Formula 1 Rolex Sakhir Grand Prix 2020Formula 1 

  • Thread starter Jimlaad43
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People are making a big deal about Bottas' worn hard tyres, conveniently forgetting that both Mercs were extending the gap to P3 prior to that screwed up pitstop both on those terrible worn hards.

Yeah sure, he couldn't stand a chance against Russell who was on fresher mediums, but once he was stuck in the field Bottas' pace suddenly vanished. What's up with that?
 
kungtotte_
People are making a big deal about Bottas' worn hard tyres, conveniently forgetting that both Mercs were extending the gap to P3 prior to that screwed up pitstop both on those terrible worn hards.

Yeah sure, he couldn't stand a chance against Russell who was on fresher mediums, but once he was stuck in the field Bottas' pace suddenly vanished. What's up with that?
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Everyone else behind them also came in for fresh tyres. That, coupled with the botched stop on Bottas basically made him a moving chicane for the top half of the field.
 
The people ahead of him didn't pit for fresh tyres though. If he was extending his lead over them on lap 62 on those tyres he should be catching up on lap 63, but he was struggling hard.

Like I said, it's no surprise that Russell was outpacing him after those stops, but Bottas wasn't making anything happen against anyone else once he dropped back into the pack. That's fairly common for him. If he keeps his position at the front row he can go fast and keep everyone behind him but put him in a place where he has to overtake and he's gone.
 
Regardless that russel had bad luck at the end of the race, he showed Mercedes what he is capable of.
 
ShiftingGears
Everyone should be self quarantining for two weeks before reentering the paddock bubble otherwise its not a bubble at all. As Hamilton demonstrated.
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Do you know how many people inside the bubble have had Coronavirus? You seem to be making a lot of presumptions and accusations based on nothing more than your dislike of a particular driver. Odd.

Anyway, interesting stat time, Perez is the first driver to win an F1 race after completing the first lap in last position. Great win for Perez, going to be overshadowed in the short term by Russell's lack of one.
 
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TenEightyOne
Anyway, interesting stat time, Perez is the first driver to win an F1 race after completing the first lap in last position.
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Lies, damned lies, and statistics. 22nd to 1st by John Watson in Long Beach '83 still beats that. The fact that Watson wasn't "last" doesn't change it.
 
daan
Lies, damned lies, and statistics. 22nd to 1st by John Watson in Long Beach '83 still beats that. The fact that Watson wasn't "last" doesn't change it.
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Watson was 20th at the end of lap 1, so did climb higher than Perez, who only dropped to 18th.
That said, only 1 other car retired in the Sakhir race, and it was behind Perez at the time. About 6 cars retired from places ahead of Watson, but none of this belittles either victory as they were both remarkable climbs through the field.
 
TenEightyOne
Do you know how many people inside the bubble have had Coronavirus? You seem to be making a lot of presumptions and accusations based on nothing more than your dislike of a particular driver. Odd.

Anyway, interesting stat time, Perez is the first driver to win an F1 race after completing the first lap in last position. Great win for Perez, going to be overshadowed in the short term by Russell's lack of one.
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I'm not blaming Hamilton, I'm saying the system is inadequate, because it assumes 100% test accuracy. My country still has mandatory two week quarantine travelling to certain states, and that's with COVID nearly eliminated.

If F1 doesnt get it together before March, I dont see the Australian Grand Prix going ahead.
 
ShiftingGears
I'm not blaming Hamilton, I'm saying the system is inadequate, because it assumes 100% test accuracy. My country still has mandatory two week quarantine travelling to certain states, and that's with COVID nearly eliminated.

If F1 doesnt get it together before March, I dont see the Australian Grand Prix going ahead.
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At this time, I will be very surprised if F1 runs even close to a full season next year. That has nothing to do with the state of F1.
 
I still feel very numb to yesterdays result - I was all set to see Russell win, Bottas take the "other" spot reserved for Mercedes, and for Sainz to take another special podium for McLaren. Instead I got 2 of McLaren's rivals sharing the podium! I am really happy for Perez though, and should be really happy with Sainz's 4th - only last week it was a monumental result. But I can't help but feel it should have Sainz winning after all of the Mercedes drama...

All I can say instead is that I am extremely eager to know where the decision to do 2 stop strategies came from. We have known for a while that this was closest to being a second Monza, where new tyres do not recover the 24 seconds or so it takes to pit. I know Perez stopped twice, but his first was moot since it was on lap 1 and nullified by the safety car...
 
