Mercedes, a good win for Lewis and kudos to Bottas for doing a good job defending and keeping Leclerc behind. A bit of uneventful race for Max and it's a pity he didn't have fresh softs on the last stint, Red Bull are again significantly behind Ferrari and Merc on race pace. A really good race by Albon though. Sure he got lucky with the safety cars but that was still a great drive with a lot of good clean overtakes to finish at P5 behind Verstappen after starting from the pit lane. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

2 hours ago, Tommy said:

Ferrari screwing Seb over.

I think it’s the other way around mate 

[MUFC]

Russell the prick cost me on the predictions. I went for 2 SC but his crash made it 3 during the VSC. 

[Tommy]

 

 

[MUFC]

What was the logic in asking Vettel who was hammering everyone, even late in the stint on the faster tires to let Charles past?

[nudge+]

39 minutes ago, MUFC said:

What was the logic in asking Vettel who was hammering everyone, even late in the stint on the faster tires to let Charles past?

To be fair it was probably done in order to stop Charles' whining 

[Stan]

So on the way back from football tonight, all I heard on 5Live was that Hamilton won, Vettel ignored team orders and Leclerc fell from 1st to 3rd.

Anyone else fancy letting me know what happened in the race?!

[RandoEFC+]

1 hour ago, MUFC said:

What was the logic in asking Vettel who was hammering everyone, even late in the stint on the faster tires to let Charles past?

It was really weird. It was like they were trying too hard to make up for Singapore and execute this plan to make themselves look smart. Charles wasn't faster than Seb so they shouldn't have risked so much to swap them back over.

[RandoEFC+]

6 minutes ago, Stan said:

So on the way back from football tonight, all I heard on 5Live was that Hamilton won, Vettel ignored team orders and Leclerc fell from 1st to 3rd.

Anyone else fancy letting me know what happened in the race?!

The BBC have been putting out some weirdly sensationalist headlines with F1 recently.

At the start, Vettel took the lead with Leclerc 2nd. Charles didn't fight him hard as it was part of some plan Ferrari had where Leclerc tows Vettel past Hamilton then Vettel lets him back through to even it up. Then they were supposed to swap back over but Charles didn't really stay close enough to Seb or far enough ahead of Hamilton for them to do it sensibly. Leclerc pitted several laps before Vettel because he wasn't really keeping up on track and Ferrari were adamant about doing the swap back. He just about got ahead of Vettel as a result. Hamilton and Bottas stayed out longer as they started on the mediums and planned to end on the softs to attack the Ferraris. Vettel broke down and stopped on track so the VSC came out allowing the Mercedes to take a cheap pit stop, so Lewis led the race by about 6 seconds ahead of Leclerc with Bottas 3rd. Mercedes on softs and Leclerc on mediums. Then Russell had a failure and crashed so there was a full safety car. Leclerc came back into the pits for a new pair of soft tyres sacrificing 2nd place. After the safety car came in Leclerc put pressure on Bottas but didn't get past so Hamilton was able to cruise into a 5 second lead and went on to win.

[Tommy]

1 hour ago, RandoEFC said:

The BBC have been putting out some weirdly sensationalist headlines with F1 recently.

At the start, Vettel took the lead with Leclerc 2nd. Charles didn't fight him hard as it was part of some plan Ferrari had where Leclerc tows Vettel past Hamilton then Vettel lets him back through to even it up. Then they were supposed to swap back over but Charles didn't really stay close enough to Seb or far enough ahead of Hamilton for them to do it sensibly. Leclerc pitted several laps before Vettel because he wasn't really keeping up on track and Ferrari were adamant about doing the swap back. He just about got ahead of Vettel as a result. Hamilton and Bottas stayed out longer as they started on the mediums and planned to end on the softs to attack the Ferraris. Vettel broke down and stopped on track so the VSC came out allowing the Mercedes to take a cheap pit stop, so Lewis led the race by about 6 seconds ahead of Leclerc with Bottas 3rd. Mercedes on softs and Leclerc on mediums. Then Russell had a failure and crashed so there was a full safety car. Leclerc came back into the pits for a new pair of soft tyres sacrificing 2nd place. After the safety car came in Leclerc put pressure on Bottas but didn't get past so Hamilton was able to cruise into a 5 second lead and went on to win.

