I think he was snookered anyway, was more or less out of fuel by the sounds of it. Hopefully it'll work out for him, even if it's just 1 more podium before he's done. Seems a long way off at the moment though.
Why did the crowd boo Lewis? I mean apart from the fact that's he's Lewis Hamilton, I didn't see anything he did wrong in the race, is there another story there or is it just people don't like Lewis Hamilton?
Vettel's had it, Nico's had it, I think for some reason the crowd want a pantomime villain, this year it looks like it will be Hamilton. No real need for it though.
This one seems exceptionally odd though! I can see 4 years of "The Finger" winding people up, Nico getting some stick at events with a high Brit turnout isn't surprising, but Hamilton didn't win, didn't do anything to warrant it, and it wasn't a continuation of the Mercedes dominance. Really unexpected! Only time I can think of it being justified is when the race has descended into farce (USA '05), or team orders have manufactured the result late on (Schumacher/Barrichello and Mika/DC spring to mind).
So.... Hamilton cant manage his tyres and Vettel cant overtake. Winding back the clocks, come at me bro!
I think he could have chosen his words better but an interesting insight non the less Asked directly if he believed he was facing a tougher challenge in 2017 than presented by the now-retired Nico Rosberg, Hamilton replied: "Definitely. I am really grateful to have that fight with him [Vettel], against Ferrari, which is the next best team. "Finally we can have an actual race. It is going to be close. I truly believe we can beat them. It's great to see Ferrari there.
Do we expect a larger gap between 2016/2017 times in China? More straights in China, not somewhere the 2017 regs have had much influence.
there are some long and fast corners though. Sector times in 1 & 2 will be interesting to watch over last year. Last bit, yeah all straights so may even be slower as cars are a bit more draggy.
With the long and fast corners it will also be interesting to see if the wind (if any) has any detrimental affect on the shark fins.
wonder if any teams would have engine covers without them on circuits where wind has been an issue in the past? the cars do look like they're moving around quite a lot on the tyres so could be a factor.
I can't remember whose car it was they were focused on but the amount of movement of the shark fin can't be good for balance, it looked like it was a flag fluttering in the wind.
China tends to be fairly breezy. Despite the extra drag the cars had relatively similar top speeds in Australia, but with China being faster again we'll have to see where they find their top speed.