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It tickles me immensely, in this year of all years, that when the gap between the Mercs (and Max) and the rest is as big as it's been since Seb at his peak, we've had two new winners out of the blue, and both immensely popular at that. It wouldn't surprise me at all if that becomes 3, assuming Lewis sits out again...
 
NotThePrez
Just got done watching the replay after spending to entire day avoiding spoilers.

Checo: If this man doesn't have a drive by next year, it will be a :censored:ing crime. A very long overdue win imo.

Ocon: Drove a race of tactics rather than aggression today. Was able to keep it clean and positioned himself to grab his first podium. Well done.

Stroll: Had solid pace today, but was kind of unremarkable in an odd way. Still, great finish, and did well with his tyres. Racing Point were definitely the biggest winners today.

Sainz: Good performance today, but seemed to not have quite enough to match the RPs in overall pace.

Russell: Ok, if this man doesn't have a drive in the Merc by 2022, it will really be a :censored:ing crime. I think he won over pretty much every spectator, pundit, and possibly quite a few team personnel today. Phenomenal racecraft and some insanely ballsy overtakes, despite driving a basically brand-new, poorly fitting race car on a brand new track. Would've 100% won the race (or at least gotten 2nd) if not for that last-minute puncture. Brilliant, brilliant, freakin' brilliant. While I 100% want Lewis fully recovered and back into the car next week, I'm also with @Famine in not being too upset if George is needed once again.

Bottas: While I still maintain that Bottas is a better driver than people give him credit for, today's display was absolute garbage. Tyre fiasco notwithstanding, he was pretty much nowhere the entire race, and once again failed to get past midfield cars that his W11 is more than capable of trouncing. Bottas is definitely capable of better performances than today's.

Albon: Imma let Downey take this one for me. I don't want to jump on his already packed hate train, but there's no reason to be that far off in the Red Bull.

Kvyat: Honestly the dark horse of the race imo. Had a strong showing that I feel went mostly unnoticed. Did a good job making up for Gasly's less-than-stellar result.

Fittipaldi: While I wasn't expecting great things from him, he kept his nose clean and wasn't too far off the rest of the backmarkers. A solid, if not rather safe, maiden GP.

I gotta say, the race in general was pretty fun overall. There were a couple lull periods where nothing happened for ~10-20 laps, but overall we got some pretty good CQB racing filled with ballsy moves and solid dives.
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I'm not a fan of Bottas but you do know that during the tyre snafu they did end up putting the tyres he came in on back on the car? He had much less grip because of that.
 
Like I said up-thread, he was outdistancing everyone on lap 62 with those tyres, then all of a sudden they fall apart on lap 63?
Sure by lap 80+ they'll have been gone but he got nowhere immediately after that botched stop when the tyres were fine before boxing.

Dude didn't have the pace, face it.
 
People in GTPlanet watching Checo Win: Congratulations, well deserved, etc, etc.
Me, watching Checo Win: *Happy Mexican noises, combined with no AUP friendly words*

I was in shock yesterday. Our mad man finally did it.

Now, for the love of God, GIVE HIM a seat Red Bull.
 
MoLiEG
People in GTPlanet watching Checo Win: Congratulations, well deserved, etc, etc.
Me, watching Checo Win: *Happy Mexican noises, combined with no AUP friendly words*

I was in shock yesterday. Our mad man finally did it.

Now, for the love of God, GIVE HIM a seat Red Bull.
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I wouldn't wish a Red Bull drive on a driver even if I hated him. They are a very one driver focused team.
 
kungtotte_
Like I said up-thread, he was outdistancing everyone on lap 62 with those tyres, then all of a sudden they fall apart on lap 63?
Sure by lap 80+ they'll have been gone but he got nowhere immediately after that botched stop when the tyres were fine before boxing.

Dude didn't have the pace, face it.
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The people directly behind him on the restart were on fresh mediums and softs. No one could honestly expect anything other than what happened.

People with an axe to grind might convince themselves otherwise though.
 
Bottas seemed to managed towards the end a bit, but it did look like he was at a disadvantage with the tires after the restart. It would take him longer to fire the tires up, and even then he was at a disadvantage. I was expecting him to do better, but there were possibly only a few places in it for him at best.
 
