Grand Prix thread Official'ish singapore GP chat and predictions

He’s a solid team mate but he’s never going to mount a WDC challenge is he.

 

Might have looked easy enough on track but Hamilton looks all in.

 

'Race'

 

Being kind there this race was worse then any Monaco race I can remember lol

 

You see , I'm honestly not sure , on balance I think you are right , but I think he's better than lots of second drivers there have been in Top teams . I mean he has Lewis as a team mate for goodness sake . Also in this day and age , like it or not ( I dont) he's probably a sponsors / or a pr depts dream . Oh , and his wife is drop dead gorgeous .

But yes, ref racing skills you are probably right . Just

 

On holiday atm . You don't recommend watching it when we get home then ?

 

Nice job by Mercs who seemed to have improved the W09 in the tight and twisty bends like Singapore even with a longer wheelbased car.

Lewis won the race yesterday with a lap which was described by the Mercedes Team Principal as the best he has ever seen. Lewis in a class of one this weekend.

 

Vettel has accepted the mistakes he has made during the season have cost him dearly, with 6 races to go lewis needs to win two and can then afford a DNF and to follow Seb home on the rest, not that he will settle for that.

Will Vettel pick himself up? (that 38 point swing in Germany was the killer) I think he will try harder to be able to hold his head high. If LeClerc challenges Vettel next year I suspect the emotions will get the better of Vettel.

Ferrari must be frustrated, success feeds success, possible Ferrari implode at one of the coming races. Vettel has let his team down this year.

 

A perfectly executed weekend for Hamilton there, at a race than was supposed to be damage limitation. Won it yesterday really, a lap that left the race in his hands

 

frankly vettel has thrown it away.

hamilton was great at monza but if vettel.brought.the car.round lap 1 he should have won from there.

at Germany he absolutely binned it.

several early races.he should have won but didnt.

there are so many hmm. should have cpuld have moments mixed with hamilton let him.off the hook there like British go.

but last 2 he's royally ****ed.up and he is now out of time.

only a big dnf can bring vettel back.in now.

Raikkonen is absolutely no help to him

 

Yep Merc seem to have the fastest car again. Vettel 30 secs off verstappen. Why were they on the ultras?

Overtaking manners were a joke here. If you try a move then you get slammed into or into the wall or off track limits. Lots of penalties given but they were mixed and didn't equal with what happened in other races. E.g Bottas and Ricciardo

 

Vettel was 30 seconds off Verstappen, but how much was he nursing those tyres to the end? Once Ferrari had buggered up his strategy he was on damage limitation and just trying not to have to stop again.

 

Can't believe Bottas didn't challenge Vettel. On a much better strategy and in a car that won the race.

 

Really disappointed with Bottas, I just find him pointless, he does what he is told to do I guess but surely there is a racer hidden somewhere in there?

 

Now that Kimi is no longer wanted at Ferrari , do you think he will still follow team orders if they try to impose them ?

 

mercedes are not as fast as Ferrari. All thr speed traps showed Ferrari faster, the only reason Vettel ended so far behind was that he went for the ultrasofts early...there is no way thst tyre would have kept up performance for the bslance.of the race..yes, he would have been quicker in the early stage of that stint, but once he is follow traffic they would die off quite fast. And as you know, Hamilton and Max were on the slower but more durable softs, so it eouk have been difficult for Vettel to keep up. His only hope would have been a safety can later to switch to a new set and try to muscle his way back, otherwise he had no hope really. A5 the end though he looked really depressed in the interview.

 

oooohhh.. I dunno. I half expected this weekend to see this very issue tbh.

Kimi is actually close to vettel in quali. I can see an occasion where we hear vettel on radio playing the he is holding me up game.

 

If you look vettel finished well ahead of bottas. he was manahing verses cars behind and not even trying to catch.

while he fell.off top 2 hugely he actually extended lead to bottas.

clearly set a time to lap in and did it.

horrendous race tbh.. the lot were at it.

I have got to the point where I think the next mandatory rule will be 2 or 3 pit stops per race.

 

It seemed to me like Ferrari miss heard a radio message from Lewis. I think Lewis said 'lots of life left in tyres' whereas when Vettels engineer told him Lewis says his 'tyres have nothing left' Vettel then says he doesn't believe him!
Subsequently he came in for Ultra's, then they handed it to Lewis. All Lewis had to do was go on the Softs knowing that Vettel had to stop again or he would struggle to get to the end.

It was simply that Ferrari blinked first.

 

To be fair to Bottas though, nobody else was doing anything in that race...even the fast approaching Ricciardo couldnt get near Kimi to pass, and Kimi couldnt get to Bottas, and Bottas couldnt get to Vettel, even though they looked faster at stages. The only problrm i see whith Bottas is when he is really fast he hesitates too much before and during an overtaking move. He need to make up his mind and go for it. He should hve besten Vettel in an earlier race and we saw some half hearted attempts again Max in a previous race