They also didn't allow Vettel to pit on failing tyres to make the "swap" happen regardless. It was so weird. Seb was the faster of the two Ferraris today IMO, and yet they wanted to throw him under the bus. In the end they compromised their own race as a result. 

 

Did they realize that they can get more marketing money with Leclerc or something? It was so weird that they demanded that Seb plays the 2nd fiddle today. 

[RandoEFC+]

2 minutes ago, Tommy said:

They also didn't allow Vettel to pit on failing tyres to make the "swap" happen regardless. It was so weird. Seb was the faster of the two Ferraris today IMO, and yet they wanted to throw him under the bus. In the end they compromised their own race as a result. 

 

Did they realize that they can get more marketing money with Leclerc or something? It was so weird that they demanded that Seb plays the 2nd fiddle today. 

I think part of it was down to what happened in Singapore, and part of it was trying to play this massive strategic blinder with getting Vettel ahead of Lewis at the start and letting him through on the condition that they swap back after. You just can't plan something like that. Let them race, what if Seb gets a good enough start to lead without Leclerc's slipstream anyway, then why should he give the place back just because Charles was willing to give him help he didn't need? They were just trying to be too clever.

If they do decide to manipulate Vettel into being a number 2 driver for sporting or commercial reasons, well Ferrari have other ways of doing that as we've seen in the past. I think today was more just good old-fashioned dumb Ferrari.

[Tommy]

7 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

I think part of it was down to what happened in Singapore, and part of it was trying to play this massive strategic blinder with getting Vettel ahead of Lewis at the start and letting him through on the condition that they swap back after. You just can't plan something like that. Let them race, what if Seb gets a good enough start to lead without Leclerc's slipstream anyway, then why should he give the place back just because Charles was willing to give him help he didn't need? They were just trying to be too clever.

If they do decide to manipulate Vettel into being a number 2 driver for sporting or commercial reasons, well Ferrari have other ways of doing that as we've seen in the past. I think today was more just good old-fashioned dumb Ferrari.

Yea, I agree. Seb just seemed very unhappy after the race, not just with his retirement from the race, but also with Ferrari altogether. Somehow I still got the feeling that he might goes back to Red Bull. 

[God is Haaland]

9 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

That was a bit shit in the end. Mercedes on softs vs Ferrari on mediums would have been fun at the end. In the end Mercedes are gifted the race. So Ferrari to have one car break down and the resulting VSC to cost the other car a win.

Classic Luckmilton. The SC is basically his 2nd wingman.

[Tommy]

 

[Eco]

I still believe Charles has a point in this. His team totally fucked him in Singapore. They had Vettel undercut him which won him the race...I would imagine that Charles has little faith in Ferrari management right now, as while the car is flying, everyone is making fun of the circus that has become their strategy. Totally ridiculous. 

Sainz with another good showing. Renault are looking absolutely awful, but Nico was able to score a point, and the Alfa Romeo's looked so slow all race. 

Overall, I enjoyed watching Russia. It was certainly entertaining. 

[nudge+]

4 hours ago, Eco said:

I still believe Charles has a point in this. His team totally fucked him in Singapore. They had Vettel undercut him which won him the race...I would imagine that Charles has little faith in Ferrari management right now, as while the car is flying, everyone is making fun of the circus that has become their strategy. Totally ridiculous. 

Sainz with another good showing. Renault are looking absolutely awful, but Nico was able to score a point, and the Alfa Romeo's looked so slow all race. 

Overall, I enjoyed watching Russia. It was certainly entertaining. 

Disagree. When it comes to Singapore, their strategy meant they got 1-2 instead of 1-3; sucks for Charles but in the end the team benefited from it. Also Vettel played a big role in that undercut by driving a monstrous outlap after his pit stop and making it possible in the first place. As for Russia - Leclerc was much slower than Seb on race pace. I understand he believes that he gave Seb a tow at the start and wanted his position back as a result but to be honest Seb had a great start and overtook Lewis on his own, then went past Leclerc (who to be fair didn't defend as he thought he's helping his teammate), then he made the gap of 4 seconds within 15 laps as Charles just couldn't keep up with him and close the gap - why should the faster driver give up his lead for his slower teammate by slowing down and letting him pass especially with their main opponent just behind him? Makes no sense to me; that was a dumb order to begin with. Ferrari screwed Vettel though by keeping him out and not allowing him to pit despite his tyres being ruined (also meaning blowing a 4 second gap against Mercedes)  just because they wanted to swap positions and prove a point. That's the biggest bullshit of their strategy in Russia for me. Granted it turned out to be unimportant due to his MGU-K failure anyway and I'm so fucking glad it bit them in the butt - just as Leclerc's own call to go for new tyres and lose his position to Bottas which he was unable to take back. Also Leclerc is not exactly in a great position to complain about his teammate ignoring alleged team orders and  "agreements" anyway considering he was the one to do that in Monza qualifying. Whining prick. 