I always thought of Bottas as a just a smidge above average but fairly quick driver in a great car and while I wasn't initially part of the bandwagon calling for his replacement, I ended up changing my mind after that race. You'd think that if you are racing against the person who's likely going to replace you in 2 years time you'd show better performance. He had a bad start (as usual), then a couple of mistakes here and there, couldn't even stay with Russell who's driving a car not made for him for the first time. Honestly, I expected Bottas to show people that while he's the defacto #2 to Lewis, he can at least show a newcomer that he has some weight in the place but nope...complete lackluster performance. His old tires aside (just to put it out there, Perez won the race on tires that were a couple of laps older than Bottas'), that car is way too quick for him to keep getting stuck behind the midfield pack and not being able to move up. I just can't understand that and it has been a recurring thing throughout the season. In the few instances when Hamilton drops down the grid (i.e Monza), you see him racing and moving back up but Bottas just can't seem to go anywhere...just really disappointing.
 
kungtotte_
People are making a big deal about Bottas' worn hard tyres, conveniently forgetting that both Mercs were extending the gap to P3 prior to that screwed up pitstop both on those terrible worn hards.

Yeah sure, he couldn't stand a chance against Russell who was on fresher mediums, but once he was stuck in the field Bottas' pace suddenly vanished. What's up with that?
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It's got to do with tyre temperature, not the wear. Bottas had to wait for Russel in the pits, they took off the tyres, had a committee meeting about it then stuck it on again, and then he trundled for a few laps behind SC. All the time the Hards are losing temperature. The people ahead who didn't pit, didn't lose as much temperature because they kept going behind the SC. A few degrees colder than the operating window is all it takes for these tyres and cars to not work completely. You can't drive fast due to lack of grip and it all just spirals downwards. Just see the difference between Kimi's Alfa and all the supposedly faster cars ahead of him at Portimao's first lap being made to look like an idiot. Also the whole grid at Turkey. Mercedes in particular this season, made their car warm up their tyres very gradually (because in previous seasons they were prone to overheating), which compounded the problem. DAS helps but only a little bit.

Second issue, the Mercs' wing levels are set up for clean air because that's where they are expected to be. They have more downforce to keep the tyres from sliding, thus less wear and can run them for longer. However this becomes a double edged sword when running in dirty air because you lose all that downforce AND the extra drag now makes overtaking on straights difficult.

Those two are the main factors. I agree Bottas is terrible at battling through the pack, but those 2 factors made it even worse for him.

Adding fuel to the fire, VB's instagram has removed all mentions of Mercedes and GR's has removed all mentions of Williams today O.O
https://www.instagram.com/valtteribottas/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/georgerussell63/?hl=en
 
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Bottas wasn't that much faster then Massa when he was at Williams who wasn't anywhere near the same driver after the 2009 Hungarian GP, not taking anything away from Lewis but he has had it easy with Bottas as a number 2 usually you expect them to atleast have the odd weekends showing why they are in a top team.

It's a byproduct of the rushed nature in which Bottas was signed in the first place.
 
Apparently Hamilton continues to test positive for Covid, so will likely miss the final GP of the season.

When you stuff a 7' foot tall stork with clown shoes into a car designed for a midget and he outdrives the guy who has was supposedly keeping Hamilton honest for the last few years, it's time for the managers to have a rethink. Probably the best thing to do now is put Russell back into his Williams, put Vandoorne into the empty seat, and hope everything goes back to normal before it gets too crazy.
 
It looks bad on Valtteri but maybe there was some issue with car / tyres after fire as before pitstop, he was fastest on them tyres and catching George up. After he was abnormally slow compared to Sergio. It would be a miracle if Lewis races this weekend so likely we will get another chance to see these guys battle it out.

It was good to see George do so well this race and even though he didn't get the win, probably did him more favours long term showing his racing skills than if he just had an ordinary victory.

Finally, great to see Sergio finally getting a win. Shows that you should always keep on pushing on.
 
Greycap
Hamilton fans will very likely disagree but Russell just single-handedly proved that Hamilton isn't the fastest driver ever, not even in today's grid. Driving a car too small for him, with a setup largely made for someone else, and all of ~400 km of experience in it before the qualifying he barely lost out to Bottas (which Hamilton has done too on several occasions) and led the race so commandingly that I wouldn't have known there was a different driver in the seat of #44 err #63 judging by performance alone. Given a Mercedes tailor made for him and even one year of experience with it, let alone seven, he would wipe the floor with Hamilton.

And Bottas... if it wasn't for the car, he wouldn't even be in the points in most races. Porridge and moustache don't automatically equal a good racing driver. I'm willing to bet most of the midfield would do better in the same car.
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Amazing what 1 race missing Hamilton's 2 biggest rivals does to people's expectations....

I like George, I think he'll pair well with Hamilton's twilight years, but this sort of claim is by far fantasy at best for the evidence given.
 
What this race has shown is that a great champion, what Lewis is without a doubt, is that you also need to have luck on your side. And Lewis swims in luck piss.
 

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