I agree on Sainz being class though. McLaren seem to be back on the right track at last and it's good to see them doing well. Should be even better with Mercedes engine. 

Agree with Sauber being slow too  really just better than Williams but much worse than anyone else; it sucks. Also Kimi is below par ever since the winter break which is disappointing. 

[nudge+]

On 30/09/2019 at 01:06, Tommy said:

Yea, I agree. Seb just seemed very unhappy after the race, not just with his retirement from the race, but also with Ferrari altogether. Somehow I still got the feeling that he might goes back to Red Bull. 

Hope it happens. Max and Seb at RB; Gasly and Albon at Toro Rosso (oh sorry it'll be AlphaTauri haha). Would be a pity for Kvyat to lose his seat as he's class but to be fair he's only filling it until the next Red Bull youngster gets promoted to F1; he plays no part in RB future anyway. Would actually love to see Kvyat in a team like Haas. 

[Eco]

2 minutes ago, nudge said:

Disagree. When it comes to Singapore, their strategy meant they got 1-2 instead of 1-3; sucks for Charles but in the end the team benefited from it. Also Vettel played a big role in that undercut by driving a monstrous outlap after his pit stop and making it possible in the first place. As for Russia - Leclerc was much slower than Seb on race pace. I understand he believes that he gave Seb a tow at the start and wanted his position back as a result but to be honest Seb had a great start and overtook Lewis on his own, then went past Leclerc (who to be fair didn't defend as he thought he's helping his teammate), then he made the gap of 4 seconds within 15 laps as Charles just couldn't keep up with him and close the gap - why should the faster driver give up his lead for his slower teammate by slowing down and letting him pass especially with their main opponent just behind him? Makes no sense to me; that was a dumb order to begin with. Ferrari screwed Vettel though by keeping him out and not allowing him to pit despite his tyres being ruined (also meaning blowing a 4 second gap against Mercedes)  just because they wanted to swap positions and prove a point. That's the biggest bullshit of their strategy in Russia for me. Granted it turned out to be unimportant due to his MGU-K failure anyway and I'm so fucking glad it bit them in the butt - just as Leclerc's own call to go for new tyres and lose his position to Bottas which he was unable to take back. Also Leclerc is not exactly in a great position to complain about his teammate ignoring alleged team orders and  "agreements" anyway considering he was the one to do that in Monza qualifying. Whining prick. 

The bolded is exactly what my issue with Ferrari's strategy is. Sebs was the fastest driver in Russia before his MGU failure, so it would have been beyond idiotic for Ferrari to force a switch. 

My only think about Singapore was that while it was good for Ferrari, I still understand why Charles was pissed about it. He was the fastest driver that day, but he didn't get the win. I still think Ferrari are having a nightmare in the back as their has to be a lot of tension between the drivers that just shouldn't be there. The team are making it worse between the drivers with all of these strategies. Classic overthinking IMO. 

I think Charles got a lot of slack early on for his mannerisms, the apologies and almost childish demeanor, that he's tried to amp it up a bit and be a lot more assertive, which has made him more whining and a bit of a ass. He's young, so I'm not going to kill him for being such a young driver trying to make their mark. I think the same can be said for Max as he's clearly in a better, more mature place, than he was a year or two ago. 

I'm constantly pleased seeing the progress Zac Brown is making at McLaren. Meanwhile, Renault and Alfa just look....boringly slow. I can't imagine how big of a waste Riccardo is thinking this year is in his career. 

Last point I'll make, is that despite it being 1 and 2 for Merc, it's absolutely great for this sport to have more competition in Ferrari and in Max. Hell, McLaren is even making a hell of a push, and that's all great for F1 this year.